MAIL NEWS.

Mt Benger Mail, Volume 17, Issue 850, 22 August 1896, Page 3

MAIL NEWS.

Charles Dickens, son of the novelist, died at Kensington on July 20 of paralysis. The Kalaporc Cup was won by the Canadian riflemen at the tournament at Bisley on July 17. The scores of the various teams were as follow :—Canada 65(i points, England 644, Guernsey 618, Jersey 589. The sale of the paintings and other effects of the late Sir Frederick Leighton closed on July 18, and the executors are pleased at the result. At one time they would have gladly accepted £35,000 for everything, and proposed to sell the collection to the nation. The auction sale, however, realised £40,000, which brings the total proceeds of the Leigh lon estate up to nearly £IOO,OOO. A party of 200 Londoners were present at the Bayreuth Wagner Operatic Festival, beginning on Monday, July 27. The London subscriptions for the festival amount to £7,000.

A painting by Alma Tadema and one by Constable were purloined from a van en route from the City to Paddington on July 15. The Scotland Yard authorities believe they have been taken to New York, which, they allege, contains "a fence" for such property.

The Hon. Algernon Bourke, manager of White's Club, Willis Booms, London, stated recently that if the closing of the houses designated in the licensing laws should be enforced club life would be destroyed, and members obliged to do as men of similar means do in the United rftutes—that is, live in hotels. He said there had been a great decrease in drinking in the West End clubs in the last twenty years. Mr Henry Cockayne Cust, editor of Mr Astor's ' Tall Mall Gazette,' started on July I on a journey which he intends to make from one end of Africa to the other. He will begin at Cape Town and will reach Alexandria overland, if possible. Mr Cust proposes to erjuip himself with personal knowledge of the great continent now being opened to civilisation in order to resume public life in Parliament. His companion will be his secretary, Mr Lionel Bcclc. Her Majesty Queen Victoria has introduced telephones into Windsor Castle that communicate with Lord Salisbury at the Home Office, Marlborough House, and Buckingham Palace. It is proposed to add electrophones also. In that case the Queen will be put in the hearing of all the latest entertainments in the London theatres and concert halls.

The once beautiful Countess of Warwick, formerly Lady Brooke, of whom much Was known some years ago in connection with the Tranby Croft baccarat scandal, is now for the time a complete wreck. Her nervous system is shattered, and she is suffering from abject depression, the direct consequences of mental and physical strain. She is not expected to be able to appear in society until next season. Baron Albert Grant, the winning speculator, is again in the London Bankruptcy Court.

The Fourth Hu3sars, the " Queen's Own," are being raked fore-aud-aft by the Loudon Press for snobbish exclusiveness. A subaltern named Hodge and a lieutenant named Bruce Price have been compelled to resign from the regiment by "mess table persecution " because their incomes did not enable them " to keep hunters and racehorses." In Price's case the father of the young man intimates that his son was driven from the regiment in order to make a vacancy—-for Lieutenant Winston L. 8. Churchill, son of the late Lord Randolph Churchill. An animated picture of this year's Derby, with the Prince of Wales's Persimmon as the winner, is the feature of the Alhambra Music Hall, where it is nightly received with roars of applause.

Linton, an English bicyclist, at Calford on July 7, covered thirty-one miles and five yards in an hour, thus boating the world's record all the way from three miles to thirty-one miles. The previous record for an hour was twenty-nine miles and fortyfour yards. There is a likelihood that for a suitable price the Government of Denmark will sell the Danish West Indian island of St. Thomas, and that Great Britain will be the purchaser. She covets the place because it it will make au excellent American naval station.

Among other attentions to be paid to the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts in London during their visit will be a review at Aldershot Camp, never heretofore held except for crowned heads.

A whaler, of 300 tons burthen, and a small steamer, of about seventy tons, are now being fitted out, and it is intended that they will leave London on September 1 next on an Antarctic expedition, combining the twofold objects of commerce and research. Mr Borchgrevink will have charge of the expedition, and Mr Gilbert Bowick is chairman of the Committee. £5,000 has been found sufficient for the expenses.

South Londoners, on July 11, were surprised to see the Duchess of Albany riding on a fire engine, clinging to the brasswork, while the horses were galloping at a great pace to a fire. She wished to see the practical working of the department. The first class yacht 3 Meteor, Britannia, and Ailsa sailed a race on July 13 at Rothesay, Firth of Clyde. The course was fifty miles, and the Meteor crossed the line first.

The evidence adduced by the celebration by Cobdenites of the jubilee of the abolition of the corn laws, at Greenwich, at a whitebait dinner on June 28, is that Protection principles are on the increase in Kugland. The • Globe ' remarked, speakiDgof the celebration :—" Only the most rash will now venture to prophesy that in another fifty years this will be a Freetrado country." Even tho ' Saturday Review 'admitted that Freetrade has only a few celebrants. The Duchess of Sutherland opened Stratford House on June 'J7 to celebrate the first anniversary of the Society of Lady Journalists. The guests were welcomed by Mrs Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) and her colleague. The guests included Mr A. J. Balfour, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Rosebery, Mr Henry Asquith, Lord Ronald Gower, Oscar Browning, William Black, and others of equal note. The Duchess of Sutherland, like her sister, the Countess of Warwick, is an occasional contributor to the Frets,