NOTES AND NOTIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6496, 27 May 1899, Page 4

NOTES AND NOTIONS.

The London " Daily Telegraph " correspondent at New York whimsically describes how ten trout cost £400,000. This is . how it happened : Governor Roswell Flower went down to his club at Long Island to fish. He was quite successful in his sport, for he landed ten fine trout. But these specimens of his skill as an angler were rather expensive, for they cost him no less than 200,000d0l apiece. It happened in this way. While he was away from Wall Street the stockbroldng humourists of that celebrated thoroughfare thought it would be a good time to make a raid upon one of his favourite stocks, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit. Governor Flower saved his property, indeed, but it stood him in at exactly 2,000,000d01. And that is why the ten trout cost him such a pile of money. (A cable message announced the death of Mr Flower, which was followed by a panic in Wall Street, and resulted in a shrinkage of .100,000,000d0l in the value of the stocks in which the . deceased was f interested.) . |

The Stockholm correspondent of the " St James's Gazette " teleojraphs : — " The ' Dagens Nyheter ' publishes a private letter which Dr Martin, who recently left for Siberia in search .of Herr Andree and his companions, wrote in the Siberian express train. Br Martin says : — 'I am travelling in the first place to .Tomsk, to find out whether the hunter Ljolin is an impostor or a trustworthy man. The authorities despise him .because . he has been transported. From Tomsk ,1 am going to Krasnoyarsk, and though I may bs assured a hundred times that the story is an invention, I shall go all the same to Taygan, the Siberian Forest. Only through such a journey can. tho truth bo established. lam still firmly convinced that. Ljalin's report is. at least partially correct. It is possible that something has happened .which is .being kept secret. Several persons, at any rate, ore of this opinion. All whom I have met agree that nothing can be done by the authorities. TheTunguses are veryreluctant to give explanations to their enemies and oppressors, the local Russian officials. My expedition must, therefore, have a strictly private character. This, however, does not prevent the greatest attention being shown to me everywhere.' Stockholm, April 8. — Professor Nordenskjold has received the following telegram from Dv Martin, dated Krasnoyarsk, April 6 : — ' The University of Tomsk has decided to despatch an expedition, consisting of two or three professors, in order to search for Herr Andree in the regions between Podkamennaya and Tunguska and Angara Rivers, tributaries of the Yenisei. I shall myself proceed to the goldfields, whence I shall return within a week, Ljalin continues an enigma.' "

Trince George do Ghika, the last surviving member of a noble but impoverished Hungarian family, succeeded (says the Vienna correspondent of the " London Morning Leader") to the ancestral estates, ■which are situated on the Roumanian frontier, at the age of twenty-two. He married a pretty circus rider, and, with- her assistance, soon squandered "lias fortune. The ■estates passed" into the hands of Jewish. ; money-lenders, and the prince, now destitute, and unfitted for any trade or profession, decided to make use of his splendid , horsemanship. Ho offered himself to the manager of n. travelling circus, his wife having meanwhile deserted him and eloped with a Russian baron. The prince was engaged as an ." acrobatic rider," and subsequently became director of the show. His Serene Highness now stands in the ring each night cracking a gold-mounted whip, and is an unfailing attraction to the public.

:: IA- question of ,very conrklpu.hio importance was raised by 'Mr \V. R. Haselden, . g.M->. at Wellington, in considering an. applicatioii for a license as .a keeper of a . | e rva.uts' registry office.. -Ho asked Inspecr -jor. Fender if there was any supervision or , • .inspection of these offices, and on receiving <a reply in the negative, went on to remark .that tlie :k?epsrs..qf such places possessed a great power, for evil over /.females and servant fiirls generally applying for situations- He was inclined to the opinion that it was preferable that registry office keepers

should be married people. Inspector Pender pointed out that inquiries were always made before the license was granted. Mr Haselden— " But it is of more' importance still to have supervision after the office is opened." Tire Inspector said he was afraid there was no such authority, and the incident closed. The Mission to Barmaids which our mutual friend Lord Stamford is sponsoring (remarks our London correspondent) will, I fear, excite some derision amongst the Philistines. And yet, why should barmaids wait ? They are surely as worthy of being " saved " as Hindoos and Celestials. Methinks, too, if the missionaries were young, handsome, and not above mitigating the "word in season" with an occasional " Scotch cold," a great work might be inaugurated. " Much," as Dick Phenyl says in " Sweet Lavender," " much may be done with kindness, Clemmy, my boy." A fair young curate, spending his afternoons lolling- over the bar at the Criterion and addressing words of admonition and counsel (tempered by refreshment) to the Hebes behind, would be ah agreeable novelty, a,nd would surely touch the susceptible feminine heart — somehow. Our London correspondent says that Mr Charles Norton Edgcumbo Eliot, C.8., who has been appainted English Commissioner to inquire into the recent rumpus in Samoa, is a brilliant young Oxonian, who, though only in his thirty-fourth year, has spent eleven in the diplomatic service. He is the son of the Rev Eliot, of Mulbrook, Jersey, and, after a distinguished career at Oxford, entered the diplomatic service as Third Secretary of the Embassy at St Petersburg. •Subsequently he acted as Charge d'ASaires in Morocco and in Bulgaria, and for the last few years has been Second Secretary at Constantinople. Mr Eliot is one of the best linguists in the. service, having a. practical acquaintance with twenty-six languages and an intimate knowledge of most of them. A coal combination is the latest manifestation of the monopoly mania in Great Britain. The proposal is for a coal exporters' association to embrace the whole kingdom. The Glasgow correspondent of the " Financial Times " thinks the want of such an association is becoming more and more apparent. Almost every trade and profession has its association ; why not the coal exporters? It may not be generally known (an English contemporary remarks) that fair quantities of Australian and American coal have within the last year or so been. brought to London. It has come only as ship's ballast, and, does, not therefore figure in the Board of Trade returns, hence it is sold at rather cheaper rates than the English article. Ssveral thousand tons of the American product were readily sold in England, and there is a notion that the market there for this kind of coal is increasing rather than diminishing. If this "be so, then the proposed coal British combine may have to deal with an outside element hitherto ignored.

In his recently published brochure on the fatal illness of Prince Bismarck, and the history of his medical relations to his illustrious patient, Dr Schwemnger omits all the most piquant passages of that story. No fewer than one hundred doctors had previously tried their- skill on the Iron Chancellor, but without avail, as none of them could get their patient to comply with their prescriptions. " THe difference," said Bismarck once, " between Schweninger and my former doctors lies in this, that I treated them, while Schweninger treats me." During his first consultation with his German Banting, the Prince lost his temper and growled: "Don't ask so many questions." To which Schweninger replied: "Then please consult a veterinary surgeon; he asks no questions."

A trial winch is likely to create ' some sensation is that of Henri Meyer, an adi venturer who formed the acquaintance at ' Beaulieu of Mme. de Kroyowska, a Polish lady, and friend of Count Thun, the Austrian Premier. One day when Mme. Kroyowska ■ was out, Meyer entered her apartments in the hotel, and carried off her correspondence, which is said to have coni tamed many important political documents. Ho refused to give them up without payment, and Mme. de Kroyowska consulted Count Thun. who. advised her to have the man arrested. This was done, and he is now in prison a,t Marseilles awaiting his trial. A somewhat similar affair occurred at Monte Carlo last year, when a man obtained poss-ession of some compromising letters belonging to an English, lady.

" Night I hail as a Friend " is_ the titfc of the following verses contributed by Mr J. L. Kelly to a northern contemporary : — The day is ending; weary of shining, The sun is in clouds and mist declining ; Lo! He is hid 'neath an ashen pall. No flowers are scon on the darkened meadow, The woods are sleeping in sombro shadow The birds to their mates no longer call; To and fro, in the mystic gloaming, Gnomes and goblins and ghosts are roaming ; "Strange, weird whisperings rise and fall! Night is here — the dark mysterious, Pear-inspiring, proud, imperious Night — that awes with its murmurs eerie ; Night — cool stream in a. desert dreary ; Balm to the sick and rest to the weary; Night the friend of us all. Weary of working, getting and giving. Tired of all that men call living, Lo! my earth-day draws to an end. Clouds are gathering, shades are falling, Shapes a-re beckoning, voices calling; "Child-like, I fear what Night may send. Tintless and scentless to me are flowers, Silent to me are the vocal bowers — My voice may no more in the chorus blendNight is here — tho dark and foa-rful Foe of the bright, the gay, the cheerful ; Night that threatens, frightens, appals ine — Night that beckons, invites and calls me — Night whose most restful spell enthralls me — Night I hail as a friend!