WHAT “THE WOULD” SAYS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5237, 5 January 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHAT “THE WOULD” SAYS.

(From the World, Nov. 1-1.) The regiments returning home from India in the forthcoming trooping season are to be provided with Martini-Henry rifles before they embark, to be trained to their use, and to carry them with them. The arum will be useful in case they should be attacked by slave-dhows in the Ked Sea. Will it be credited that hitherto it has been the custom to put troops unarmed on board the transports? If their services were required at Malta, or elsewhere, what then ? Mr. Gladstone told his Irish admirers, on the occasion of their m dcing him a freeman, that he found more difficulty in traversing Dublin than any other city, on account of the traffic, and that there was more apparent commercial activity there than in any part of the kingdom outside London. This was a erurd irony. Dublin, to the man who has taken his ticket across Channel from Liverpool, looks jnoro like a cemetery than Chcapside. As to

commercial activity ia Dublin, there is little except iu" fery alcohol and brown stout. J. B. linckstone was, if unjust and ill-natured, more witty and nearer the truth when he described the leading Irish manufactures as “ whisky and manslaughter.” What can lie thought of a country in whoso leading daily newspaper appear such advertisements as the following :—“ To be sold cheap, two pairs of hunting breeches.” “ Wanted immediately, a new or second-hand hearse with plumes and canopies.” An oppressed land whose people sell their hunting-breeches and go to the grave in second-hand hearses cannot be prosperous. The hero of the march upon Coomassie has achieved a feat more hazardous, mayhap—a wedding march. Reginald Sartorins has been married at Simla to a daughter of tho late Surgeon-Major Kemp, May he never have cross more painful to be borne than that he won in Ashanti ! I am very sorry to hear that there have been recently a considerable number of books stolen .fi’om the British Museum reading-room. There are, as most people know, some thousands of books of reference at the free disposal of all who use the room, and it is from among these that thefts have occurred. None of the books stolen are worth more than, a few shillings when new, and it is hard to see how the thieves can dispose of them, as they are stamped with a crown and the words “ British Museum on back and front, as well as on the title-page. The authorities are unwilling to adopt the French plan of not allowing any one to leave the library without a sort of passport to show they have no books concealed in their writingcases, &c. -But it is evident that something will have to be done unless a purloiner is . caught soon. Does the Act of Parliament which permits of any one convicted of destroying works of art, which are national property, being ordered to be flogged, apply to bookstealers ? If not, it should be extended to them. It is small comfort to bear that at the Berlin library thefts have become so frequent that all books of reference have been removed from the reading-room. In these days of Central Asian rides it may be well to call to mind the fact that the late Sir . Henry Pottinger, when a lieutenant of native infantry, rode, “ partly in the disguise of a native pilgrim,” from India to Persia via Affghanistan and Beloochistan. He wrote an account of his adventures, illustrated with a map, but this has long since been out of print, and forgotten like the ride itself. Travelling through Italy and Sicily just now the general impression which one receives is that the Government of those countries is engaged in , making most strenuous precautionary arrangements against probable warfare. At numbers, of-.stations you see howitzers and mortars in process of transit by rail. Then the breechloaders have been taken from the police and-Customs officials, as if for use by the soldiery, and revolver pistols dealt out in their stead. At Messina and other Sicilian ports immense extensions and improvements in the outwork fortifications are now being actively carried out. Moreover, on the frontier the production of passports is every clay more rigidly insisted upon. A .great success has been achieved at the Promenade Concerts at Covent-garden this season by Madame Zimeri, who has proved herself one of the best soprani recently heard here. I expect Madame Ziraeri’s name will soon be widely popular among the cultivated cognoscenti. “A Student from the Royal Academy” writes from the Verulam Club as follows : “ The Grosvenor Gallery being avowedly established in no spirit of rivalry to the Royal Academy, but for the exhibition of a class of pictures which cannot be elsewhere seen, it would be a courteous act on the part of Sir Coutts Lindsay if he were to grant students of the Academy free admission to his Gallery. We students have, as a rule, few opportunities of studying that art which is called high, and neither our ideas nor our shillings are too plentiful.” I hope that when the Grosvenor reopens early next month Sir Coutts will consider this modest proposition. An account has been given of a deputation sent to Marshal MacMahon by the Conservative party in the Senate, which would lead to the conclusion that this was a spontaneous act, and therefore one of great significance, much depending upon the course which may be taken by the Upper House, which is believed to have its “ waverere.” The truth is that at a meeting of the Conservator senators, the strongest indisposition was manifested to the adoption of a suggested vote of confidence in the Cabinet ; M. Beraldi, in particular, declaring that his constituents would reject him at the next election if he supported such a motion, and that the Marshal had been already far too much identified with his Ministers. It was in order to remove the uneasy feeling created by this discussion at the Elysca that that the deputation in question was sent to reassure the Marshal of the attachment to his person of the senatorial majority, but towards the Cabinet their attitude remains unaltered. One of the most remarkable actors in the struggle of the Spanish Liberal party, Jos4 de Olozaga, died last week, on the anniversary of the death of his adversary, O’Donnell. Olozaga was residing in London forty years ago, when a general amnesty was proclaimed. Having been elected deputy to the Cortes by two constituencies, he returned to Spain on the faith of this amnesty ; but as soon as he set his foot on Spanish soil he was arrested, and imprisoned in the citadel of Pampeluna. America has sent a representative to the shires this season in the person of Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the Next) York Herald, whose pre-eminence in his own country as Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, polo-player, and amateur coachman, is well known. Mr. Bennett has taken a capital hunting-box at Melton, where his hospitality is presided over by his sister ; has a «fcud of twenty-two of the best hunters that money can buy, and will soon make his mark among the fliers of the Belvoir and the Quorn. Cardinal Manning left last week for Rome, in order to receive his hat. This is the second journey which his exaltation to the cardinalate has imposed on him ; and the business of receiving the bat means simply the payment of fees to the amount of some £3OO. All these expenses, in addition to innumerable public and private charities, must be provided out of a slender income made slenderer by the defalcations of a lawyer well known in Catholic society, which astonished London a year or two ago: Everybody who knows Mr. John Furley, of Keel Cross celebrity—who, for several years past, has been always foremost in the work of humanity in the battle-field—will be glad to hear that he has received a recognition of his bravery and kindness by being appointed by the King of Spain a Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.