General News.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3788, 17 February 1881, Page 3

General News.

At Tasmania, on the 26th December, a woman, under the influence of drink, fell off the wharf and was drowned. A baker, a good swimmer, was also drowned at Sandy Bay baths. It is supposed that he was suffering from sunstroke. Next day there was a terrific westerly gale, which blew down a great number of trees and played sad havoc. A merry go-round in the domain fell, killing a man. The cricket pavilion was blown down. Some children were playing about; one was killed and twelve were taken to the hospital, of whom two- are not expected to survive. Some shipping was blown from the wharf; one yacht disappeared. Two carriages were blown over the embank inent of Huon road, and a lady was injured. Quite a sensation was created in the fashionable world of London by a masquerade dinner, given by a young and beautiful widow, the possessor of a splendid house, where everything is en regie, and all the appointments of the .choicest. The company was the creme de la creme of society. All came to dinner with real concealing masks on their faces, and the resulting mistakes and discoveries ■*$$re not all agreeable. This rather risky, not to say frisky, style of entertainment is, it is said, likely to become fashionable. Alas, tbat it should be so in erstwhile decorous England, but we need not be astonished at anything now a.-days. Fancy young girls walking and dancing with elbows akimbo, while the lower part of the arms and hands wave about, propelling, as it were, the rest of the body. This, says a London paper, is the latest fashion in gait. By all accounts the rage for what is termed " art " is about at its height in London.

Here are Lord Beaconsfield's opinions j on dress, delivered through the medium of j Mr Vigo, his tailor:—" I have known many an heiress lost by her suitor being ill dressed," said Mr Tigo. " You must dress according to your age, your pursuits, your objects in life. You must dress to, in some cases, according to your set. In youth, a little fancy is rather expected ; but if political life be your object, it should be avoided at least after one and twenty. lam dressing two brothers .now—men of considerable position. One is a mere man of pleasure; the other will probably be a Minister of State. They are as like as two peas, but were I to dress the dandy and the Minister the same it would be in bad taste—it would be ridiculous. No man gives me the trouble which Lord Eglantine does. Hft has not made up his mind whether he will be a great poet or a Prime Minister. 'You must choose, my lord," I tell him. ' I cannot send you out looking like Lord Byron if you mean to be a Canning or a Pitt.' I have dressed a great many of our statesmen and orators, a&d I have always dressed them according to their style and the nature of their duties. What all men should avoid is the ' shabby genteel.' No man ever gets over ic. I will save you from that. You hid better be in rags. —Star.

Joseph Hatton, the English journalist, is surprised at the laxity of justice in America. He says:—" If we commit wilful murder on our side of the Atlantic we are hanged to a certainty. In the United States the chances of escape ara numerous. When I was in America I gaw and met several murderers. One of them is quite a respectable man, and in a large way of business, not as a'murderer, but as a speculator in corn." The Irish Question.— O'FlinDigan : "Look at that now Brown ! The Irishxnah will have his roights, thin, for he's got the heart, the lungs, and the brickbats, bedad." Brown: "Mark my words, O'Fiionigan, these riots and murders will ruin business in your country." O'Flinn•igan : " Be jabers, and a good job too ? I hate,business; and show me the roightminded, thrue-hearted Irishman that doesn't." —Fun.