Crown Jewels at Auction.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 May 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

Crown Jewels at Auction.

A catalogxte of the French crown jewels to be sold at the Tuilleries beginning May 12th, has been issued. The entire collection is valued at 21,367,040 francs. The gems are divided into forty-eight lots. One peculiarity of the articles named, such as hairpins, brooches, clasps, necklaces, etc., are the large number of diamonds some of them contain. One shoulderknot contains 1,341 diamonds ; one girdle has 2,314 diamonds and a corsage bouquet of gold has 2,630' diamonds. The most valuable lot is appraised at 525,000 franca, and consists of a diadem, a crown, brooches, and bracelets containng 3,837 brilliants*and sixty-seven sapphires.

The "Birmingham Gazette" publishes the following letter, which has been addressed by Mr Ruskin to a Cumberland gentleman who had communicated with im respecting the Ambleside railway project :—• " Ist March, 1887. My dear sir, — I do not write now further concerning railroads here or elsewhere. They are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes, destructive of all wise social habit or possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves.— John Russjn,"