OUR ILLUSTRATED LONDON LETTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 33, 16 August 1890, Page 13

OUR ILLUSTRATED LONDON LETTER.

THE ICY HISTRIONNE. The ‘ immortal Mary ’ has gone the way of most of womankind—she has got married. When Miss Anderson, the bright-eyed Kentuckian girl, first appeared at sweet seventeen in the character of Juliet, her lieauty and grace took the susceptible American heart by storm, and she became at once the idol of the hour. This ‘ booming ’ is characteristic of our cousins on the other side of the herring pond, and we get infected when the object of their adulation comes among us in the flesh. So it was with the mucli-talked-of Mary. Nine years after her debut in the States she paid the first professional visit to England, and occupied the boards in the Lyceum while Mr Irving was entertaining the audiencesshe had left in the Western world. Miss Anderson was then twenty-five years of age, and her personal charms, as well as accomplished art, ensured for her an enthusiastic reception. It happened at this time that the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon was just completed, and to this graceful exponent of Shakesperian character w-as assigned the distinction of inaugurating the temple of dramatic ait. It was as Rosalind in ‘As You Like It ’ that Miss Anderson appeared, and her portrait in that character is painted on one of the panels. Among her principal parts, in addition to the two mentioned, are Julia in ‘ The Hunchback,’ Bianca in ‘ Fazis,’ Pauline in ‘ Lady of Lyons,’ Meg Merrilees, and Galatea. Her marriage to Mr Navarro, a rich young citizen of New York, was celebrated on Tuesday at the Oratory, Brompton.

One of the most interesting ‘ side shows ’ of the French Exhibition in London, opened by the Lord Mayor on Saturday, promises to be the Arab encampment, denominated ‘The Wild East.’ The Arabs secured in his 500 miles’ journey into Northern Africa by M. Eicole are nearly a hundred in number, and are from provinces over which French influence is predominant. They speak the language of la belle France, but that is all that is French about them. From the Kabyle country M. Ercole has brought the tent women, others are Moors, and others again Algerian Jewesses. An opportunity is to be provided for seeing these really fine men and, in many respects, interesting women ‘at home ’ —that is, they will live in their quarters at Earl's Court the same sort of domestic life which they lead at home, cooking their own food in their own utensils, making the same articles which engage them at home, amusing themselves as they do under their own summer skies, and having sham-fights to show us how they raid on and under each other in the desert. I had several opportunities of observing the whole company on Saturday. In the pretty enclosure of the Welcome Club I saw the women dance (?) the dance du ventre. To me it was a distinctly ‘ slow ’ performance, though curious and interesting. There is no grace about it, and if there be any attractiveness it must arise from considerations I should not like to specify. However, the Arabs are well worth studying, and, as I said at the outset, they will undoubtedly form one of the chief subsidiary attractions of the Exhibition.

James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam hammer, whose death is announced at the ripe age of eighty-two, is a personage whose fame does not rest on one achievement

alone, great though that achievement was. His was altogether a life of indomitable perseverance and unceasing toil, as his short, sturdy figure and roughly-hewn features pourtrayed ; while the kindly eye that beamed beneath that crest of silvery grey, reflected the human sympathy of the man. The famous mechanician was one of a family of eleven, the children of Alexander Nasmyth, a Scotch landscape painter, well-known in his day. But the profession of an artist was not a lucrative one in those times, and although James received a thorough elementary education, he did not reach the higher branches until his own industry

paved the way. His skill in the fashioning of models of steam engines, and other mechanical works and appliances, enabled him to pay Ids own fees at Edinburgh I niversity. No sooner had he completed his early professional training in his native city on the Forth, than he hastened to this great centre of the commercial world, to learn the profession of engineering. The steam hammer, which has already been adopted in metaphor, as denoting the superlative of force, was Nasmyth’s great invention, and he was only thirty years of age when his powerful engine was introduced to the mechanical world. This invention was followed by many others of a similar nature, chief among these being a form of engine now extensively employed in screw steamships. On his retirement from business in 1856, he sought the quiet retreat of his country house at Penhurst, in the county of Kent, and there, with that dislike of lassitude which was a distinguishing characteristic of his nature, he actively engaged himself in the study of astronomy, ami the paternal art of painting. He dwelt with fond recollection on his early associations with Sir Walter Scott, who was a friend of the family, and he treasured with loving affection a desk that belonged to the Wizard of the North, and contained the MS. of the rough sketch of ‘ Waverley.’ There is at last hope for those impetuous lovers whose zeal outruns their discretion, and theie will be corresponding disappointment to those harpies who seek monetary recompense for their blighted affections. Since Dickens immortalised the case of Pickwick v. Bardell (history is silent as to what was thought before), breach of promise cases have furnished the public with a never-failing source of amuse-

ment, but it is to be feared that with the restrictions now proposed to be placed on the legal procedure in such actions, we shall know them no more. Sir Roper Lethbridge is to move a resolution proposing that damages should be allowed only in cases in which the plaintiff has incurred actual pecuniary loss. This sensible suggestion will prevent the abuse of the law, while it will meet the case of any woman who has left a lucrative position on the strength of a matrimonial proposal which is afterwards broken. Mr Frank Lockwood, Q. C., has undertaken to second the resolution, ami as he is one of the most successful advocates in such cases. Sir Roper Lethbridge may congratulate himself on the strength of the support he will thus receive. Exeter Hall is, as everyone knows, the accepted home of the May meetings, and just now its doors are busily on the swing. Apropos I wonder what the ‘unco guid,’ whom the

Scottish poet satirised in hisstinging verses, would view the general lightness of heait and almost gaiety that have characterised the May meetings this year. Religion is no longer synonymous with gloom ; and while many of us do not favour the ‘drum ecclesiastic ’ in the painfully literal sense which the Salvation Army interprets the famous phrase of the author of ‘ Hudibras,’ we are none of us averse to the pleasurable exhilaration of Zenana breakfasts and evangelical conversaziones. That is as things should lie. There is nothing in missionary enterprise that is inconsistent with eakeand coffee, except when the missionaries are beyond the reach of such delicacies, and indanger of beingthemselves converted into edibles for the delectation of less fastidious appetites. The most rigidly orthodox need not fear the intrusion of gingerbread under well-defined gastronomical conditions; and we may draw from this pleasant union ot religious duty and social intercourse the gratifying inference that the churches are every day extending their healthy influence over the amusements ami pleasures of the (>eople, always, of course, with a wise discrimination between the pure and the impure—between that which elevates and that which degrades. Practical Christianity of this kind will do more to raise the social condition of the people, and thereby stimulate their moral and religious nature, than any amount of pulpit preaching, however well intended.