GOSSIP.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 25, 16 September 1893, Page 10

GOSSIP.

Dr Nansen, who lately sailed from Christiania for the purpose of finding the North Pole, has with him a phonograph, into which his wife has sung all his favourite song's, and in which the little baby he has left as her only comfort has also uplifted his voice in a less musical manner. The Queen (says the Million) made her will in 1876, It is engrossed on vellum, quarto size, and it is bound as a volume, secured with a private lock. Several blank pages have been left at the end of the book for codicils, some of which have already been added. Thus, when the Princess Alice died in 1878, modifications of the bequest were rendered necessary, and in the summer of 1884, after the Duke of Albany’s death, further revisions were imperative. One entry relates entirely to the disposal of the Queen’s Jubilee gifts, which are not the property of the nation. The Queen, it is said, is very much upset about the loss of her warship Victoria, as her Majesty no boubt thinks that the same is a royal omen—for there was a vessel lost callep the Duke of Kent three months before the Queen’s father died ; also a ship was lost with all hands on the American coast “on the day of the Battle of Bull’s Run,” named Albert, six months before the ever-lamented Prince Consort died. Then the London teamboat Princess Alice was lost near Woolwich, on the Thames, when about 600 perished, and four months later, in the same year, her Majesty’s second daughter, the good and kind Princess Alice (the Grand Duchess of Hesse) died.