WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 139, 21 April 1879, Page 2

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

(By " Atlas," in tho World.) The Princess Louise, it ia said, does not contemplate remaining in Canada uninterruptedly during the term of Lord Lome's appointment. She will probably visit England every year, and has announced her intention of continuing her personal interest in the various homes and institutions of which her Royal Highness is the patroness and head.

I have heard many people—who have not been ruined by the City of Glasgow Bank catastrophe-say, charitably, that the very lenient sentence on tho directors is heavy enough, " because they are all old men." What do my kindly friends think of an old Liverpool merchant, 80 years of age, being sentenced to five years penal servitude for forging a bill of exchange for £1000? In Scotland you can ruin hundreds of families, cause suicides, bring well-to-do people to the workhouse, and spread dismay and misery throughout the land—for eight months! A single act of forgery in England, affecting, presumably, one sufforer only, costs five years. Caledonia may be wild, but she is apparently not so very stern, The promoters of the Sydney Exhibitian, I see, are resorting to every possible exertion for the highly commendable purpose of making a success with their venture, If they want it to amount to a certainty, why should they not take a hint from the last Paris craze! I would submit to them the following infallible plan: To start a lottery, the great prize of which would be the biggest gold nugget kept in the Sydney Museum, and to reserve the tickets exclusively to exhibitors and visitors I daresay thousands upon thousands would take the Australian mail for the purpose of securing a chance, if lam to judge by the eagerness with which the drawing of a few walking sticks and wideawakes has not not ceased to be followed at the Palace des Champs Elysfes.

The humorous lecturers of America do not, as a rule, visit Europe professionally. True, we have seen Mark Twain and poor Artemus Ward ; but the minor stars of the platform, EliPerkings, Josh Billings, De Cordova, and others, remain at home. An exception to the rule is Mr Stephen Massett, known as "Jeems Pipes," a clever singer and elocutionist, who is the very Ulysses of lecturers, and who is now in London en route from New Zealand to Africa. Mr Masset ous[ht to give Londoners a " taste of his quality" before he leaves us:

Khalil Pasha was yery fond of Western customs, and he used to assert that it would not be so very difficult, after all, to raise Turkey to the level of the great Powers. "Still," objected some one, " there is the barbarous habit of polygamy, which it would be difficult to up.root, " Polygamy!" exclaimed Khalil, " Were I the Grand Yizier, I would simply declare that evcy Mussulman has the option, ,03 .'More, of keeping four wives. Only I would exact from] him ,the obligation of keeping his mothers-in-law as well. Tou would see then what would become of polygamy." I wonder why people will keep pointing out as an extraordinary circumstance that M, Grevy should ha/e attempted the Presidency of the French Republic, considering that he was, thirty years age, the author of the famous "amendment" for the suppression of the said office. In tlie

first place it would be unfortunate) indeed, if people were bound to adhere to every one of their opinions of thirty years ago. In the second place, the sole object of young M. Grevy, in proposing that there should be no permanent Presideut appointed for a given time wa3 to prevent the accession to power of Prince Louis Nopoleon; and subsequent events prove that he was not, on a Republican point of opinion, so very shortsighted. It was not to' the presidential dignity, but to the coming holder of the same, that he had an objection, oa may be seen at the prosent time.

_ The reorganisation of the Turkish Empire does not seem to progress very rapidly. The English officers who have gone out to join the new gendarmerie give a very deplorable account.of the sjlte. of the country. Their force is notforr&j although they get their pay pretty piletually, thanks to the Ottoman Ba%, which is under a contract to pay theiri; But the native police are months and months in arrears, and the private constables pay themselves as best they can by taking bribes to let prisoners to escape, extending the time for a consideration to bankrupt householders about to be distrained, or levying taxes on their own account. As for the Turkish army, it is half-starved, shoeless, and in rags. Neither officers nor men receive any pay, and the latter, in lieu of boots and trousers, go about with their legs wrapped in whisps of straw. In fact the whole country is bankrupt, and the people say that unless Europe will float a new loan they would , be better off under Russian rule.

The story of Rich, the harlequin, having been once a physician who did not know him off the stage to go and see himself, is paralleled by an anecdote of date as fresh as last week. A sufferer from depression of spirits, consequent on chills on the top of intermittent fever, called on a fashionable West-end doctor for advice. " Try change of air," was the prescription. The sufferer was a special correspondent, who had just completed professional journeys extending over seventeen thousand miles within eight months! The Cavendishes are scarcely the people to relish a joke, especially when made at their expense. A pretty lady, American by birth, but English by marriage, the other day asked the noble leader of the Opposition whether he had ever seen a goose stand on one leg. and on his replying in the negative, advised him to get up and see what it was like. The countenance of the noble lord, though he took it very good-naturedly,, was a study.