Here and there

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 15, 13 October 1906, Page 36

Here and there

The Fate of the Tsars. The reported attempt to accomplish the assassination of the Czar recalls the fact that since 1613, when the Romanoffs became the Royal House of Russia, there have been 18 Czars. Of these 18 Romanoffs ■one (Ivan) was an idiot, three have been murdered by their relatives (not including Alexis, son of Peter the Great, poisoned by his father), one was assassinated by his subjects, 12 have died more or less natural deaths, while the present Czar, Nicholas 11.. makes the 18th, and his fate history has still to determine. He Returned the Compliment. A young man and a young woman are leaning over the front gate. They are . lovers. It is moonlight. He is loth to leave, as the parting is the last. He is about to go away. She is reluctant to see him depart. They swing on the gate. “I’ll never forget you,’’ he says, “anil, if death should claim me. my last thought will be of you.” “I’ll be true to you,” she sobs. “I’ll never see anybody else or love them as long as 1 live.” They parted. Six years later he returns. His sweetheart of former years has married. They meet at a dance. She has changed greatly. Between the- dances the recognition takes place. “Let me see.” she muses, with her fan beating >; tattoo on her pretty hand, “was it you or your brother who was my old sweetheart?” “Really, I don’t know,” he says. ‘'Probably my father.” Smart Dog That. The conversation had veered round to dogs. “Well,” said Brown, “here is a dog story that will take some beating. My friend Johnson had a most intelligent retriever. One night: Johnson's house caught fire. All was instant confusion. Old Johnson and his wife flew for the children, and bundled out with them pretty sharp. Alas! one of them had been left behind; but up jumped the dog, rushed into the house, and soon reappeared with the missing child. Everyone was saved, but Hover dashed through the flames again. What did the dog want? No one knew. Presently the noble animal reappeared, scorched and burnt, with —with what do you think?” “Give it up.” chorused the eager listeners. “With the fire-insur-ance policy, wrapped in a damp towel, gentlemen!” - About India. A highly-eompetent observer, Mr. Sidney Low, in his “Vision of India” (a vision obtained during the Prince of Wales’ recent tour) has a passage concerning the strange dual character of the educated untie, which may help us to understand the present hysteria in Bengal. He writes: “Persons who can quote Herbert Spencer and Weismann at an English dinner-table may ‘go Fanti’ at any moment. You may have a native friend, let us say a Sessions judge — I am not giving an imaginary case —who seems in the ordinary way all that is enlightened and refined. He understands our fashions, is acquainted with our literature, behaves in bis office, or when you ask him to your house, much like any wellbred Englishman. But the festival of Kali comes, and you must not be surprised to find him. daubed with red paint, half-nuked, with dishevelled hair, howling and shrieking in the midst of a frenzied crowd of idol-worship|<ers. The paradox of our government of India is well illustrated by Mr. Low in a parable. Imagine, he says, that the Japanese had einiquered all Europe, including the British Isles. “There might be a Japanese regiment at Chester, and a cruiser flying . the chrysanthemum flag acting ns guardship id! the Severn. But beyond a few traders there are no Japanese residents at all. save anti except a Mr. Hayashi or a ill. liinga. who is the principal ad-

niinistrative officer of the province, with a couple of young Japanese assistants, a Japanese, police-commandant, and. a Japanese chief judge. Imagine, further, Mr. Hayashi or Mr. Inaga ruling from an extremely modest country house somewhere in the mountain valleys, and assume that he has no Parliament or local Assembly to control him, hut receives his orders direct from the Mikado's Cabinet at Tokio, or from a Japanese ‘Government of Europe’ with its seat at Berlin or Vienna. Imagine all this, and you get something like the miraculous condition of things that prevails in British India at this moment of writing.” Modern Drivel. In noticing’ current sea-songs and ballads a writer in a literary journel observes how largely what he terms “quaint modern tackle” has supplemented the traditional chanties. What freakish mood, it is asked, inspired—“lt was twenty-seven bells by the Waterbury watch, Yeho. my lads, yelio! The skipper was full of good old Scotch, And the crew had gone below—ow —ow, Yeho, my lads, yeho!” Typical of this remarkable form of humour is “The Blue-haired Little Boy," which begins thus:—• “He has gone from «s fur ever has our blue-haired little boy. We will never see our cross-eyed darling more; Like a dream he passed away on the nine-ty-third of May, lie never died so suddenly before. No more upon the mat will he play with pussy eat, No more between his teeth he'll squeeze his tail. No more u; on the red-hot bars he’ll rub its little no. For little bro/ r Tommy's kicked the pail. Chorus—“He'has gone for evermore at the age of ninety-four. And there's nothing in the world his life would save. So I'm oft to the asylum to fulfil his last request And to plant a bunch of tombstones on his grave. 1 ’ The best that can be said for these efforts, thinks the critic, is that they are possibly preferable to Dibdin’s pensioned doggerel. &•>!> Scottish Customs. Dinner in a great Scotch house is a brilliant affair, remarks a writer in “M.A.P.,” in the course of an article on the shooting season in Scotland. The wearing of the kilt is religiously observed in the smartest society in Scotland. The chiefs of clans, whether nobles or commoners, don the kilt both in morning and evening. The Duke of Sutherland ami his sons at Dunrobin, the Duke of Atholl, the Duke of Argyll and his brother. Lord Archibald Campbell, Lord Kinnoull, Lord Mar and Kellie, Lord Lovat, and many others take special pride in the national costume. Most of the cinqs have several tartans, sue'r as a common tartan, a full-dress tartan, the chief’s own tartan —worn only by himself and his heir—the hunting tartan, one for morning, etc. A Scotchman of position wears a plain tartan in the morning and for shootmg; and in the evening, for dinner, he dons his full-dress tartan, with sporran, jewelled dirk. etc. Ami many smart women, who belong by birth or marriage to these noble northern families, are fond of wearing the tartan of their house, which they do by means of scarves and sashes, twists for the hair, and so on. After dinner, at dessert, the pipers, enter the roogi, and, strutting proudly round and round the table, play lively tunes and Scotch melodies. Every great house has its own piper, and the office is often an hereditary one. As regards servants, gamekeepers, or gillies, as they are called, w ear Highland, dress and kilts, but coachmen. ehautleuiS, butlers. and footmen appear in the '.iveri.es of ordinary life. However, the Duke

of Sutherland's eoachmeu and footmen wear the Scotch bonnet instead of the orthodox tall hat when in the Highlands. Among tartans, the Sutherland, in dark blue and green, is very fine. The Stewarts have three tartans; the Royal Stewart is a well-known pattern, but the hunting Stewart in dark blue and green is perhaps the best of the trio. Heather is to Donnie Scotland what the edelweiss is to Switzerland, a sort of national emblem, and is used in many ways —a sprig stuck into hats, and it also appears as a table decoration. Most of the clans have badges; for example, the Hays mistletoe, the Gordons an ivy leaf, and the Stewarts an oak leaf, and so on. The First Harrow. If John Lyon,, yeoman, of Preston, in the parish of Harrow, Middlesex, could spend an hour or two in his old haunts on Speech Day at Harrow, he would be amazed to see the school into which his little foundation has developed. For many years, adds E. A. B. in the . “Sketch,” it had been his habit to spend a score of marks per annum on the education of poor children, and in 1751 he obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter and letters patent for the founding of the “Free Grammar School of John Lyon”—the Harrow of to-day. There was an important exception to tile flee entry into the school; the schoolmaster was permitted to receive “over and above the youth of the inhabitants within this parish so many foreigners as may well be taught and applied, and the place can conveniently contain”; and of these foreigners he was to take such stipend and wages as he could get. <s>s<?> Had His Revenge, That there were some sporting judges in the old days out West was illustrated on one occasion when a scamp was brought before an Onondaga justice of the peace charged with gambling in the shape of what is known as the “ strap game.” The justice, expressing a wish to decide understandingly, requested the accused to give him an illustration. The man produced a leather strap, gave it a scientific whisk across the bench, and asked: “You see, judge, the quarter under this strap?” “What? Do you mean to say there is a quarter of a dollar there?” inquired the judge, excited, and forgetting for the moment his judicial capacity. “Sartain,” was the reply. “No such thing,” said the justice. “I’ll go you a dollar on it,” said the prisoner. “Agreed!” exclaimed the judge. With the accustomed adroitness the strap was withdrawn, when, lo! there was a twenty-five cent piece. The judge was, of course, indignant. “There's your dollar,” said he, “and you are fined five dollars for gambling contrary to the statute in such case made and provided.” . Hard on Both, of Them. An Irishman whose face was so plain that his friends used to tell him that it was an offence to the landscajie, happened also to be as poor as he was homely. One day a neighbour met him and esked: “ How are you. Pat? ” “Mighty bad! Sure, ’tis starvation that’s starin’ me in the face.” “ Begorra.” exclaimed his neighbour, “it can’t be very pleasant for either of yez! ” .