ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10902, 5 November 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[prom the SOCIETY tapers.] The ex-King of Benin seems to be doing fairly well in exile. Our readers will remember what a reputation lie had in former days—how it was alleged against him that he used to have a few dozen of his subjects beheaded any morning in cold blood just for the fun of the tiling. But those days have evidently gone for ever. An African mail sterner captain lias been visiting him in his captivity, and we read: "The king is now, it- seems, a Presbyterian, and regularly attends the mission established near his house by the United Presbyterian body." If Mwatiga and the Khalifa could only be sent to join the ex-Benin potentate at Old Calabar, what an interesting group there would be!

The announcement that Miss Thorold, A daughter of the late Bishop of Winchester, has been received into the Church of Rome, and the fact that, her brother was a Roman Catholic before her father's death, may render it of interest to know that there is another instance of a child of a Protestantprelate becoming a Roman Catholic. Mr. Bromby, formerly Attorney-General of Tasmania, and a son of the Right Rev. Charles Henry Bromby, who was fur many years Bishop of Tasmania, is a convert to Roman Catholicism.

Mr. Fripp, the young doctor who has been in such constant attendance upon His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, is one of Fortune's favourites, The story goes that some few years ago, when Mr. Fripp was practising in the provinces, and was quite unknown to fame, he was called in to attend \

upon the late Duke of Clarence, who had been suddenly taken ill. The Duke took a fancy to Mr. Fripp, as did also the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the result that an arrangement was made whereby Mi'. Fripp was to act as medical companion to the Duke. This arrangement continued until the Duke's death. Since then Mr. Fripp's career has been one of continual advancement. He is the trusted medical adviser of the Prince of Wales, and a constant- visitor at Marlborough House. He is 011 the staff at Guy's Hospital, and is becoming what may be termed a leading London doctor. It- is Slid that it was through Mr. Fripp's intervention iliat- the Prince of Wales took such an interest- in the scheme for raising a fund of £100,000 for Guy's Hospital some few years ago.

It would be difficult to imagine a mors signal instance of involuntary self-revelation than that which a witness gave at Bethnal Green. She was being sworn, "ami the coroner bad got as far as " the evidence you shall give. . . when she broke in with, " I'm ' not guilty.' A juror with more pertinence than consideration remarked, "I wonder where she's been 1" Yet it may well be that the witness was only frightened, and hardly knew what she was saying. The terror that the thought of giving evidence in a court of justice inspires in the minds of some is very remarkable, and we can easily imagine that this good lady imagined that in some mysterious way she was herself being tried.

Probably no man sacrificed nioro thou« sands a year on promotion than Lord Davey, when lie deserted the liar for a seat on the Appeal Court Bench. His nearest rival in the sacrifice of " dross for dignity" is the present " Chief," Lord Russell who 3 eincome fell quite £15,000 a year with his vise on the legal ladder. If one may, in spite of ducal counsel, make a guess at Sir Horace's income at the Bar (and this time from reliable data) it is well within the truth to say that between 1883 and 1893 the "Orasus of the Chancery Bar" made a quarter of a million sterling in fees, r, record which, perhaps, has only been equalled by Lord Selborne and Lord Russell in their palmiest decades.

The class of intellect possessed by the "conscientious objector' to vaccination was displayed at Birmingham lately. "If inoculation were necessary for man," said one of them, in explaining his conscientious objection, " our Creator would do it for us before we arc born." "Yon might as well say," promptly retorted the magistrate's cleric, " that the Creatoi should find u;. in pocket handkerchiefs." The foregoing unconsciously plagiarises a well-known colloquy between a Salvation Army captain and a British workman. The "captain" was conducting his band, walking backwards with waving arms, when he accidently knocked a pipe out of the workman's mouth. The latter said something which was not " Halleluiah but the witty Salvationist explained that " if the Creator had intended him to smoke, he would have been born with a chimney on his head." " And if He had meant you to walk backwards," retorted the workman, " He would have screwed your feet round the other way."

Sir Herbert Kitchener lias received tha distinction of a place of honour in the window of Mr. O'JJcll, the phrenologist, of Ludgate Circus. Ar admirably-drawn portrait of the Sirdar if exhibited, and the literary artist has evidently made a special effort in preparing the accompanying cha-racter-sketch. Sir Herbert, we are told, is a striking example of tb<i military type. " He is thorough as few men, even military men, are thorough. He delights ill travel, and cares little for domestic life. He has little ambition to acquire money or property, except so'far as these may ensure hi., independence. The desire for glory overshadows all other ambitions." In dealing with Mr. Curzon, who is also elevated to tlie phrenological portrait gallery, Mr. O'Dell is on more delicate ground. A lady who lately met -Mr. Curzon, in trying to describe her impression, confided to the seer of Ludgate Circus that the new Viceroy was a man who seemed always to be hungry. This idea the mind-reader construes into blip'/ hungry after knowledge and greatness. Then we read, Mr. Curzon has great respect for constituted authority. The faculty colours, so to speak, every opinion he holds and everything he does. It gives him a strange staidness. It inspires him with a love of the historic, the ancient, the established. It makes him by nature a Conservative." Moreover, Mr. Curzon is a worshipper of the East. "To him the East is not a rotten, dilapidated failure. It may appear so to his reason, but to his imagination there still inheres in it its past greatness, wealth, wisdom, and philosophy. To be Viceroy of a nation with a past thousands of years old is worth more to him than would be the American Presidency, or perhaps the Premiership of a European State."

They are a young married couple 011 one of the handsomest avenues in the city. Late last winter they decided to pay off some of their social obligations by giving an evening party. On the night fixed for the event the house was illuminated from basement to attic, The refreshments provided would fill a box car, the caterer was on hand with his staff of assistants, and an air of eager expectancy pervaded the entire establishment. At 8.30 the husband frowned at his watch, and denounced all people who thought it smart to be late at a party. At nine the nervous young wife was at the front gate, looking both ways, drying her eyes on a flimsy bit of lace, and showing unmistakable symptoms of hysteria. At 9.30 she, with pale lace, steely eyes, and hard voice, was telling her husband what good society she had before she married, and how glad all her friends were to attend. any entertainment that she might give. He replied by saying that she might possibly recall how he was always in demand in the more exclusive set, which never seemed to think her membership necessary to its existence. She bit her lips that the servants might not hear the things she would say, and he chewed the ends of his moustache in impotent wrath. Suddenly the white heat of her anger overcam: her when he said he had wondered why none of his oldest and best chum- had never mentioned the party, but now he understood. She hissed an avowal that she would go to her girlhood home and never see him again, turning and lushing to her room as she spoke. A piercing shriek filled the house, and he hurried to hei. There she sat on the floor in all her finery, pointing tragically to a pile of envelopes in her new writing desk. They were the invitations that- had never been sent,. ■ .