TABLE TALK.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 439, 22 January 1890, Page 3

TABLE TALK.

< (FROM our special correspondent.) London, November 29. The ranks of aristocratic wine merchants, which already include members of the Campbell, Neville and Russell families,have 1 just received an important recruit in the , person of your old acquaintance the Hon. Ivo Bligh, who, though only one step from the Earldom of Darnley, has become “something in the city” by joining the old established port house of Morgan Brothers. Mr W. E. Chapman (best known to fame as “Ithuriel”) some time ago severed his connection with the “ Topical Times,” and has started a theatrical paper of his own, bearing the rather ill-omened name of “London. ” At least three newspaper ventures with this title have come to grief within my memory. Mr Chapman’s “London ”is modelled on the “Topical Times,” and probably intended to squelch that not too popular periodical. The initial issue contains an interesting interview with Irving anent the “DeadHearb,”andasympathetic little story by C. Haddon Chambers. Mr Chapman’s action against his old employers for inserting some coarse jokes in their paper above his signature of “ Ithuriel ” will not, from all accounts, come to anything. The exchange of epistolary courtesies between Robert Buchanan and George Moore has ended in the latter and “ brother Augustus,” of the “Hawk,” bringing an action for libel against the Scotch poet. The letter they specially complain of appeared in the “ Era ” of November 22nd. DEATH OF FREDERICK CLAY. Poor Frederick Clay, who has been hope lessly paralysed for the last six years (in fact ever since the production of a luckless opera of his at the Alhambra), passed quietly away at a little Thames-side cottage on Wednesday last. His successes were chiefly operettas and ballads. He wrote the music to some of Gilbert’s earliest and most whimsical pieces, notably “Princess Toto” and “Ages Ago,” the latter the heau ideal of a drawing-room operetta for amateurs. I frequently wonder it isn’t oftener used, but amateurs are hopelessly conservative. They never get much beyond “Cox and Box,” or “Blind Beggars.” Clay is, however, best known by his ballads, many of which (notably “ The Sands of Dee,” “ I’ll Sing the Songs of Araby,” and “She Wandered Down the Mountain Side”) seem likely to remain permanently popular. JOURNALISTIC NOTES. The morning papers which get the first handling of Stanley’s letters pay £I,OOO a-piece for the privilege. It was anticipated, of course, when the arrangement was made, that a much greater number of budgets than the three or four they have had would reach this country. I see Rider Haggard’s new one-volume story, entitled “Allan’s Wife,” will not after all run serially through the illustrated papers, but be published on Wednesday next by Spencer Blackett, price six shillings. LITERARY NOTES.

Ever since the secret of “ Basil’s ” pseudonym leaked out his work has steadily fallen off in quality. There are streaks of cleverness in “Passion’s Slave” (justissued in three volumns by Chattos), but it doesn’t deserve mention beside “ A Drawn Game” or “Love the Debt.” Plot there is none worth naming. Some new characters are grouped round the old, old situation of a young fool falling passionately in love with a scheming coquette, only to find when too late that she has married him for his money, and really loves another man. In such a case, you are aware there is only one course open to the hero—viz., to make platonic love to the good girl he ought to have married, and who of course secretly adores him. The wicked wife must then be got rid of somehow. In “Passion’s Slave” she tries to poison her husband, and flies, pursued by the Nemesis of remorse and (as she supposes) the police. Eventually, the guilty woman throws herself, distraught, into a Liverpool dock and drowns, to the satisfaction of the rest of the characters. l T ou needn’t read “ Passion’s Slave.” Both in matter and illustrations Miss Braddon’s “Mistletoe Bough” this year shows marked improvement. The editor contributes a characteristic murder story called, “ One Fatal Moment,” and there is also a most ingenious yarn about a diamond robbery entitled, “ A Terrible Experience,” in which an unfortunate artist is made to innocently callaborato with a clever thief When the artist finally clears himself of the charge of collusion, another victim of the same gang turns up, and the pair arrange a skilful and elabarate trap for their mutual foe. The “ Mistletoe Bough” also contains a readable tale of Oxford Commemoration week about “ A Smug,” which would do but for its finale. Not even at the ’Varsity, I imagine, has a man ever been introduced to a girl one afternoon and proposed to her the same evening. AN OLD MANIA. One imagined that the mania for collect* ing foreign stamps, so prevalent 20 years ago, had pretty well died out, but from the prices realised in the open market by some rare issues the other day this cannot be, At Parr’s auction sale, to which I refer, a complete issue of Cabul stamps fetched £300; Mauritius (1847), £2OO ; Sandwich Isles (1852), £200; British Guiana (1856), £l2O ; Natal (first issue), £100; and Cape of Good Hope (1860), £4O. It is quite possible some of you colonials may have a few of the last-named quaint three cornered labels on old letters.

Talking of manias reminds me that one of the most remarkable collections of autographs ever known is to be dissipated at Sotheby’s next week. It consists of three hundred letters and manuscripts only, but everyone is of itself a curio. For instance, there is a letter from Disraelli, written shortly before he entered Parliament, and asking that a dishonoured bill might be renewed. He declares loftily that he “is at present engaged in important public affairs, and does not wish to be troubled with any commonplace business, or embarrassed in my affairs.” This collection also contains a number of letters from Shelley, Lord Byron, and the older Whig statesmen. : CHRISTMAS CARDS. Hildesheimer and Faulkner score over their great rivals, - Raphael, Tuck and Co., this year in the matter of Christmas cards, though as manufacturers of panels and photos on opaline glass, etc., the latter still remain unsurpassed. Tuck’s “ Sistina Madonna” panel is a really wonderful piece of colour printing,'and framed in oak makes as handsome apresentas anyone withartiaticinstinct could wish to receive. The names of both firms aie, however, guarantees for novelty and go<pd taste, and, if you are buying cards I strongly advise you to look for their imprints. You will then at least have the consolation of knowing, that - you are buying this year’s , novelties, and not stale relics of the last decade. Drapers are the greatest sinners in the matter of passing. off old cards for new; They buy up cheap lots by the inferior makers, and their plausible assistants palm them off on the unwary members of the weaker sex as the “latest.”