HOME GOSSIP FOR THE EVENING STAR.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2037, 15 July 1875, Page 3

HOME GOSSIP FOR THE EVENING STAR.

London, May sth. The Royal Academy has opened; the other summer picture exhibitions have been open for some time; the two opera .' houses aro in full swing; Moody and Sankey are performing at the de&erted house in tho Haymarket; and the coach clubs hare turned out; so there are stirrings enough among us just now. Also Mr Browning" has published a poem which no ono understands, but which, in the present state of jpoetical taste, is all the, more delightful for that; " Aristophanes Apology" it is called; but " why t apology?" "we may ask, as.Miss Betsy , Notwood asked s" why rookery ?' con"cerning some trees in which there were no rooka, since Aristophanes does not apologise for his drunkenness and some other little peccadilloes, but, on the contrary, tries to bully Balanstion,. the •devoted admirer of-Euripides, in acknowledging him, as a greater poet than the latter. At least this is as far as we have " taken the sense " of the poem, which, as I have said, no one pretends to understand altogether. Mr Browning is responsible for his own poem, but it is imfortunate when people will make themselves responsible for giving t0" fcne w. orld writin Ss which the writers thereof evidently never intended should be so given, which is the case with " Angela Pisani" in a novel written, or rather sketchod by the late Lord Strangford, and now published ,T?ith.outi any- "apparent reason, certainly without' any apparent effect, beyond showing the world what a very silly, vulgar, and rather fie-fie book a gentleman could write who was accomplished, and, on .the whole, decently ' Virtuous '"-in his principles and conduct. The Academy is said to be quite equal to last year,.,which is saying that it is superior '-to several years before that, but not having yet seen and judged personally, this is only current report. The Prince'of Wales said so at the dinner, but then not only the Prinqe of Wales, but everyone.else at the dinner tras bound td say' so. 1 would not one say for a dinner? Or what could * one say of any ".collection of pictures, when surrounded by the painters of them ? Prury Lane and .Ooyent Garden have I- provided ' well^this ' season. Besides Madame Nilsson and Titiens at the ;;is.,,a, new. prjma donna, ' Mdlle. de Belocea, already famous on the Continent; arid besides' Madame Adelina t PatH,, and -Mdlle. Albani at Covent : Garden, "there is a debutante, Mdlle. . Zare. Thalberg, ,of- .whom, great things : have been prophesied. Madame Nilsson made.her first .appearance this year in '" "H Talismani," which' is evidently growine^in favour with-the public, although ''there is no doubt that Madame Nilsson, . ■ in,,. choosing^ it,, ,is also -influenced, ,by friendship for"the composer and the com-•V-iKMer's widow. - t , ', , . '"\ The School Board is carrying its freaks -.beyond,the powerof-endurance; Costly '^school-houses, built where none were .<jwanted.s,might,.b«s put -up with; the building gave" employment at any rate. -Prose^cutionsMofi poor widows or -'struggling working men who had to keep an -. -dder child at home .tolook-after the little ones, had to be put with, the prosecuted vi halving noTed*ess;;'b»t it- has come now *" to knocking up private schools by a "rjystem of persecution 'against' tire pro- " prietors, and a system of bribery to well able to' pay for private education for their children; bribery in v taking) I such'children into the .Board School! at a ridiculously small fee; the s-..'Board' Schools' rate:growmg higher every year. It is pleasant, at all events, to see numerous protests against the system are not all without effect. One, Jvthe eother day, from the'inhabitants'of a district where one of these costly "^•edifices was 1 about'- to.be'erected, caused the estimate, in very shame, to be revised; ': and the cons'equene'was a saving of;£1100 to the ratepayers. r ,In the meantime ."indignation 1 meetings are the order of the day. „ , . ,-..-. -„ ' ' 'Our-'utilitanans are"inviting our atten tion to a,fact which should have required " -no">invit'atibn,'th'e neglect of bee keeping as a mode of. making, money. "A. neglected industry;" a" writer to the Standard calls it;,, but the .bees being. the_ indusrtrious.inihe'case, and not being disposed .at.any time to neglect their work when -'tfiey -get "encouragement or even permission, to perform it, the phrase is, " scarcely correct as applied to those who do not give ,them the encouragement or "the permission. It "is certain that not'a tenth parMf the honey is madejn England s'which' *night be 'made, but some • people-who have .written ,on-the subject forget that honey 'made in a highly cultivated country like England is not always 'wholesome,'.and that' therefore though .there-might.be twenty, timesi as much honey made, not a fifth part of it would be .really profitable to the bee-keepers-rafter ' this fact' had been ascertained by expedience—and. certainly not,the consumers. Heather arid gorse, and some of the field wild flowers are,.the, proper gathering grounds of tho bees. English orchards -would afford,- no 'doubE, good honey, though not very much of it; but garden flowers of most" 1 sorts produce, honey which is almost poisonous. The Scotch and Irish mountains are our best bee pastures at prespnt, but unfortunately the climate of both countries is too damp to admit of the most being made of them which otherwise might. The 'moisture produces mortality among the bees which interferes sadly with the keepers' profits; were it not so, Ireland and Scotland could produce enough honey to make it'a very important branch of commerce for the whole nation. Talking-of industry, our ipdustrious Kleng firm' s'here have just hit upon another ingenious device, but had, not even as long a success with it as they had with the gas business. That, you i ■"may" remember,' was managed by going round to respectable houses, and slating that they were sent by the Gas Company to look at the burners, and put on new ones if necessary. One of,the companies 'braving resojved'to use ordinary instead of Cannel coal,;had sent a notice to the 1 customers that new burners might be required ;' which notice of course served as an introduction for. these gentlemen. Having put on new burners on the gasaliers, the value of which might be about fourpence each ; they demanded paymentvarying from,£l to £2 or £3 according to Ithe number put on.. They were, of •course, detected after a short time, and •are now relieved from further industry on their own account fo? a while. The last dodge is this — a person- goes

into a small shop, generally a newly established ono, and asks for some article winch is not in stock ; often two or three people go in succession. The shopkeeper find'ng this ii,;i:-lo 'n di'inancl. resolves lo order it, but before time is allowed to do so, a man. apparently {a commercial traveller, drives up with parcels of tho ai'Licles in question; of course effects a sale; and equally of course, when it is offered to a honafic^e. customer, it is found to be worthless. At Grcnwich a fellow got £6 10s out of a poor man by these means ; but trying it on another poor man at Chelsea, to the tune of some shillings, he was detected, and this not regulated industry put a stop to. One of the most interesting books of the present season is " Macrcady's -Reminiscences, and Selections from his Diary and Letters," edited by Sir Frederick Pollock. Not only is the life of Macready as a man and as a actor interesting in itself, and alto for the anecdotes and bits of biography concerning other people necessarily introduced, but no diary or autobiography ever published was ever so free from egotism, so singularly candid as this. People interested in dramatic gossip, past as well as present, .willbe pleased to ref'reslr their memories with regard to the quarrel between the writer and Bunn, in which Macready takes more share to himself of blame than we should now be disposed—remembering what a humbue Bunn was—to consider he deseived, violent as his behavior undoubtedly was ; also with respect to th^B unwarrantable attack m.ide on him in America by a mob of the Forrest faction. ■But people among us who are tired of the lingering puritanical prejudice againsjt 11 phy actors " will bo most pleased by the picture of this domestic and truly re> -ligious man in his family: this thorough good son, husband, and father. • • Our Eoyal Family have lost one of •its oldest friends I say have in defiance of grammar, in order to mark tho fact' ;that Lady Caroline .Barrington, - lately dead, was not only a friend of the family a personal friend to each member of it.-. It is said tho Queen feels her loss severely. Her funeral was attended by every male member of Eoyalty at present in town. Dr Eenealy's motion in the case of the Queen r. Castro has been made at last,, and the doctor, most probabiy, feels not quite so big as before it was made. He had. called on the people of- England to preserve order in coming to see him into the House en the great day,: but the people ,of England did not come in sufficient numbers ,to make order very difficult to be- observed; albeit, ! some of them were among the mdst disorderly of our people. He had an ovation of two old shoes thrown after him as he entered, to which some person considerately added a bunch of laurel leaves ; but would have done better, perhaps in adding a sprinkling of Condy's fluid, or carbolic acid. Inside the House he made a mighty speech, 'mighty in length, on conclusion ;of which his motion obtained one aye from the member for Galway, Major--O'Gorman ; Mr Whailey merely entering an opinion that the Orton or Castro ,_case was a Jesuit conspiracy, which was quite unnecessary as he had given" that opinion so often before. ' The latest secession to the Church of Borne here is the Rev. Lord Francis G. Godolphin Osborne, rector of Great, 1 Elm, son of theiate Duke of Leeds, and J nephew of the Hon. Sydney Godolphin Osborne, the S.G.O. of the newspapers, who some time ago wrote so many articles on church matters in general under those initials.