LONDON GOSSIP

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4296, 4 March 1901, Page 2

LONDON GOSSIP

(PROM “ALA. IV’) THE KAISER. AS AX ORATOR. "I have often heard the Emperor William 11. speak in public,'’ writes one of his subjects—a professor in Bavaria. "He does not hide the fact that on many occasions lie has had cause t° regret his words of the previous evening. Xo matter, he is a brilliant orator. He knows it, too. Ideas crowd in his mind, and phrases to express them abound in his mouth. His voice appears sharp— ; t is not that really, but simply what ope might call selmeidig (decisive, determined). He speaks in abrupt sentences, which he punctuates regularly with a" gesture of his right arm—a gesture without either grace or elegance, but ierky and energetic. His left hand invariably I‘omains riveted on the hilt of his sword, and his arm—not fully developed—is closely pressed to his side. When the Emperor is going to speak, his physiognomy reflects a. succession of impressions curious to watch. His features, immobile and even rigid at first, relax immediately he opens his mouth. Lightning, as it were, plays over Ills energetic face, his eyes sparkle, with a fascinating radiancy, and his upper lip. so beautifully formed, reveals every other moment two rows of dazzling' white teeth. Everything he says has such a profound sense of conviction, and breathes such zeal that his listeners are worked upon completely, taken possession of, and no longer dream of being critical. If he had net been Emperor, William 11. might have become a popular tribune, capable of moving the •masses’ by the effect of his word alone.’' THE STRONG MAN OF FRANCE. I have seen M. Waldeck Rosseau several times, though always at a distance. He is still the strong man who i.s gradually and slowly but surely dragging France out of the morass of the Dreyfus question, in which she has been sweltering so long. As everybody knows, he is a. very wealthy lawyer in one of the largest practices in Paris; and that be was induced to leave Ins briefs and his magnificent income only by appeals to patriotism, to get his country out of a terrible mess. And now he lias not only held office for years, but practically lie has put an end to the Dreyfus question, and all the hideous passions of which it was the parent. A JAW OF IRON. Waldeck Rosseau is one of the men whose exterior corresponds entirely to his character. He looks rather more like the. typical, dogged, tenacious, inflexible, unsentimental John Bull than a Frenchman. The face is very rubicund ; the hair is now grey; the eyes, very blue, are prominent, and even protruding. It is the jaw, however, which is the most remarkable feature of the face. It is as though it were a long, thick rodof iron instead of bone anu flesh and blood and nerves. Indeed, it is so prominent that it almost stands out like a great muscle on the biceps of a prizefighter. The mouth, too, is a little like a death-trap. The lips are compressed, but the under-lip in particular is full and resolute. Altogether, with these staring, protuberant eyes, that iron jaw,, and that compressed nlonth, and rho' general severity of look, M. Waldeck Rosseau might pass for a very grim type of soldier rather than for a man whoso triumphs had been attained in the civic contests of'the Law Court and the Parliament House. If I were a soldier in trouble 1 should lie very sorry to have M. Waldeck Rosseau as the president of the court-martial that tried me. A CURIOUS RESEMBLANCE. Finally, when looking at. M. Waldeck: Rosseau, I have often had the feeling that, somehow or other, the face was familiar to me, and at last I discovered who it was he brought to my mind. It was no other than Air Rhodes. The eyes, the jaw, the month, the severity of expression, the suggestion of tremendous and crushing force that passes like a. steam-roller over men and things standing in the way of a great enterprise—these things are the same in the two men. The difference is that the Frenchman, though robust, is built on much lighter lines than the Englishman. I am told that At. Waldcejs. Rosscau is'.capable of feeling great deight, at the success of anything -in which ho is interested, and that one of the happi-, est days of his the day when he assisted Af. Loubot to open tbe French I Exhibition. Yet the papers which were j frankly Ministerial had to confess that the Prim© Alinister looked as if he were furious. So he appeared to me; indeed that stem jaw, that compressed mouth, j that heavy under-lip, and those staring, I bold, cold eyes were so immoveable and j stood out so clearly from everything and everybody else that they haunted me throughout the day.

M. DELCASSE. M. Delcasse, the other French Minister, of whom one hears a great deal now-a-days, is the very opposite in type of M. Waldeck Rosseau, I saw M. Delcasse at a Presidential reception; and in the diplomatic procession, which i(S one of the great sights of an evening at the Elysee. Certainly it was hard to realise that this was the powerful Foreign Minister of a great country. He is a tiny, black, little man ; with a small head, with a little, heavy, black moustache, a heavy “goatee,” a very yellow skin; and lie seemed to just trip like a child with his short steps beside a stately lady who was on his arm. But he is a man of great intelligence—as Count von Bulov/ acknowledged the other day when speaking in the German Parliament. MRS SHELDON AMOS AND THE PRETTY SLAVE. When Mrs Sheldon Amos came out to Cairo in ’B2 (writes Mr Edward Vizo'c*ly) she soon got an idea into her head that the life of ladies in the Egyptian harems must be a very unhappy one, and forthwith did her best to persuade the English functionaries to help her in an effort to reform the Egyptian home. Meeting with little support; for obvious reasons, she consoled herself by opening a homo for liberated female s laves. THE ESCAPE h xiwM THE PALACE. One evening, not long after this institution had been founded, a very beautiful Circassian girl ■ slid down a rope from a window' of the palace of Princess Mancour, half-sister to the Khedive, and, running to the nearest police-sta-tion, claimed her freedom. She was very much upset, and her soft, delicate hands dreadfully lacerated. Next day this incident was the talk of Cairo, and the matter coming to the knowledge of Mrs Sheldon Amos, she at once took the charming fugitive under her motherly wing at the Home. It then turned out that the runaway had been purchased by the princess when quite a little child, and had been brought up with great kindness in that more than semi-Euro-pean style which prevails in the harems tef up-to-date Egyptian princesses. Her] ’mistress had become very fond of her.

and made her a regular pet. Perhaps she spoilt her. Anyhow, then; had recently been some unpleasantness between the two. The pretty girl was ripe for marriage. She wanted a husband, and had told the Princess so. The latter had answered that she must have patience. But the favourite was only half satisfied. Then, for some naughtiness, she was locked up in a room by herself, there to remain until she .asked forgiveness and promised to he good. But the Princess hud not Doubled to have the window secure..!, and the highspirited little rebel, having procured a rope, fastened it to the leg of a divan, and gently opening the easement, slid down into the street in the dark. FLIGHT FROM THE “HOME.” This pretty Circassian (continues Air Vise tolly) proved a very go-ahead young parly for a. slave. The simple homo provided by Airs Sheldon Amos was no more to her taste than the sumptuous gilded prison of the Princess AJau-'our. She wanted to see life. One day it was discovered. to the dismay of everyone in the house, that the beautiful bird had flown. The next that was heard of her was at Alexandria, where, throwing off all restraint, she had tossed her cap over the •windmill, as the French have it. In the merry company of one and another of the gilded youth of the commercial centre, as indifferent 1o their religion as to their nationality, this vivacious little pet, docked in grey Parisian hat and frock, had been seen punting at the roulette table, driving (o Rniuleh and the Alahmoudleb Cana!, ami otherwise disporting herself to her wayward heart’s content. At' length (he scandal became so lively that someone called tHo attention of the Khedive (o what was going on. THE KHEDIVE TO THE RESCUE. Tewfik, a quiet family man, was very much shocked when ho heard of this unconventional behaviour on the part of his sister’s liberated skive, and determined to intervene. Forthwith, he despatched one of his aides-de-camp to Alexandria to discover the naughty little woman’s whereabouts, and pack her off to Turkey. The aide-de-camp carried out the first part of his instructions (o the letter, but there came a full stop. He no sooner saw the pretty girl than lie fell head over ears in love with her. And the course of true love ran smooth enough—for a while. But when the Khedive heard how his ambassador had performed his mission he tore his beard, and forthwith dismissed his faithless messenger from his post. Then tho aide-de-camp, finding love a poor game to play on empty pockets, flow to the bosom of his family. He soon mot with forgiveness at homo. Aiohammodan wives are more easy going than their Christian sisters in matters of the heart. It was more difficult to win Tcwfik’s par- ; don. Ultimately the gallant aide-de-camp took Airs Sheldon Amos’s sometime proteges into his own harem. Then tho Khedive, thinking this the best way to settle the business, forgave them both. I never heard anything more (concludes Mr Vizetelly) of the Home for Liberated Female Slaves, founded by Mrs Sheldon Amos, after that little escapade of Princess Alan sour’s Circassian pet. STORIES BY PENLEY.

1 Mr W. S. Penley is, as yon. would expect, a born storyteller; indeed, to hear him tell a yarn is an education in the gentle art cf anecdotage. But. t lieu, Pcnloy is favoured by Nature with a face that is all his own, while his play of expression is inimitable. His revival of ‘‘Charley’s Aunt” will render seasonable a. couple of stories told in words (hat are as nearly his own as possible. THE LADY’S VIEW OF THE AUNT. Once, he says, he was travelling on tho railway to London when two very respectable and severe-looking ladies were sharing his compartment. One lady was evidently a stranger to town, for her friend was advising her how heat she could pass her time in the metropolis. “And there’s that piece which is advertised as ‘still running,’” said one lady, “should Igo and sec that ? Is it humorous P” Her friend was dubious, hut evidently resolved to he strictly fair. “Well,” she admitted, “it certainly is rather funny, but I think it would bo more proper if the aunt were played by a woman!”