LADIES’ GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 24

LADIES’ GOSSIP

Tho London “Daily Express" states that Mrs Florence Elizabeth Maybrick, who on 7tli August, 1889 was sentenced to death on conviction for poisoning her husband with arsenic and on 22nd of tho same month was reprieved, will he released from prison in July, 1904.

Tho announcement that Lord Yarmouth is engaged to he married to Miss Alice Thaw has excited considerable interest. Miss Thaw, who is said to bo very beautiful, will add yet another to the long line of American peeresses. She is a native of Washington, the American official capital, which has been well described as a “city of magnificent distances." The young bride-elect has a widowed mother, and also 1 a brother, Mr Harry Thaw, .who is known and liked in smart society in England ; and the entire family appear to bo well blessed with tho good things of this world. Lord Yarmouth, tho bride-grcom-elect, is a future marquis, the eldest son of Lord Hertford, a man of 31, and onco an officer in the Black Watch He was fond of theatricals, a clever actor and an agile dancer, and on more than one occasion performed a pas seui in ballet skirts. However, those palmy days are now in the past.

Kansas is doing what it can in the absence of Mrs Carrie Nation to carry on her work. At present it is much taken up with the case of one Schmidt, of tho town of Wellington. Schmidt has been arrested time after time for selling liquor, but has never been convicted. Nothing hut water could be found in his house. At last he went before a judge and asked for an injunction prohibiting tho constant searching of his pemises. It was granted, but the judge learned his mistake when prayer meeting night came round. An old deacon -arose and offered up this prayer, the judge being present: —“O Lord, we have been defeated in this cause, hut tlio blame is on an .official now with us whom Thou knowest. For him we have no contempt, bur if there is a treatment of tar and feathers laid up for him wo can have no part in its misapplication. We wish him no bad luck, but if the ladies of the cause take up his case with extreme measures wo can see no reason why we should do anything to wish the unsuccessful culmination of their efforts."

Sousa makes not only music wherever he goes, but friends also, and many of these have a way of inviting him to their houses when ho wants to rest in his hotel. In one of tho towns he lately met a lady, with a large reputation for worrying celebrities of all kinds to attend her dinners and “at homes." She sent him a pressing invitation to sup at her house after tho performance: but it got to Sousa’s ears that she had issued invitations to her neighbours “to meet Mr John Philip Sousa” —an exhibition of “previousness" not to be tolerated even by an American —and ho declined politely and with thanks. Having counted upon Sousa’s acceptance, and held his name out to her friends as bait, the lady was much disturbed on receiving his note, and wrote back to him with desperate solicitude, “I am terribly sorry to have your card saying you cannot come, but I still hope for the pleasure of your company." To this the poor lady received the following terrifying answer : —“Dear Madam. 1 have given your kind message to my company, but I regret to 1 say that only 50 of them will he able to accept your invitation, the rest of them having appointments to keep 1 ours truly, John Philip Sousa."

Lady Louisa Howard, a daughter of the third Marquis of Lansdov ne, is a remarkable lady. Slio is in her ninetieth year, and lias been a widow since 1882, her husband having been the Hon. James Kenneth Howard, son of the sixteenth Earl of Suffolk. Notwithstandin°* her age, she takes a great inteiest in“eu*rrent affairs, and not very long ago, when a discussion wa-s going on in literary circles respecting the original of Lord Steyne in Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair”—some saying that it ,was Lady Louisa’s father, and others that it was thi© third Marquis of Hertford, one correspondent even alleging that Lord Lansdowne was much offended! with the likeness—she wrote a letter to Lord

Sherborne, who consulted her on the subject-, ‘containing some very interesting reminiscences. In it Lady Louisa Howard said: —“I am sorry I did not answer your letter at once about my -father, as no one who knew him could have believed it for a moment, but I waited to see if I could recollect anything that- might have led to such an absurd idea. I never myself met Thackeray at Lansdowne House, or heard of him there, but a friend of mine tolls mo she did so several times in his later years, and I feel sure the acquaintance began long after “Vanity Fair" was published. My brother lent us tho early numbers to read as they came out, but I never heard a word of any supposed likeness to my father in any of the illustrations. If any such was pointed out to him he would have only laughed and taken no further notice, and I am sure never imagined that tho character of Lord Stoyne, if he had read it, could be pointed at him. I remember hearing at the time that Lord Hertford was supposed to he suggested; certainly no part of it suits my father, except, perhaps, a taste for pictures and the title."