Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 22, 30 May 1901, Page 17

Notes.

The Prince and the Yacht. The adage ' once bitten, twice Bhy,' evidently applies with very little force to King Edward VII. His escape from disaster in the tangled wreckage of ' Shamrock ll.' is but one of many adventures of similar kind into whioh he has been inveigled by hie love of yachting. The most memorable of all his aocidents by field and flood occurred in 1874 when the Duke of Rutland's yacht ' Shark , bumped into Count Batthyany's, in which the King (then Prince of Wales) was enjoying a breezy ' spin ' over the ' briny.' The King's insurance policy was never so near coming due, except, perhaps when typhoid led him by the ear to the top step of death's door in December, 1 ss 71.7 1 . but just failed to force him across the threshold.

A Rota i. Author. The Duke of York, according to the Manchester Courier, is about to join ithe ranks of Royal authors. The profession, despite the ghostly declaration of Artemus Ward's aged ' parient ' to the contrary, is eminently respectable. Not being overcrowded just at present, and with a large vacant allotment on top, it should provide an honest living for any well-intentioned Royal personage who wishes to lay aside the sceptre and wield the pen that, according to the unanimous verdict of all the debating societies, is mightier than the sword. A Royal Prince would be quite an acquisition to the ' republic of letters.' W. Hepworth Dixon, author of Her Majesty's Tower, says the writer has an empire beyond that of the highest monarch that now lives. Our future King may be ambitious beyond our present dreams. He may be sighing, like another Alexander, for fresh worlds to conquer, and now, armed with the mighty pen, will invade and annex the world — of letters. Max O'Rell says something to the effect that the Anglo-Saxon has acquired the fee-simple of the larger portion of the earth and holds the mortgage deeds of the best teats in heaven. With a new King sitting as supreme head of the literary world, the enterprising Anglo-Saxon would have a monopoly of pretty nearly all that is worth living or dying for.

Encourauing Marbiage. Butler in his Hudibras long 1 ago complained that ' Now the world is grown bo wary That few of either Bex do marry.'

Ha Advertised. A good many marriages of the slip-knot order — the kind that are not made in heaven — are arranged by advertising agencies and ' marriages-shops ' in Melbourne and Sydney. They tell the story that a few months ago, a man from Ballarat, finding that presentable bonnets could be bought for about 3s lid and ladies' tan boots were ' given away,' advertised under an assumed name for a wife. He duly received an advertised reply, also under an assumed name. Photographs were exchanged. And then the marrying ewain found that his elderly maiden sister had replied to him in perfect bonafide t There were sundry fainting fits in that house afterwards. But the papers did not publish any of the remarks made by the ' stern patients' of the enterprising advertisers when they discovered that there were two suoh fools in the family.

The Housekeeping. ' Marry, marry,' says the old proverb, • but what about the housekeeping ?' That is one of the reefs on which a good many linked lives split with as melancholy a bang as the Wairarapa when she nosed the rookß. A Now Zealand lady recently gave her confidences on the subject to a London daily ; ' You have,' says she, ' a beautiful wreath and veil on your wedding day. The first week passes well. The second week you have your mouth full of clothespins. The third week you are trotting two miles with a basket, looking for cheap meat. And, after that, you are looking for cheap meat all the rest of your life.'

Some Answers. Spicoa said to Gouache the Zouave in SanV llano: 'Providence has evidently preserved you from sudden death in order to destroy you by lingering torture ' — by which opprobrious words the ill-mannered wight meant to designate matrimony. An effort to test the truth of this theory of temporal punishment was recently made by an enterprising editor in Western New York. He sent out postal -cards to all the married men in a small town with the query: ' Why did you marry ? ' He received a varied and tolerably extensive, if not particularly interesting, collection of replies. The greater part of them were clearly intended to emphasise one of the pet theories of the lord of creation, namely, that a big percentage of men marry the wrong women — a theory that would, perhaps, be as correctly stated in the following terms : that a big percentage of women fail to marry the right men.

Here are a few sample replies to the editorial inquiry : ' Why did you marry /' ' That's what I have been tryiog for 11 years to find oat.' ' Married to get even with her mother, but never have.' ' Because I was too lazy to work.' ' Because Hannah told me that 10 other young men had proposed to her.' ' I was tired of buying ice-cream and candies and of going to theatres, and wanted a rest. Have saved money.' ' Please don't stir me up.' ' Because I thought Bhe was one among a thousand. Now I sometimes think she ia a thousand among one.' 'I think it was because I was cross-eyed. Now I am afflicted with two pairs of cross-eyes daily.' 'Because I did not have the experience I have now.' ' I thought it would be cheaper than a breach of promise suit.' ' Because it is just my luck.' 1 Have exhausted all the figures in the arithmetic to figure out an answer to your question : between multiplication and division in the family, and distraction, in addition, the answer is hard to arrive at.' One man wrote : ' I married to get the best wife in the world.'

A pretty tale is told of Leopold 11,, King of the Belgians. In his own land he is devoted to long walks. On one of these expeditions he ■topped at a farmhouse and asked for a glass of milk, and then said something to his companion in English. The dame who went to fetch the draught was heard to say : ' I wonder what the long-nosed Englishman will pay 1 ' When she came back King Leopold handed her a five-franc piece. ' Here,' he said, 'is a por. trait of the long-nosed Englishman.'