TABLE. TALK. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, June 27.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 398, 31 August 1889, Page 3

TABLE. TALK. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. ) London, June 27.

PREPARATIONS FOR RECEIVING J THE SHAH. A lively recollection of the condition i n which Buckingham Palace was left after Nasr-ed-din's visit in 1873, has induced Her Majesty to remove all furniture and bric-a-brac which she values from the state apartments, and to i*efurnish them suitably with a special view to the Shah's convenience and eccentricities. This has been an expensive business, and our frugal-minded Sovereign has groaned in spirit over it. The Royal entry of tho Shah into London on Wednesday next is to be a pageant of unusual magnificence, and the streets in the route from the Speaker's steps at Westminster (where His Majesty will land) to Buckingham Palace, are to be bung with flags and lined with mounted troops. An escort of Hussars will accompany the Shah whenever he appears in oublic in London, and the Queen's semi- 8 bate carriages have been placed at his disposal. Augustus Harris is making tho most elaborate preparations for the Shah's visit to Covent Garden, and the librai-ians ask £10 a- piece (the nominal price is three guineas) for the few stalls open to the public. It is sincerely to be hoped that no contretemps^ such as threatened to mar the Shah's visit to the Royal Italian opera in 1873, will occur this time. On that occasion, though the Princa of Wales and the English royalties arrived punctually at 9 (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performance), the Shah* and' his satellites failed to put in an appearance.till 10.30, or even later. By this" time\ the- first act of the "Traviata," in which Christine Nillso'ri (then at the zemth ofher popularity) played " Violetta " in a magnificent costume (specially ordered for the occasion), was over and Titiens was singing in an act of '* Lucrezia Borgia." An act of " Mignon " ought to have wound up the evening, but, to the horror of" the management, Nillson turned sulky and declined to play the beggar girl. She would only be pacified by an immediate introduction to the Shah, to whom she said she wished to explain matters. This had consequently to be effected somehow, and presently JN'asr-ed-din (conversing with the Prince of Wales in his private room) was astounded by the vision cf a pretty womau in picturesque rags, who, skipping up to him, wagged a dainty finger in his face and said in French, ** Oh 1 you naughty, naughty Shah to be so late. I had got such a lovely frock to sing to your Majesty in, and now you will only see me in this beggar girl's dress."

LADY STUDENTS. There is wailing and gnashing of teeth ab Girton and ISfewnham this week. Instead of six fair students (as was confidently expected) securing " first " classics, bub one appears in the lists, and then only in the third division. Moreover, this is not the worst. A would be lady doctor, a fluent speaker, and a "man-hater" of the most aavanced type, has absolutely been ignominiously "ploughed" — just like a common boy !

THE DANGER OF HYPNOTISM. The great Parisian expert, Dr. Charcot, has found himself reluctantly obliged to announce that all hopes of making hypnotism (or mesmerism as we call it) an important therapeutic agent in nervous diseases must be abandoned. The chief hope of the hypnotists appears to have been based upon the treatment by what is known as the theory of suggestion of various obscure nervous diseases, such as certain forms of paralysis and hysteria. The theory apparently is to first mesmerize the patient, and then, while he is in that state, so to work upon his will by force of .3ug-_ gestion as to induce him to throw off the disease, which in many cases, as is wellknown, is only of a mental or hypochondriacal form. Many remarkable instances of cures wrought in this way have been recorded from* time to time ; but whether upon satisfactory evidence we cannot say. At any rate, the experience of Dr. Charcot, an extensive one gained at the Salp6triere in Paris, does not enable him to entertain any sanguine hope that the system will prove more beneficial than others which have been tried and found wanting before it. Whatever theory may be held as to the treatment of paralysi3 by hypnotic suggestion, Dr. Charcot does not hesitate to say that in practice the system is not so efficacious as it was expected to be. He says :—": — " Since ray first experiments in hypnotism at the Salp^triere, we have often employed it with advantage in the case of patients susceptible to it, to cure them of the various symptoms commonly characteristic of hysteria, and we almost thought that nothing was easier than to cure quickly and certainly in this way all hysterical affections. But we were soon forced to the opposite conviction ; the study of male hysteria especially gave the deathblo,w to the illusion. We discovered that with a little perseverance we could hypnotize a whole number of women, and while they were in this condition free them from, their momentary symptoms ; with a number of others it was impossible to induce hypnotism. In the case of the male sex the position was reversed. In the far larger number of cases it is exceedingly difficult to hypnotize hysterical men ; and it may be added that it is often dangerous to do so, and in the majority of cases useless. The danger was shown by the fact that more than once it happened that in the effort to hypnotize an hysterical man an attack of convulsions was brought on, and that henceforth the disposition to. such attacks remained ;.so that the attempt to cure, far from benefiting the patient, only did him harm." In summing up, Dv. Charcot admits that the system may be useful in the case of hysterical women, who are easily hypnotized, but that it is valueless as a therapeutic system in organic nervous disease such as epilepsy. Those who expect more of i.b, or employ it uncriti-, cally, will, he says, derive nothing from it but mischief and perplexity. I can, from my own knowledge, add' a few facts to this. You may remember my 1 describing to you a remarkable series of exhibitions of mesmerism by a Dr: Milo de Meyer, at St. James's Hall, last winter. I" told you then, that some of Che subjects experimented upon went every night to the platform, and that .when closely questioned they averred the process seemed to do them little or no harm. Well, the other day I met, quite accidentally, in the train, one of these young men. He looked ill, and volunteered the information that he , had never been right since the de Meyer seances. At first he said he went to St. fames' Hall because he liked going, but after a time it began to affect his sleep and upset/ his nerves. He tried to give it up, but every night at eight he somehow found himself in the hall. The Professor never asked him to come aga,in when awake, but he believed he ordered him to do so when mesmerised. At last he taxed De o Meyer with this. The horrid man only laughed, and said his nerves ■ were unstrung ;he would give him a tonic. When at last De Meyer left London the lad was ill for more than a month. He said he dreaded intensely meeting De Meyer again, as he knew he would be obliged to do what-

over the man told him. -Others also could mesmerise him .now. His eld. Qr, brother oc1 casionally did so to get him to sleep. He slept very badly now, whereas ho had once slept very well. He added that he cursed the day he allowed the hypnotist to fascinate him. This is not a very dreadful story perhaps, but it should suffice to prevent sensible youths from tampering with unknown powers. Personally, lam now more than ever of opinion that hypnotism should bo made the subject of legislation.

"LITTLE' LORD Jb'AUNTLEROY." Eight performances b week were beginning to tell on little Vera Beringer, and in consequence " The Real Little lord Fauntleroy " has been taken out of the eveningbill at the Opera Comique. • Willie Edouin and Alice Atherton replace the Beringers with a silly farce called " Our Flat," which met with a doubtful reception at a matinee recently. Another apparently equally -foolish play, called *' iEsop's Fables," was unequivocally damned at tho Strand Theatre on Saturday.

THE MAYBRJCK CASE. It is not correct that Sir C. Russell has accepted a brief for the defence in the Maybrick case. The fair prisoner's interests have been confided to Mr Gully, Q.C., M.P., who shares with Mv Addison the honour of getting; most of the smart briefs on the Northern circuit. Mrs Maybrick's friends moved heaven and earth to secure Sir Eward Clarke, whose great speech on behalf of Mrs Bartlett in the Pimlico poisoning case was the most brilliant forensic effort of recent times. Unfortunately, Sir Edward's official position made it impossible for him to appear at assizes. > •

the. dattoan; breach 'of • *'■ JPR'dMISE. • "'" It has at lengtn been 1 .formally announced fchab Phyllis Brousrhton's divorce auib against Lord Dangah has been compromised for £2,500, the bridegroom paying all costs. The fair Phyllis for a long time held out ' for £5,000, and at the clubs many wagers were laid that she got it. -Lord Dangan's parents, however, refused They were anxious, they admitted, to avoid the disagreeables of a cause celebre and would pay a reasonable sum to avoid it; but £5,000 was too much.

THE LETINE CASE.— A COINCIDENCE. . A somewhab odd coincidence in connection with the " Lambeth tragedy " may be worth mentioning. In the June number of the " Sunday Magazine," under the title of "An Acrobat's Girlhood," the story of poor little Beatrice Cunach's life is told almost word for word as the world knows it to-day from the daily paper?. Almost the' only difference in the two narratives is that the names are different, and the father does not in fiction murder the head of the acrobaoic troupe. The .authoress, Miss Hesba Stret.ton, whose life seems devoted to .'writing tale's' of this 'class,- has not yet declared herself as i to* 1 whether or no she was writing tlie /biography of -the unfortunate Beatrice, or, on the % other hand, whether the - story was pure If the latter, surely 'tis one of the rn^osir extraordinary cases of a type of secoltd-'sjfghfc ever known. Almostall details — th%*p'6tting i • on of plasters, the gradual weakening', 'the" father's grief — are absolutely identical. Beatrice is changed to Rosa in the fictibn, thot is all. The child's companion in the Letine troupe is named R>o*a, by the way, which would seem to point that Miss Stretton was acquainted with the fact and told her story, sticking as closely to it as possible. Ordinarily the "Sunday Magazine" has no very great call on back numbers, but this month they have completely sold out.