WHAT THE “ WORLD” SAYS.

Kumara Times, Issue 989, 1 December 1879, Page 4

WHAT THE “ WORLD” SAYS.

[atlas] Sir Henry Layard will, after all, I believe, be left at Constantinople to complete the eighteen months’ service he needs to entitle him to pension. There has been much anxiety to shift him, and with good reason ; but he has a voice in the matter. He would give up Constantinople, but only for Rome. Now, Sir Augustus Paget does not want to resign Rome, except for something considerably better, and Sir Augustus has Court influence so strong that it is regarded as unwise to put pressure on him. So there is a block, and the last I have heard of it is that the round man will be left in the square hole until he attains his pension. Prince Leopold is in his twenty-seventh year ; and it is confidently said by those who ought to know that he will be created a duke before the end of the year. This will bring up the number of royal dukes to six, counting the Prince of Wales, who sits in the House of Lords as Duke of Cornwall. There are no less than thirty-three dukes in the United Kingdom ; besides the twenty-six English dukes, there are two Irish and five Scotch dukes, who figure in the roll of peers under inferior titles. Curiously enough there is exactly the same number of marquises; for in addition to • the eighteen in the House of Lords, there are four Scotch and eleven Irish marquises. The whole number of peers, including life peers, bishops, and archbishops, is 499. Count Sohouvaloff was, in the early days of last week, at Havre having run away from the heat in Paris. The Count returns to England shortly, to remain with us until December, when he will finally resign his diplomatic post, in which he will be succeeded by Prince Labanoff, now Russian Ambassador at the Porte. The accouchraent of the Duchess of Edinburgh may be expected in the second week of December. The pick and flower of Russian fashion has just invaded Paris on the track of three grand-dukes who are at present incognito on the French territory, namely the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Constantine, brothers of the Czar, and Wladimir, his second son. The Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and the Duke of Aosta are likewise in Paris. It is worth noticing how many of the names that are now on every man’s tongue are Irish. Poor Sir Louis Cavagnari was born of an Irish mother, and passed all his youth in the co, Leitrim • “ Redan ” Massey and Sir Garnet are both of them Irish ; so is Lord Beresford, Y.C. ; and so were Lieutenant Hamilton and Dr Kelly, both of whom were murdered in the Cabul massacre. Hamilton was quite a youth ; his eldest brother has only recently joined the Irish Bar. The recommendations of the Indian Army Commission, which has been sitting at Simla, were already agreed upon, there is the best reason for stating when the Cabul episode summoned some of its members to the front. Of course, the Commission, thus amputated, continued to sit pro forma. When the report of the Commissioner is presented to the Viceroy it will be found that they recommended the abolition of the separate chief commands in Madras and Bombay, and suggest the formation of four army corps, to be called after the chief points of the compass, and to be commanded by a lieutenant-general. One commander-in chief for India will be considered sufficient. Lord Cranbrook has, I learn, seen the error of his ways. He left instructions behind him at the India Office that the gentlemen of the Press were to be treated with ordinary courtesy during his lordship’s absence at Balmoral, and to receive any unimportant news from Afghanistan which might be considered uncompromising. And accordingly the papers have been gratified by the gushinodiscovery of an oasis “green and fresh” Afghanistan. • Would the confiding public be surpised to hear that, besides the discovery of the oasis,” the India Office is in posession of voluminous despatches anent other discoveries, id est, the force of the enemy and the extent of the outbreak 1 Would it not be better for the Government to leave to the newspapers the work of supplying information about the n uwu War ,‘- ter massacre at Cabulthey kindly undertook the office, and the result is that they are always a day late, if not more. They have every advantage in having command of the wires, and yet the Standard, with its correspondents at all headquarters, beats them continually For one instance out of many, I got the news of the outbreak at Herat in that paper on Friday raorn>Bg, twelve hours by the clock after it left Ah Kheyl, The “ official” telegram comes out on Monday. But by that time the newspaper has again anticipated the Government in announcing the embassy from the Ameer to Roberts, understand that the Victoria Cross, the delay m the bestowal of which on Gieut. Hamilton recently murdered at Cabul was caused by some red-tape correspondence between the India Office and the Horse Guards, will be forwarded to the family of the deceased officer at Imstiogue. The Queen has personally expresed her smypathy with his parents, whose grief is rendered none the less poignant by the fact that they lost another son last j e r at the Cape, who w fß m the mounted police, Lieut, Hamilton was a grandson of the Jlate Sir Frederick Pollock L.C.B. of Jlhe Exchequer, and a great-nephew of Field-Marshal Sir *edenck Pollock, who won his laurels a Cabul m 1841 too.