"When the KING and QUEEN visit Nottinghamshire as the guests of the Duke
and Duchess of PORTLAND at Welbeck, three representative colliery owners
and four working miners will," we read, "be presented to their Majesties
at Forest Town." A most embarrassing gift, we should say, and one which
cannot, without hurting susceptibilities, be passed on to the Zoological
Society.
* * *
Are the French, we wonder, losing that valuable quality of tact for
which they have so long enjoyed a reputation? Amongst the Ministers
introduced at Paris to KING CHRISTIAN OF DENMARK, who enjoys his
designation of "The tall King," was M. MAGINOL, who is an inch taller
than His Majesty. He should surely have been told to stay at home.
* * *
In the Bow County Court, last week, a woman litigant carried with her,
for luck, an ornamental horse-shoe, measuring at least a foot in length,
and won her case. Magistrates trust that this idea, pretty as it is, may
not spread to Suffragettes of acknowledged markmanship.
* * *
Extract from an account in _The Daily Chronicle_ of the _Silver King_
disturbance:--"The officers held her down, and, with the ready aid of
members of the audience, managed to keep her fairly quiet, though she
bit those who tried to hold their hands over her mouth. A stage hand was
sent for ..." If we are left to assume that she did not like the taste
of that, we regard it as an insult to a deserving profession.
* * *
"Do people read as much as they used to?" is a question which is often
asked nowadays. There are signs that they are, anyhow, getting more
particular as to what they read. Even the House of Commons is becoming
fastidious. It refused, the other day, to read the Weekly Rest Day Bill
a second time, and the Third Reading of the Home Rule Bill was regarded
as a waste of time and intelligence.
* * *
The superstitions of great men are always interesting, and we hear that,
after his experience at Ipswich and on the Stock Exchange, Mr. LLOYD
GEORGE is now firmly convinced that it is unlucky for him to have
anything to do with anyone whose name ends in "oni."
* * *
Professor METCHNIKOFF, the great authority on the prevention of senile
decay, will shortly celebrate his seventieth birthday, and a project is
on foot to congratulate him on his good fortune in living so long.
* * *
The Central Telephone Exchange is now prepared to wake up subscribers at
any hour for threepence a call, and it is forming an "Early Risers'
List." So many persons are anxious to take a rise out of the Telephone
Service that the success of the innovation is assured.
* * *
By crossing the Channel in a biplane, the Princess LOEWENSTEIN-WERTHEIM
has earned the right to be addressed as "Your Altitude."
* * *
Illustration: _Pugilistic Veteran._ "COME ERLONG, YOUNG UN--COME
ERLONG; PUT SOME BEEF INTO IT. THAT AIN'T THE STUFF _I_ DID AT YOUR
AGE."
* * *
We see from an advertisement that we now have in our midst an "Institute
of Hand Development." This should prove most useful to parents who own
troublesome children. No doubt after a short course of instruction the
spanking power of the hand may be doubled.
* * *
Reading that two houses in King Street, Cheapside, were sold last week
"for a price equal to nearly L13 10_s._ per foot super," a correspondent
asks, "What is a super foot?" If it is not a City policeman's we give it
up.
* * *
There are now 168 house-boats on the Thames, states the annual report of
the Conservators, and it has been suggested that a race between these
craft might form an attractive item at Henley.
* * *
Shoals of mackerel entered Dover Bay last week, and many of the fish
were caught by what is described as a novel form of bait, namely a
cigarette paper on a hook drawn through the water in the same way as a
"spinner." As a matter of fact we believe that smoked salmon are usually
caught this way.
* * *
We learn from an announcement in _The Medical Officer_ that Dr. T. S.
MCSWINEY has sold his practice to Dr. HOGG--and it only remains for us
to hope that Dr. HOGG has not bought a pig in a poke.
* * *
It looks as if even in America the respect for Titles is on the wane. We
venture to extract the following item from the catalogue of an American
dealer in autographs:--"BRYCE, JAMES, Viscount. Historian. Original MS.
33 pp. 4to of his article 'Equality.' In this he says:--'The evils of
hereditary titles exceed their advantage. In Great Britain they produce
snobbishness both among those who possess them and those who do not,
without (as a rule) any corresponding sense of duty to sustain the
credit of the family or the caste. Their abolition would be clear
gain....' And now he is a Viscount. Price 30 dollars."
* * * * *