WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2564, 9 June 1881, Page 2

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

SECOND EDITION

(By “ Atlas.”)

The Boers excel, it seems, in shooting game which is going from them. They cannot hit with the same unerring skill what is coming towards them, as is, I believe, the case with many excellent sportsmen. Does the terrible execution made by their Westley Richards mean that our men gave them the sort of shooting they preferred ?

The Boat-race was in reality a much hollower affair than the warmest partisans of Oxford ever expected. Many of them thought that Cambridge would bo first through Hammersmith Bridge, most expected a determined struggle at Chiswick, and not a few openly assorted that there was not a pin to choose between the two crews. But Oxford was never headed from start to finish, and were gradually but surely making ground the whole way. Tory soon after Hammersmith it was almost any odds on the Dark Blues, for the simple reason that every time the Cambridge stroke tried to quicken, the boat fell more or less to pieces. The Empress of Austria can say smart things, possibly unconsciously. The other day it is said that she attended a meet close to the house of a gentleman not celebrated for bis love of foxes. They drew covert after covert blank, and at last the Empress, wearied out, was persuaded to go into the bouse to lunch. Inside, to her surprise, she saw foxes’ heads and brashes hanging everywhere. ‘Ah, Lady So-and-so,’ was her remark in broken English, ‘ I now understand why you have no foxes in your coverts. They are all shot for to decorate your house.’

I hear that the sura of three thousand was paid to Mr Millais by the proprietors of the “ Illustrated London news” for his charming Academy paintof “ Cinderella,” designed, of course, for a Christmas Supplement. An English archbishop requested a friend to engage a house for his archlordship at Biarritz. Unable to obtain one house of sufficient pretensions, his friend hired two. The archbishop arrived, condemned the two houses off hand as unsuited to his rank, went elsewhere to an hotel, paying 4001.,' nuiui u-ixiuucjr' rur mo two lio'tiscs*

The Government have probably not yet realised the storm that they have raised in the army by the astounding surrender to the Boors. Some of our best regiments are smarting under defeat, and have to return to this country without wiping out the stigma. The Gordon Highlanders must bitterly regret that they volunteered for the Cape instead of coming home with their Afghan honors fresh upon them.

The Grand-Duke Constantine’s eldest son, who has been so many years in disgrace, applied himself humbly to the Emperor to be allowed to visit St Petersburg, and to gaze once more on the honoured features of the late Czar. The unfortunate prince met with a cruel rebuff, and was informed by telegraph that the misdoings of him and his could never bo forgotten.

I hear as a fact that another young lady of rank, on attending confessional subsequent to the catastrophe of March 13, discovered to her confessor that beyond the peccadilloes, concerning which she easily unburdened her mind, there was one really dead secret in her bosom. The holy father plied her so skilfully with interrogations, and worked so successfully on her feelings, that she became hysterical; but divulge the secret she would not. Disturbed at the excitement of mind he had produced, the father informed the young lady’s parents of what had passed, and begged them to look after her. The unfortunate girl blew out her brains with a pistol next day.