HOME GOSSIP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 181, 31 July 1879, Page 4

HOME GOSSIP.

Table napkins are now regularly supplied at the cheap dining-rooms of Berlin made of tissue-paper, with a colored ornamental border. They are fold at about nine or ten for a penny, •-d are also coming into vo^ue in In America. A Boston firm claims to have sold 250,000 within a year. The rumor is again revived of the forthcoming marriage of th« remaining unmarried daughter of the Queen— the Princess Beatrice. Her future huaband is said to be Prince Alexander of Battenherg, who was recently elected Prince of Bolearia, and who is now on » visit to her Majesty and (he Princess at Balmoral. The Duke of Argyll has gone to Canada to see his eon, the Marquis of Lome. The popularity of the Governor is very great, and both be and hit royal wife are thoroughly delighted with the country. The Princess Louise, who is often to be seen at the theatre, ia occupying her spare time in painting 8 potrail in oil of Mrs ScottSiddons for presentation to that wellknown actreec Her Majesty the Queen has become ft great grandmother, and the Emperor of Germany a great grandfather, by the birth of a daughter to the present Duke of Saxony, Hereditary Prince of SaxeMeningen. The wife of the Prince, who is only nineteen years of age, is a daughter of the Crown Prince of Germany and the Princess Boyal. The Queen is not sixty, and she is a great grandmother, thirty-nine years after her own marriage. No slight commotion has been caused among the pleasure-loving section of the people of Berlin by a police order decreeing the closing of all dancing resorts by midnight, a measure equivalent to their entire abolition. Hundreds will be ruined by this decree (the proprietor of one temple of Terpsichore his already committed suicide), but the Minister of the loterior ia entitled to the highest praise for putting a stop to a etcte of things which was giving Berlin the most unenviable reputation ia Europe. At a recent Primitive Methodist prayer meetiog held at Runcorn, Cheshire, a local preacher, in the course of his address to the Deity, made use of the following extraordinary words : — "O Lord, these are bad times, and there's a good many people got naught to eat, because they've got no bread. There's a good many peop'e out of work, because the've got no work to do; and, O Lord, they (ell me that it is all through an old Jew who lives in London. Slay him, 0 Lord ! If I alay him they'll hang me; but do thou ■lay him, O Lord, for they can't bane thee I" J B The contents of Gunnergate Hall, near Middleaboroogb, are to be brought under the hammer. Its late proprietor, John Vaughan (of the famous firm of Bolckiow, Vaogban, & Co.), died in 1868, leaving Gunnergate Hall and half a million to his son. Eight years after Thomas Vaugban was s bankrupt. The billiard room of Gunnergate is said to have cost frcm £10,000 to £40,000. Ia the smoking room the spittooos cost £20 each. In some of the rooms the leather coverings of the seatß cost £18 per yard. A single fireplace cost £2000, and the owner's bedstead £1500. The Queen has instituted a new Order of Merit for nurses, and on the Bth Jane tbree ladies who bad beeD •elected for the honor from those trained in Lady Augusta Stanley's Home, were presented by Sir Rtiiherfori Alcock with a badge of the Order of St. Katheriop, the possession of which entitles the owner to several privileges ana benefits, incloding £60 per annum. The larger number of well-dressed persons who now crowd the pavements, and the increased stream of carriages at the West End, proclaim that the London season has begun, and that a large accession of visitors is taking place. Many of these throng the Royal Academy from an early hour, end at night a stream of ye : ioles extend down tke streets in the neighborhood of the most attractive theatres, while the paries and squares are donning their earliest livery of green, so that London is now beginning to wear a much more animated appearance than it has presented for some time past. Ten thousand pounds for a grouse moor! This is the sum just paid by Ifr Reuben Senior for the property known as the Good bent Estate, in f Hoddersfield, comprising 747 acres of 'moorland property, part of which is under cultivation. The estate is one of the most prolific for grouse in Yorkshire, and, ib addition to beiog easy of access, there are two farms or shoot-ing-boxes on the land. £10,000 ia undoubtedly a good rouod figure to pay for the property, but if the ground is let by ticket a good annual income will be secured. A copyright >ase of an important character bis just been decided by Vice-Cbancellor Sir J. Bacon. Tha proprietors of Bow Bells brought an action against Messrs Brooks and Co., the celebrated art publishers, for « damages for warning the trade against p-urohasbiog with Bow Bells a wool pattern of Mr Millais' picture "The Huguenots," of the print of which the last-mentioned had obtained the copyright. It was proved that since the plaintiff's patterns bad been produced, the aalea of the defendants' copyright had fallen off, and the Vifeo • Chancellor, dismissing the action for slander, the tables were tuned, and Meears Dicks were ordered fo pap ft for every copy sold, half of

which was to go to the Crown, and naif to the defendants. As it was proved that no fewer than 25,000 copies were disposed of, Bow Bells would be mulcted in the sum of £6229 odd.