LONDON TOWN TALK.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1913, 12 April 1880, Page 3

LONDON TOWN TALK.

[From the " Argus " Correspondent.] One of the things that makes us pause when we are about to congratulate ourselves upon the progress of civilisation is the reflection that human nature iB much the same as it was in regard to its meanness. Cruelty and oppression, at least aa exercised by the authority of the law, have ceased in the land, and gentleness and charity have made some way with us in place of them. But envy of the successful, and hatred of the just, and malice against the good are as rife as ever. In particular, a man has only to have done something to win him the love of the great majority of his fellow creatures to become a target for the slander of the minority. Upon the whole, I suppose there is no Englishman who has given such pleasure to his countrymeD, has soothed the hours of pain, and sweetened the hours of leisure, and especially who has cultivated kindness and benevolence bo much as_ Charles Dickens. The nation at large, it is true, are grateful to him, yet many persons of position and influence seem to derive a great satisfaction in slandering hiß private character. One hears more malicious lies told of him than of any man ; all sot agoing by the onslaught of a foul mouthed newspaper before the dead man wbb cold in his grave, but which have never loßt their momentum. And now, because, I Buppose, ■Craribaldi is acknowledged to be the most disinterested and generous human creature on the face of the earth, it has become hiß turn to be slandered. Bscause he ha 3 sought to be divorced from a wife with whom he has never live:!, and who acknowledged at the church door, though unfortunately after the ceremony, that she was already unfaithful to him, and married him under false pretences, he is held up forsooth as an immoral character. In his groES ignorance, or in his wanton malice, one writer, I 6ee, has even compared his case with that of Lord Nelson. It is difficult for simple folks to treat the statements of the press as they would treat those of individuals, but they should learn that to the jealous and the vile it is just aB easy to print a falsehood as to write or speak it.

I have been reading with some envy an account of the incomes made last year by the members of the Theatre Francais, none of whom get lesß than £2400 a year—better pay than the ten Ministers of the Republio receive, or the Prefect of the Seine, or the Arohbishop of Paris. Thiß disproportion does not disturb mo, because, after all, actors and actresses are paid for -what they do, and, at lowest, for pleading the public, ■whereas an official is paid for occupying a poßt whether he tills it well or ill. But what I confess annoys me is to see the immense fortunes made by some sudden turn of the wheel of commorce, or Borne lucky fluke in hitting the taste of the day. A mei chant tailor, as he calls himself, was boasting the other day in my hearing that he had mude £IO,OOO in three years by inventing a fashionable overcoat for ladie3! How Bmall are the gains of genius, even of the first order, as compared with thi3 ! I feel it bitterly, dear Mr Editor, I do indeed, though in public I wear a mask.

That the vices and follies of the aristocracy are imitated by tho middle classes, and eventually descend lower, is well understood ; but it is shocking to think that the innocent brute creation haß at last began to be corrupted by humanity. A Clydesdale fllly which took the prize at the Highland Agricultural Show at Perth has been accused of wearing f leo hair on her foreleg. " As this was not s:iy the directors of tho association, " till after the judgment was over, and as it is possible the raise hair was put on subsequently," they have not withdrawn the award, but they are surprised at her conduct (jr at that of her owner), and reprobate it. Why should a Beast Show Association bo more nice in these matters than human beinge ? Has not a husband a right to ol>j ct to a filly—l mean a young l*dy—who induces him to believe that her tresses are her own when they are fake ones ? Nay, her case is oven a worse one, for is there the least probability that the false ones were iiuoited after the judging was over? Even miracles in Ireland have a Hibernian flavor. St. John and St. Joseph have been recently appearing in the chapel of Knook (a name which has an unhappy association with the C-ick lane ghost), [near Castlebar. Most astonishing cures have been since effected—-

by what, do you think ? By comont taken from the walla of the sacred buildine. One has heard of people beiDg cured " like bricks" —to express at once their number and the celerity of the operation; and one has read in advertisements that the effect of certain glues and gums is " miraculous," but supernatural cement is a novelty indeed. There is, I believe, no end to British snobbism, but in the fact that the Empress Eugenie is to go out to the Capo, " accompanied by Sir Evelyn and Lady Wood and seven servants," the plummet seems to have reached almost the bottom of it. Because a lady has onoe sat upon a throne (attained by her husband through one of the greatest frauds and crimes on record) the services of the most eminent officers of the British army it seems, to be placed at her disposal. What astonishes me even more in this case is, that Sir Evelyn Wood himself should have accepted such a position. There are not only some different views of art in circulation, but in the case of the more ancient masters, various ways of explaining even the meaning which their pictures were intended to convey. The following is an example in point:—An evangelical divine of my acquaintance was making his professional visits the other day in a rural parish, when, in the back parlor of a small tradesman, he perceived a picture which filled him with a natural indignation. It represented so far as mediaeval art could do it—the Pope, the Virgin Mary, and a female saint of eminence, with the words "Ave Maria" beneath it. "I am very sorry, Mrs Jones," ear A the clergyman to the tradesman's wife, " to Bee a picture of this description hanging on the walls of so good a Protestant." "Lor' bless ye, sir," she answered innocently, "what's the matter with the pictur' ?' " Well, its Popish to begin with, very Popish." " I'm sure I don't know, sir. We bought it of a travelling pedlar tho other day, and thought it very pretty." " But do you know who are the persons represented, and what it signifies, my good woman ?'

" Well, no, sir, wo are no soholards, but we think we have made out what it means." " Then what does it mean ?'

" Well, sir, this good gontleman (tho Pop , he's a-making up to this young lady (the eminent female saint), but she doesn't encourage him, she don't; she turns him over to the other, and says, ' 'Ave Maria.' " "We are told, I know not with what truth, that spiritualism still holds its impudent head up in the Unite I States, which is most curious whon we consider not only tho intelligence of the American people, but still more their acute sense of humor. I read to-day certain extracts from what I suppose would be called provincial newspapers in America, which exhibit quite an amazing epigrammatic power, combined with great knowledge of mankind. One says —" A man's character is like a fence; you cannot strengthen it by whitewashing." Another —" A tin tack points heavenward when it means most mischief. In this respect it has many human imitators." The readers of such papers as these aro surely not hoodwinked by the shallow tricks of mediums and clairvoyants. One has heard that the cheapest pleasures are the best, and I remember reading on one occasion in a popular periodical a list of a hundred useful articles from a microscope to a thimble, that could be bought for a penny; but the following advertisement in a newspaper last week astonished me nevertheless :—" Six hours' real enjoyment for a penny." I put my hand over what came after, and tried to guess what it could be. Was it something to suck that would last all that time or something to drink, or was it a ticket of admission to a "penny gaff," whore the British drama delights ear and eye ? I was quite disappointed (though one might easily have guessed the problem) to find it only a story in a " penny dreadful." One of these periodicals, by-the-bye, publishes an advertisement of its own literary merits every week, which it professes to have culled from the "Saturday Be view." "Its tales and stories are quite equal to the best of those to be got at the circulating libraries." Now, considering that all novels are to be got there, this is tantamount to saying that those in this " penny dreadful " are as good as George Elliott's or Mr Trollope's, which, from what I have Been of them, I think is going a little too far.

Talking of circulating libraries, there is a hitch in the start of " The G-rosvenor." It has begun its career with a, law suit about its right to its name, and lost it; so that I suppose it will be called something else. I would respectfully suggest—as suggesting an alternative for Mudia—" The Sankey." I don't think the public ever got so much amusement out of the Probate Court as in the disputation over the will of a certain archimandrite or Greek high priest last week, whose Christian name was Narcissus, but who, if he admired himself, did not extend his admiration to his relatives. He left all his money away from them to the children of his body-servant, and though he cunningly contrived to hold out hopes to them, he addressed them in language which I wonder the tongue of Plato and thci delicate Greek aorists could have stooped to express. His physician describes him as " one of the moat genial and pleasant of human beings I ever met in the of an old man," but his letters to his family in their native land depict him under another aspect. His great fear was that his nephews should come to England, and he thus writes to their mother (his sister) to deprecate such a proceeding. One of them who had aßked him for a small loan was especially hateful to him. " Where is your son Nicholas Aphtentopulos, of damned memory? . . . If the devil" (the writer was a high priest, and I suppose thought himself entitled to invoke the gentleman in black, which he does pretty freely), "If the devil should put it into your head to come here, then not only Bhall you never receive a farthing, but you will never see my face. I shall leave London, and go into some remote village, and then you and Yonaki (her son inlaw), who wrote me the intimidations will run in the streets of London, where you will be beaten on the head. . . My soul hates you If ever Yonaki should persuade you to como here I am sure that either on account of the sea, or on account of the fatigue of the voyage, you will die, because I believe you are now an old woman, and the depths of the ocean will be your grave. May heaven have mercy on you, or rather on me, and save me from you as he saved me from my brother Phohos (who was drowned on a voyage to meet him) Do not bring Nicholas, your accursed son, who is full of lies and dirty as a pig. Take pity on an old infirm man. My estate is by testament left to you, and not to strangers." But it was left to strangers all the time. Altogether I don't think the Rev. Narcissus Morphinos impresses me favorably with Archimandrites.

It is curious to consider —notwithstanding the way in which the common law has endeavored to meet every misdemeanor, from murder to chuck-farthing—how many serious offences can still be committed, without punishment. As I had occasion to point out tho other day, the utmost brutality can be committed on certain living creatures, so long as they are not included "under the Act." And now it seems that a deliberate attempt to break the legs and even the necks of a human family may be made with impunity. A malicious young scoundrel was brought before the magistrates of Southend for strewing orange peel down tho steps of a private dwel ling houso, and even on its garden path, on a dark and slippery night; but as it was no trespass—the lad being a chemist's boy, and having the right to come though not to stop —it was decided that there was no legal remedy. What will no doubt mitigate the offence in some mindß was that the complainant was an attorney. It may be charitably suggested that tho boy had a general notion of doiug a public service ; or on the other hand, as his master was a chemist, he may have hit upon this ingenious device in order to got him a little custom. That young people are capable of selfsacrifice in a good cause is certain, for a little girl only eight years old in Devonshire has just received the medal of the Royal Humane Society for rescuing a young lady from drowning at great personal risk. She had fallen into wator 6t't. deep, and what raises tho action almost to sublimity, the person this heroic child rescued was her governess. In tho system of " Obituaries" which has recently been adopted by our daily papers, it is interesting to notice the gradations of tho expressions of sorrow; like the mourning warehouses with their "unutterable woe" and "mitigated grief" departments, thoy "deeply regrot to have to announce" the death of a member of the House of Lords ; they " regret to record " the demise of a baronet or a member of Parliament; and thsy simply "record the decease" of a man of genius—a reflection which will add another pang to my own last hours.