TOPICS OP THE DAY. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 390, 3 August 1889, Page 5

TOPICS OP THE DAY. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Lojidox, June 14. RENSHAWS DEFEATED. The Lawn Tennis world is in quite a ferment in consequence of the hitherto invin. cible Renshaws having been decisively beaten by the Irish champion W. J. Hamilton. Hamilton beat the two brothers in consecutive days, and they were admittedly in their best form. The Wimbledon tournament will, in consequence, be of extraordinary interest this year, and attract experts from all parts of England. I understand the Renshaws profess themselves by no means confident of reversing the form.

I PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR. I hear that Prince Albert Victor, who has been in love with his pretty cousin, the Princess May of Teck, ever s>ince he was a boy, vows solemnly that if he can't marry her he won't marry anyone. Both " father " and " grandmama " oppoee the match on manygroun-Js, but if Eddy's heart "remains true to Poll " (to quote a popular song) he will probably get his way in the end. The Queen has not so much to say against the marriage as the Empress of Germany,' who has daughters of her own, and would gladly (first - cousinship notwithstanding) have bestowed one on her nephew. Unfortunately, they ate fab, podgy girls, and looked plain even beside the young Princesses of Wales. Princess May, of course, ig simply lovely. For a long time she hoped to marry the lucky "Jimmy," and His Grace on dit fancied the idea. The Queen, however, imperatively forbade it.

THE SHAH OP PERSIA. The royalties and noblemen who have been "commanded" to entertain that dusky potentate Nasr-ed-din during his stay in England, are by no means enchanted by the prospect. The truth is, the Shah's ways are eccentric. In appearance he leaves little to be desired (especially in his best clothes), but His Majesty's peraonal habits are said to bear startling affinity to those of that useful but malodorous domestic animal, the pig. This peculiarity seems to have been painfully borne in upon the young Emperor of Germany the other day. Ceremony would not permit of his shortening by one half second the embrace of welcome' the convenances obliged him to bestow on the wily Persian, but after heroically kissing His Majesty on both cheeks he could not suppress the muttered groan " Liebe Ilimmel ! er I remember that when the Shah was here in 1873, the fact ,of his smelling strong caused considerable inconvenience. Only Orientals with castiron noses could indeed be long in His Majesr.y's presence without suffering nausea. Ladies, as a rule, found one whiff of the Royal Persian a sure emetic. According to report, he has in no way become Europeanised during the last sixteen years. The Queen wanted to get out of lending the Shah and his suite accommodation at Buckingham Palace and to billet 'them at Clai'idges. But Lord Salisbury intimated that to the Palace they must go, even though the Queen has (as in 1873) to clean, relit and refurnish every chamber Nasr-ed-din occupies.