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New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 119, 6 August 1875, Page 14

Spuexotts Imitations.— With the opening of the Royal Academy Exhibition, the London correspondent of the 'Leeds 'Mercury ' writes :— The full tide of London fashionable life may ba said to have set in, while from all parts of the country, innocent people are now arriving to see something of the gaiety of the metropolis. It is for the benefit of the latter that I propose to tell you of two of the greatest impostors of London, who at this time of the year invariably make themselves prominent in our thoroug}!?^ fares. The first is a gentleman who is naturally very like Garnet Wolseley, and who has heightened this natural resemblance bylP^ sorts of artificial means. He cuts his moustache like Sir Garnet' Wolseley. He has his costume made like that of Sir Garnet Wolseley. It is the most common thing in the world to see people turn round and point him out as Sir Garnet Wolseley, forgetting for the moment that the hero of the Ashantee war is at present in Natal. The other rank impostor who seeks to borrow a reflected glory is a lady who is rather like the Princess of Wales, and who makes up for any deficiencies in the way of likeness by the manner in which she gets her dress, carriage, ponies, and servants to resemble those of the Princess of Wales. As she drives along Piccadilly, you will see numbers of gentlemen take off their hats at her — " at a venture," as Charles Lamb used to say. I wish to warn ladies and gentlemen from the country who visit London at this season to be on their guard against these tSvo spurious celebrities, who ought to be ashamed of the iway, in which they deceive unsuspecting people. Selling their Kino foe a Groat.— The Scotch are said to have sold their king, not their country, for a groat. Charles 1., king 1 of England, took refuge in the Scottish camp in May, 1646. In the following "January this army gave him up to his English subjects, by whom he was beheaded. The sum of money which ' they received for the surrender of the royal person afforded, when divided, a groat to each soldier.