NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 11

NEWS AND NOTES.

"The Duke of Argyll’s search in Tobermory Bay, off the Island of Mull, for the sunken treasure among the wreckage of the great Armada galleon, the Florida, which went down in 1588, has been resumed after an interval of nearly two years. The operations are being conducted with" the utmost secrecy in boats hidden from sight by v canvas awning. > * * *

Pigeon-flying contests are the sport of the northern collier and artisan, but the contests have an interest for' the naturalist. Nobody can quite explain how it is that these wonderful birds are able to find their way unerringly 600 or 600, miles to their cotes. The homing instinct is not peculiar to the pigeon; the nightingale, if it escape its foes, will come back year after year, not merely to the same district, but tiio very bush in which it first made its home. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of '‘homing'’ on record is that mentioned by Jhe late Sir Harry Keppel, who tells of carrier,, pigeons, hatched from eggs purchased at New- , market, making their way as soon as they oould fly back from Ton don to the paternal lort at Newmarket. 9 . ~

A Coventry firm has on order, a large number of cycles for Japan, which are to be delivered on the cessation of hostilities in. that country. A scarcity of labour is reported in certain branches of the cycle trade in England. Demand is brisk, and the factories are busy. * . * *

At the village of North Bersted, near Bognor, there is an inn in which the parlour is covered all over the walls and ceiling with postage stamps from all parts of the ‘world, workeu out in various designs. The table, the chairs, a hat, and a candieistiok are also entirely covered with stamps, and two or three pictures on the walls are executed in the same medium. Besides there are strung across the room festoons of stamps. '. The proprietor explains that it wag begun as the result of a wager some years ago, and he also issues a pamphlet setting forth the circumstances. The number of stamps is estimated at two millions.

The following is . a genuine copy of the original charter of the lands of Pawmode granted by the King of Scotland, anno 1057; —“I, Malcolmb Kenmure, iymg, the first of my reign, gives to thee, Baron Hunter, upper and neather Bowmode, with all the bounds within the flood —with the Hoope. and Hoopetown, and all the bounds up and down—above the earth to heaven,', and all below the earth to hell—as free to thee and thine as ever God gave to me and min© —and that for a bow and a broad arrow, when I come to hunt at Yarrow; and, for. the more sooth of this, I bite the white wax with my teeth, before Margaret, my wife, and Male, my nurse.—Malcolmb Kenmure, King. (Sio subscribitur) Margaret, witness. Male, witness.”

To some of his advisers who had spoken of tho desirability of his making an early marriage, the youthful Bing of Spain saicL “Or one thing you may be quite oertain. lam not going to marry a photograph. I must see my future wife, and choose her myself.”

The legal position of Queen Alexandra is very curious. So far as her private business is concerned, she is not regarded by the laws and customs of England as a married -woman at all. She is the only woman in Great Britain who does not come within the scope of the Married Woman's Property Act. The idea of the law is that affairs of date consume all the time of the King, aud, therefore, no responsibility for the ? Queen’s private business rests upon Lira. f the Queen contracted debts in her husband's name, he would not be lesponsible for them as any other nusband would. The King cannot he sued for debt, but the Queen can be.

The daughters of Prince and Princess i Christian are not “Royal” Highness, but Highnesses with the prefix. The children of even Royal Princesses do not take their rank from their mothers; otherwise the daughters of the Ipng’s eldest daughter w'ould not be simply the Radies Alexandra and Maud Duff. Rank comes from the father, save when the mother is a reigning queen, ruler, or peeress in her own right.

As the Royal train bringing the King of Spain steamed slowly into Victoria station, London, a tall, youthful figure, in the uniform of a British general, leaped out while the train was still moving. This impetuosity was not fully understood by the brilliant staff surrounding King Edward on the carpeted platform for a second, until they Saw King Edward step forward with a kindly smile of welcome, embrace the young man warmly, and hold his 1 two hands in a long and cordial salute. Then it was realised that it was King Alfonso himself, the young and impetuous monarch, who had broken through all the ceremonial arranged by tho Court officials, and, by a happy spontaneity, given a human touch to a formal Royali

function. King Edward, who wore the uniform of a Spanish Admiral, seemed to be delighted with the incident.

The King of Italy has promised £12,000 a year, the income of two of the Crown properties, towards the support of the projected International Institute of Agriculture. The financial difficulties of the scheme have from the beginning been the one serious obstacle; but this gift makes good rather mor© uian a third of the sum that will be necessary, and about the rest there should be no difficulty. If European nations should not be equal to the £20,000, it will be provided from America, where the idea has been taken up with some eagerness. *= # *

Mr Lowther, the now Speaker of the House of Commons, will not bo opposed should tne Liberals come into power at the next election (says the “Saturday lie view”). There is about him a calm and stability which mark him out as one sure to be successful in the chair, possibly ©veu great. His temper is under complete control; he has rarely been ruffled, and never brow-beaten; and he has the ftnely-balanoed mind that is essential'. Mr Lowther, like Lord Kitchener, was one of die men unknown to the public, and little thought of even in official circles, whom Lord Salisbury brought to the front. # * *

Admiral Rozhdestvensky (says •‘Punch”) chose the anniversary of the Czar’s ooronation day on which to engage the enemy, and he would probably have won had it not been for the fact that the same date was unfortunately also the birthday of the Empress of Japan. 'A faulty intelligence department again ?

During one sing;© year Patti netted £70,000, and day after day during some of her tours in America she has made over £IOOO. Madame Patti has received enormous sums, too, for not singing —Covent-garden having paid her a retainer of £12,000 in one season on condition that she sang nowhere else.

.** * . _ The highest-salaried woman m the United States is Miss Anna L. Amendt, first-assistant to Mr Gage B. Tar bell, ( the second vice-president of the Equitable Life Assurance (Society. Her salary is 12,000 dollars a year.

There are 3500 individual characters in Thackeray’s works! The number is probably greater, than in Balzac’s “Oomedie Hmnaine.” It is certainly greater than is to be found in the works of Dickens, and almost as great as is mentioned in the works of the elder Dumas and his collaborators. Ail Thackeray's characters had) definition anu personality ; and all had in them the touch of life, which is at once the test and triumph of the novelist's craft. Many of these were only variants of each other, but they were variants with something of their own. Thackeray’s people were more distinct than those of Dickens, or Dumas, or even Balzac.— “TUe Nottingham Literary Bulletin.”

Lady Castletown is daughter and heiress of a former Lord Doneraile. Doneraile Court is her own property, and an amusing story is told of this Irish home. It was at Doneraile that the only lady Freemason on record was received into the mystic* order. Many years ago a pertain Lady Aldworth oonoeaied herself behind a screen when a lodge meeting was being held in the house, and as by chance she was discovered, the only way out of the dimculty was at once to make her a member. The room is in the same state now that it was in that far-off period.

It was a crowded part of the prooessional route. The royal guest, the King of Spain, had just passed, and the spectators were struggling to free themselves from the backwash of the crowd. It was a battle of elbows, and human beings were packed on the pavement as sardines in a tin. Yet in this confusion there was one calm oasis. There, by a shop, half dingy, half newly painted, was room to dance a set of quadrilles, for people avoided it as if it were plague stricken. Against its front were resting two tall ladders, and under them no man or woman dared to pass!

Even musical critics are not infallible. By an odd blunder in the programme at the Waldorf Theatre, the opera La Sonnambula was ascribed to Donizetti, whereas it was composed by Bellini 74 years ago. Some of the Sunday papers failed to notice the mistake. The musical critic of the “Weekly Dispatch” started his notice with the bold announcement that “Donizetti’s old opera ‘La Sonnambula’ wears well,” and the musical contributor to the “People” give the historical information that “it is something like fifteen years since Donizetti’s ‘La Sonnambula’ has been heard in London.” * • *

A traveller was talking to an omnibus driver concerning a recent accident, and wondering why such accidents did not happen every ten minutes. The driver whipped round the off-side horse with one hand, caressed the bits with another, filled his pipe with a third, spread out the 3 o’clock winner with a fourth, and squirmed through the block

at a crowded corner. “Can’t think how you manage it!” was the exclamation. The driver waived the whip at a friend, found his matches and set lithis collar all at once. As he lighted his pipe he looked genially .round anti said, “Couldn’t be done if the ’awses didn’t know somethink.”

.Some political phrases are endowed with immortality. Achilles sulking in his tent and the Cave •of Aduijam are of this great order. ‘When the illustration was first applied by Mr Bright made in apply to two Liberal members who were opposing a reform bill. This distressed and discontented party of two, h© said, reminded him of the Scots terrier which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it.

An admirer of Miss Lena Ashwelfc — and the charming young lady has them by the thousand —tells an amusing story of an incident which occurred during the run of “Mrs Dane’s Defence.” Miss Asihweli’s part was on one occasion taken by an understudy. But trie character of Mrs Dane was a moving one, and an Irish lady present was almost hysterically, affected by it. “it is fortunate Miss Ash well is not acting to-night,” said a gentleman beside ner. “if this moves you so much you wouia hardly be able to bear that at all.” “Miss Ashwell not playing!” cried the weeping iady. “I thought she was. JL never should have cried if I hah known!”

Mr Noel Buxton, who has just been returned to Parliament in the Liberal interest for Whitby, is well on the right side of 40, having been born in 1869. But he has found time to do much since he left Trinity College, Cambridge. He made the grand tour round the world, visiting all the colonies, and afterwards travelled much on the Continent, studying systems of temperance reform. On Ims return, m conjunction with Mr Charles Booth, the member for Whitby originated an experiment in the regulation of public houses. In 1895 Mr Buxton went to Souch Australia as A.D.C. to his father, Sir Thomas Foweil Buxton, and remained with him during his Governorship.

General Oronje, the commander of the Boer forces at Paardeburg, has been accused of descending to the level of a showman, and disgracing the military profession by heading the Boer war spectacle now being played daily in the neighbourhood of New York. He pleads poverty as his main excuse, saying that the Boer war left him old, weak, hungry and homeless. The Boer system of government, ike says, omitted a pension department, and he refuses to become an encumbrance to the authorities. As to disgracing the military profession, Cronje says: —“I am not a member of the military profession. 1 fought as a patriot, not as a soldier.”

On his marriage, Lord Fife was created Duke Of Fife and Marquis of iMacduff, with remainder to heirs male, but some seven years after the birth of his second daughter he obtained a second patent, creating him Duke of Fife and Earl of Macduff, with remainder to his daughters by Princess Louise. Thus, says “Vanity Fair,” if by chance he should survive her Royal Highness and have a son by a second marriage, that son would succeed to the dukedom of the first patent, whilst Lady Alexandra’s son would be the ultimate inheritor of the second dukedom by the subsequent patent. Moreover, the eldest sons would each be Lords Macduff, 0119 with the title of Marquis, the other with that of an Earl.

A correspondent of the “Daily News” is dreadfully shocked (or pretends to be) at having read that last Sunday the King watched Mr Balfour -play a game of golf. “Is it not time that both were made to realise that there is an this country a religious sentiment which will not permit itself either to he left out of account or to be offended in this matter ?” He goes on to say-: — “For the moment I make no _ suggestion. It appears to ihe that his Grace of Canterbury should give us the lead. Ho has access to royalty. He is the chief representative of the church in the council of the nation.” Yes, we believe it to be indisputable that (on the golf links) Mr Balfour has often openly been heard to rejoice in a “good lie.” Surely this should move the Archbishop ?

The famous “Up, Guards, and at ’em,” was never spoken. Wellington himself denied it. If it had been said, it would have been forgotten; for a battle, he used to say, was like a ball, the details of which one mainly forgot. What did actually escape his lips does not seem to have come to the ear of the historian. He sent an orderly to give certain instructions, during the battle, to an English general, and upon the galloper’s return asked, “Did you give General my eiders P” “Yes, your grace,” was the reply. “And what did he say?” “He said he’d see your grace d—d first.” The Duke swept the field with his glass, then quietly muttered, “By , he’s right, too!”