LONDON AND EUROPEAN GOSSIP.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8885, 19 September 1890, Page 2

LONDON AND EUROPEAN GOSSIP.

Mr and Mrs Navarro are now in Rom 2 where they will pass the greatef "part of their honeymoon. Nothing was quieter than their wedding. This was not owing to the bride being unknown — for Mary Anderson is one of the most popular and successful actresses of the present day — but because she in her religious belief looked upon the ceremony as a sacrament, and, therefore, no one was admitted to the Church, which was a small one, except the wedding friends who numbered just twelve persons. It took place at the little Catholic chapel of St. Mary's Holly Hill, Hampstead. Every effort was made to keep the scene of action in the dark, but there is always a traitor in the camp, and the secret had got out somehow, so a crowd of people greeted the bride on her arrival, to her discomfiture. The chapel was decked with white flowers, palms, and ferns, and twelve high candles burned on the high altar. The bride had partaken of the sacrament at seven that morning, and had afterwards at' ended mass. It was evident that the rite of marriage presented very solemn obligations to the beautiful artist. The bridegroom arrived in a hansom, dispensing with costly equipage and tnrn-out, and later plain carriages brought the bride and her family — her step-father Mr Griffin, and his wife, and sundry young Griffins. No strangers got entrance to the chapel. The bride wore white satin, and a brocatelle bodice, all veiled in tulle to the ground behind and the knees in front? And so the green curtain falls on Mary Anderson. As Madame Navarro she passes out of public life, leaving nothing but a white record behind. Few statesmen have departed from this life more universally regretted than Lord Carnarvon; few men in private life have been more loved , and it is there that the blank his death has left will be the most abiding, for, though undoubtedly a statesman, his arena was circumscribed, and his power of "prospecting" limited. He had all through his career the courage of his opinions. A generation ago, when Toryism was something more than a name, Lord Carnarvon waß regarded aB a coming man, but, in that sense, he never " came." ! He was too calm, too amiable to rule or lead. Billing and leading require a something of the savage, an element foreign to the highly conventional, slightly faddish, serene nobleman who has just crossed the border. He, General Peel, and Lord Salisbury — then Lord Carmarthen — formed the memorable trio who crossed the House the night of Mr Disraeli's Beform Bill, leaving their chief for conscience sake, deserted in his glory. Disraeli could abide his whilom confrere just as little as my Lord Marquis of Salisbury can abide Lord Bandy. And so it came that Lord Carnarvon never I " arrived." But he was a devoted Colonial Minister and a sound Churchman. He lived to see the future he forecasted for Africa taking shape. A good story of Sir Arthur Helps is told in the July numbor of Blackwood. One of his subordinates in the Privy Council Office was given to arriving late in the mornings; so one day, on coming to his desk, he found on it his copy of " Men of the Time," with a slip of paper on it, oh which was written, '• It appears to Sir Arthur Helps that Mr is a Man after his Time.

" English spoken here." All travellers remember how often they have been lured into Parisian shops by this little sign, and, in many cased, it has proved a mere delusion. A hotelkeeper at Lyons has gone beyond this, for an American relates that the Frenchman had posted on his door this notice, "English, German, Italian, and Spanish Bpoken here." When he arrived, lie asked for the interpreter, in as decent French as he could summon. " Monsieur," replied the landlord, " there is none." " What! no interpreter? And yet you announce that all languages are spoken here." The reply was charming. " Yes, Monsieur — by the travellers." The action by Mrs Spencer Brunton, of Grosvenor-square, against Messrs Maple and Co., to recover damages for injury to a very old and rare Persian carpet, was concluded in the Queen's Bench on Monday. The carpet was entrusted to the defendants to be cleaned, and owing to a fire occurring on the premises whore the carpet was cleaned it was seriously injured. The defendants denied liability. The jury found a verdiot for tho plaintiff, and ! ABicisad the damsgec at £10U0,