LONDON TOWN TALK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3439, 19 April 1879, Page 3

LONDON TOWN TALK.

(Correspondent Melbourne Argus.)

I sco Mint a humorous paper ha 3 been written (for some ureiehes will make fun of everything) upon the catastrophe that might easily have overtaken t,he Queen herself, liad sho aceepred through her advisers a legacy of corlain bank shares that is eaid to have been actually placed at lierdispo3.il, and it ia reully interesting to coniecture what would have happened hail she bei'n a shareholder. In all probability a public; subscription woull have been raised 10 pay off her obligations, but otherwise I see nothing that would have prevented O-b'jrne and Balmoral being brought to i ho liiiHimi'i 1 . I'lio notion entertained by

the writer of iho paper iv question of tt'e Prince of Wales cutting off the entail and selling the reversion of t.he monarchy (and of all people in the world to the proprietor of the IJ lily Tel yra^h) is too shocking to be dwelt upon.

In what amazing circumstances the editor of tho High Church Guardian could have set about investigating tho columns of the no church Sporting Times I cannot guess, but he ha* apparently done it, for from the latter organ he quotes List week a ])lagiarism of Lord Beueonsfield, which, though unhappily one cannot say it is unique, is singularly audacious. Jn the earlier part of Sybil there iv a description of the Derby of 1557, which lias pushed into the classics of turf writim*. And in the Sporting M^gazinn n similar account—indeed a word for word one — appears of the same event published two or three years before Sybil. How, Air Disraeli has put his hand to a good many things, but I doubt his ever having been a contributor to the Sporting Magazine, in which case ho certainly conveyed his description from that magazine in. a most unblushing manner. Nor is this the worst of it, for in the preface to the book, so far from acknowledging hi* plagiarism, "the author thinks it due to himself to state that the descriptions generally are written i'roiii his ov.-ri ob=erva.( 10113." Jt give tho parallel passages —

SI'OUTING fllAli.VZlXi:. SyIIIL. "As soon an they wi.to "Ah soon us they were well iiw.iy, :ind laid down well nw.iy •.. hitin'.v uinketo work, tfiiin took Pookut iliu riiuuiny wiili Po<:ket Kurcules to thu front— iiei'isitlu-t. t,'i> to the

ir> to tholtubbiu£-hou3o Kubbiug - liuu'ijo ho is this -van the only jMiut 1.-adinj.', this ibj the only the eye coul 1 select, point i lie cyo wi sele'st. Hi^L-.r up thu hill Oani- Hu h :r u,- the li'll • "aravan, Hyl/i.scu , Udnedk-r, van, Kybigeu.s, Uenedic", Mah'iuntan, I,'ho.sj.h rua TW.-i.hoiiial.iii, I'ho-i'l.orn.s Michael h'uA, and itut- Mieii.i. 1 X-'. 11, stml Kattnip, w.im wiih :\v k-r..y i:;i,i ira v.hh the jjroy, foimiuga front rank. Ar, f r i . ■ i # a from uink.and tlioucw tfroMiid thej>a-:e nt, l\v ii'/'.v i- round the

hart toltl its talc, huif-ii- ]>:u:j ha- told l.s tills, tor d<''/.C!i beintj then out, of lm,lf-a-d"ze;i iir.jtilrt.aOy tlier.iL 1 :!. . . Once the out of the race. Tim summit was pained the tmiiimir, i.s jjuined, the taoti';3 alton.d , there t <utic.-j alter ; f.uro Piivia r avi:s brought out, his br.n^ u\> Caravan with horso with extraordinary extraordinary severity, .scvi.'iilv, the pace round the pice round 'fattenTiltuuhiiui Corner boui^ bam c >rr.or turriiic. C:ir.iiid resolut'.- us over 1 stiv van leadinir, thi-n I'hosit Caravan leading, jihorns n little ai oveliiin then Pho-phoru- a littl > M -ihon;iitan i,ext, Hybisabove him, Mahometan ens fourth, J.'nt-'tr.ip ni-xt, liybisuuti fourth, lo'tkiii* badly, Wisdom, Hat-trap looking b.idly. Ifeiuulict, uurt uuother Wisdom, Ucnedict, mid handy. Hy this timu an tljer Inuiil/ Bf '.In-i J'oek..-t, Hvrcu!oH lias time I'oekot ilurciiluK uuon«h and at tho road bad hud i:nougl\, and at tho tailing grow< at

tho road the tniliii(j every htiide iiere the grew at. every stride, favi-u-ito himself is hors Tf.oro Itat-trup was hors do combat, and a crowd de couibjit, aa were Dar- i.f leas r colcbritius danelles, Wisdom, and There aro now but four

froilns. There were left in thciaoviKl of the now but four left inihe two Hvbiscuy mid Mahoraeo, und of these the liiatanuie hjiuo lengths two idiced were somo lohi..d. is',>w it is neck

lengths clearer of Mabo- and in'ck botweu'i Phosraatnn und Hybis-uu >. ]>hor, na nd C irnvnii. At At tho Ktund Cam van thu *iui d C-ra'aii has wa- decidedly tho be*', decidedly tho host, but but just at, the post jus- ut. thoin-st- Kdw.irds Edwards lilted his gnl- on Phosphorous lilts the latit, little bors,>, nud gallant lif.lo horco, wi'h an extraonliuiry and wi'h an uxraeffort coutrived toi-liovo ordinary elfort, contrives

liim iv first by half a to Hhove him in hi Inif a length." length."

Miss Kilmansegge has re-appeared in BrußRpfe, not indeed with a golden leg, but with a diamond eye, which, " from a spirit of coquetry ami with a. view of giving greater brilliancy to the eyeball," sho wore instead of a ono. The sparkle of it attracted a Parisian adven-

turer, who married the lady, and after running through her money decamped with the eyv, which, it seemed, was accut-tomed o repose by tho side oP hit* bride id a glass of water. He pawned it in the Rue do la Paix la^t week, which on the principle of " what was hers was

his" he had perhaps a right to do, but the lady is very much annoyed, and has made application to f lie jeweller for its restitution. People talk of soldiers going to be shot at for sixpence a d.*y, but after ail, soldiering — even if we wore always at war — is a.Bafe calling compared with some others about wh'di not half tho fuss is made. At tho 'Ihanvs Police Court last week a young felluw

applied for arrears of salary due to him from a keeper of a merjugerie. From his statement it uppetira that teaching lions and tigers their acrobatic performances, is a profession that brings in at the utmost £100 a year. It is dangerous enough at any time, but when tho public take it into their heads to shout and holloa, "throw things." at the cages, the

anii._ii:- always become very furious. The appli.-.s .fc in question was attacked by two lions •.;■• once under these circumstances, and had l.) L >pn in hospital for thirteen weeks in consequence. What is most important (in the manager's eyes) is that the lion la'i.ei' should bolt tho cage directly he gets inside, but this, of course, creates a difficulty when he wishes to bolt himself. In fact, even to appear to re rent is death to him; whatever happens he must fight it out to the last, and s-ooner or later he has to do it. And this frightful performance takes place twice a dav. beside the private lessons he has to give his truculent pupils in order to fit them for their appearance before the public. What men will do in the way of hazards for small wages is indeed most surprising, and either proves that we are naturally very courageous, or so modest as to set a mere nominal value on our lives. In Staffordshire, for exam pi , I see that a man who had fled into Hauler Ctiurch as a " sanctuary " from the bloodhounds of the law — " cut into the blooming chapel," as h^ called it, "to bilk the peelers" — mounted the tower, slid down the lightning conductor, and so escaoed. .Nothing done by Jack Sheppard exceeded this feat in the way of hardihood, but the fact is, so far from our degenerating, as it is the fashionable cant to | lvtend, in physique, men now do with ease what a few generations ago would have been pronounced aa marvellous. A young lady was expressing her astonishment the other day at the cruelty with which the warders held on to Mr Peace's ankle with head downwards out of a railway-carriage window, and going at the rate of 20 miles an hour. "It was very shocking," sighed her mother, "but I suppose they were determined, like certain other people, to have Peace at any price." Of all tho cases of those who have suffered by the Glasgow failure, that of a well-known Scotch Karl, Lord Eglintoun, in, if not the saddest, the most tremendous. He is a good landlord, and was asked but a short time back by om: of his tenat.ts to become trust cj tor his daughter upon her marri.ijre. Her fortune was but £3000, but it was all invested in these Bank shares, tho consequence of which -.8, that though His Lordship's entailed estate cannot be touched, his entire income of something like £40,000 a year has become forfeited to the Bank's creditors

Fortunately the income derived from his wife's settlement prevents this nobleman from experiencing the hardships of actual poverty ; but considering what he has lost, and from no fault of his own — unless good nature is a fault— l know of no ease that is more deplorable. My old friend, Reynolds' Kewspapu-, has been more than usually amusing of late upon the vices of the upper classes. It tells us that they are so idle, and at the same time so depraved, that they are gone crazy upon the subject of double acrostics. Even Sunday (and this of course distresses Reynolds exceedingly) is not held sacred from this

" puerile and demented employment." And as usual ho is quite right, only, doubtless through righteous zeal, a little too vehement in his denunciations. As the last cry of tiio dying philosopher was for "light, more light," so, he says, tlo the tenants oi our chawinerooms mako tho like passionate appeal. "Ca°u you gire me a light ?" (uot of course for a cigarette, bun for an acrostic) is tho enquiry of all young ladies of the present day. " Pray pmy tell me what celebrated woman with a P in her name nourished in Home in the middle of tho fifteenth century?" The "Society" papers, swift to take advantage of this now taste, set every week the most amazing problems, compared with which tho homely conundrum is as t it-tat to a game of chess. Kegardloss of the laws against gambling, they offer pecuniary rewards to the successful guessers, and as they give them only to those who guess most in the year, thereby secure a consideiable list of subscribers. No doubt it is very sad, especially if one is a paterfamilias to whom his daughters come for information upon tho desired topics, but is it, my good llnjno ds- % " absolutely deplorable ?" Do they' really "point out" these double acrostics "with warning finger, how rotten our civilisation is grown, and how idle and trivial minded these persons are who are supposed to constitute the cream of the nation ?" In view of the present distress he compares it (does Reynolds) to JSero fiddling while Rome *as burning, and thus concludes :—" Upon review of such heartlessness and dereliction of duty, I am almost inclined to reiterate the sentence which the Great Teacher Massed upon the barren fig-tires—" Cut them down, why cumbereth they tue ground?" An adaptation of ttio text, by- the- bye, which in its grammatical construction is almo3fc as puzzling as a double acrostic itself.

The stewards of most clubs take a good deal upon themselves, but it is only lately that they have been interpreters between the members and the cht-f de cuisine. The other day a giund dinner was given at the Megatherium, and the host sent the next morning for the cook, to compliment him on his skill. " Everything was excellent," said he," but the dinner was a little late." "sir," said the Frenchman in his native language, and with a profound bow, "it is bettor that the guest should wait for tho dinner than the dinner for tho guests." Whilo the host stood in amazement, the steward, who t ought him ignorant of the French language, interposed '" What tho cook says, sir, is that the fishmonger did not send tho oysters."