MISCELLANEOUS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1805, 3 December 1879, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

Unusual Honors. —lt is said the Eng lish Government has ordered the Governor of Now Zealand, in case General Grant visits that island, 11 to extend to him no unusual honors, only ordinary courtesy.” The English Government means well. Tho New Zealanders have a reprehensible habit of giving an American a very warm recaption. They roast him over a slow fire and serve him up at a banquet, and, although he cccuph-p the most prominent place Jat the table, be doesn’t enjoy the feed a particle. This is “ unusual honours. Plain “ ordinary courtesy ”is good enough for Grant.—“ Norristown Herald.”

What Ailed Him.— One of our drygoods clerks called round to see his girl the other evening. She observed that he ap peared very restless, and ns he had been paying her pretty sharp attention, she sniffed a proposal. “ George, dear,” she said, in a sweet voice, “ what’s the matter with you this evening?” “There ain’t nothing the mattsr,” remarked Gi orge, twisting uneasily in his chair. “ I thick there is,” elm said with great interest. ‘ Oh, no, there ain’t,” returned George ; “ what makes you think so? ’ “You appear to be restless,” she explained ; “you act an if there was something on your mind." “It ain’t on my mind,” observed George ; “ it’s—” and then he suddenly caught himself end stopped. “ What is it—where is it, dear ? ” entreated the young Mias ; “ won’t you tell your darling ?” “ It’o on my back,” blurred George, with an effort. “On your back ? ” repeated the young Hiss, in astonishment. “Yea,” said George, desperately ; “ it’s a porous plaster, and it itches so I can’t keep still ’’ The young lady fainted.—“ Rockland Courier.” Easy Enough —The “ Rome Sentinel ” has an article on “ How to Detect Ripe Watermelons.” That’s easily done, says the “ Boston Post.” You eat the melon, and if it doesn’t give you a grip like a Freemason it is ripe. Act one, they meet as in a pleasant dream ; Act two, he’ll treat to soda and ico cream ; Act three, his cash, alas I is nearly played ; Act four, his girl grows cold, sedate and

staid ; Act five, just as his love is ripe and yellow, His girl is sporting with another fellow. Among the new books announced as in the press are Mr bwinburne’a long-promised “ Study of Shakespeare in Three Periods,” which the “ Athermim ” says is the most complete piece of analysis Mr Swinburne has yet achieved. Among the other books in preparation are “Pen sketches by a Vanished Hand,” the title given to a selection from the papers of the late Mortimer Collins which Mr Tom Taylor has edited, and “ Songs from the Published Works of Alfred Tennyson, D.O.L, Poet Laureate,” with musical accompaniments by Messrs Arthur Sullivan, Gounod, Otto Goldschmidt, fir J. Benedict, and others.

“ Ouida” adopted her nom de plume from her own childish pronunciation of her name Louisa, though it also corresponds to the French slang phrase, “Why, certainly.” She is of French parents, but of English birth.

The recent addition of Mr Forbes Robertson’s admirable portrait of the late Mr Phelps to tho Q-arrrick Club collection of theatrical portraits (says Mr Blanchard) has caused additional value to be attached to tho curiously life-like wax busts of that admirable actor, of which about a dozen aro known to exist. Few of the possessors aro probably aware that these wera executed by a Mr Howe, a flute-player in tho orchestra ef Sadler’s Wells, whoso ingenuity as a modeller used to be exercised while the play was proceeding on the stogo and the actor stood before him. A similar illustration of how to economise money and time was recently furnished by a well-known comic actor at the Adelphi Theatre, who, during the long run of a drama, was only wanted in tho farces which began and finished the performance. Mr G. M. would sit down in his dressing-room to the perusal of tho bulky volume he always brought with him to tho Theatre, and when the career of tho drama came to a conclusion the representative of the “funny old man” in the afterpiece had finished the last page of an elaborately annotated edition of “ Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Leaving Him Alone. —lt is perfectly true that, in the first instance, the sympathy of the Empress was stirred in favour of Captain Carey, and that she addressed a letter to tho Queen on his behalf, The feeling underwent a marked change on tho perusal of a characteristically unctuous letter from Carey to hia wife, which the latter thought proper, probably not wholly of her own impulse, to forward to her Majesty. It has given place to anger and disgust, following on the persis eat attempts of Carey, in his numerous direct and vicarious communications to the public prints, to excuse himself at tho expense of the Prince Imperial. That was a moat tellingly bitter remark the Empress made the other day, speaking of Carey—- “ Why,” she asked, “ cannot he leave the poor dead boy alone? He left him alone once.”—“ World.”

Coincidences In tbe way of figures are of frequent occurrence. A lounger at Xreport has just communicated a few relating to the Bonaparte family to M. Charles Monselet, who has published them in the “ Evenement.” Taking for his starting-point the number (seventeen) of wounds received by the Prince Imperial in Zaluland, the seaside calculator remarks that the number 17 was always interesting to the Napoleons. The letters which form the name of Napoleon Bonaparte are 17 in number. 1808, the date of the birth of Napoleon, gives, by the addition of the figures, the number 17. 1826, the date of the birth of the Empress Eugenie, also gives 17 by a similar operation. 1853, the date of their marriage, produces rn'ther 17. From 1863, the date of their marriage, to 18'0, when they were deposed, the interval was 17 years. The Prince Im perial at the death of his father was 17 years of age. In “Be lieutenant Carey” there are 17 letters, and the addition of the figures comprised in 1802, when Prince Victor was born, gives his actual age, once more 17 ! A curious instance of the incapacity of a Frenchman for observation is now being given in the Paris “ Figaro.” One of the writers on this journal is writing some letters from London. “ The tall hat,” he says, “is universal. The beggars wear tall hats, the railway employes and sometimes the enginedrivers. The masons work in their shirtsleeves. but with a tall hat. You will not see a single blouse at London. Equality in costume is the first duty of the true Briton. Workmen who can work in gloves wear gloves. Some put on an apron ; but it is the exception, and because they are afraid of dirtying their linen. Two friends at table do not talk. A lover and his mistress do not exchange a single word. They eat and drink without saying what they think. When the waiter brings a dish or a pint of ale, one of the friends helps himself, then it is the other’s turn. Complete silence. The lover cuts up the meat or raises the pint: 'Will you ?’ ho says to his companion. 'Yes, please,’she replies. That is all. The couple fall back into their spleen. . . . The English women go to see the Zoulous at the Aquarium without taking offence at their primitive costumes, and still the censure prohibits tbe playing of French pieces in which there ia mention of pantaloons. I say this and may the reader pardon mo for myself, or rather for 1 Niniche,’ which is being played at London under the title of Boulogne.’ Every time that pantaloons have to be mentioued in the first act, the actors whisper something to each other, but they never pronounce the fatal word.” A great many novel articles have been placed under corner stones of public buildings (says the 11 Scientific American”) and other structures about being erected. But the most novel article we have known to bo thus deposited was in laying the corner stone of an academy in Massachusetts the other day. It was nothing less than a strip of the human voice imprinted on tin foil by the phonographic process. There ia no comprehending the curiosity this bit of tin foil will be to the people of a couple of hundred years hence, when the corner stone shall be opened and the voice taken out, and found to articulate the words and ssntimontsof one long since dead and forgottc The works of “ La Favorite ” are being pushed on with the greatest energy. They will be completed by the 30th inst., when Ismail Pacha will transfer his household thither from the Villa Piocione, where he ia now living. His harem inhabits a villa in front of the Villa Piccione, close to the sea. These ladies lead a most secluded life. Prince Hassan Pacha, the ex-Khedive’s second son, is living modestly, with only one man servant, at the Koyal Hotel. Hussein Faoha, the third son, and ex-Minister of Finance, is now in Paris. Twenty-five horses for the ex-Khedive have arrived from Egypt, and have been sent to “ La Favorite.”