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Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

ITEMS.

Prince Henry of Battenburcr having BTot a hoavy fall while hunting. Queen Victoria has foibiddeu him to hunt any more. When an aesthetic though fresh young Journalist In Connecticut was married the other day his paper came out tinted with rose. In the morning pro to the bedroom the first thing after breakfast, open the windows, beat up the pillows, and lay all the bedclothes to air. Rooms should be left to air tit least one hour. The most effectual remedy for slimy as»d greasy drain pipes is copperas di*« solved and let to work gradually through the pipe. Mr Labnuchere snargflsta that Prince Henry of Batten berg should array himself in the full dress of a Knighr, of the Garter, as, with the ostrich plumes, silver trappings, »%hort cloak and blue satin bows, he would, no doubt, create a seniation in the Throne Room, and there would be a charming novelty about the dreis, n<», although it is supplied to every Royal Knight (at a cost to the country of nearly £1000) the only personage who is ever known to have worn it during the present feign is a certain German Prince, who put it on one day for the purpose of being photographed. They have a Countess in Berlin who is light-fingered, and her latest theft has been with great difficulty kept from the attention of the Courts. At a ball she managed to remove a magnih'cient diamond pin from the headdress of another Countess, who soon after missed the jewel, and placed the matter in the hands of detectives. A brief search sufficed to locate the theft, and the property was returned to its owner. The Countess' crime was a very shocking one, says an American paper, but if aristocrats must steal it is an excellent idea for them to vary the monotony a little, and steal from one another. The Now Zealand willows, that are traced to Napoleon's tomb at St. Helena, have a parallel in their American cousins. The American weeping willow soems to have had a romantic story. The first scion was sent from Smyrna in a box of figs to Alexander Pope. General Clifton brought a shoot from Pope's tree to America, in the time of the Revolution, which, passing into the hands of John ParKe Costis, was planted on his estate in Virginia, and became the parent of the willows that have aproad through the United States. " Almost the first duty of a new regiment stationed in Edinburgh Castle is its only unpleasant one," says the *' St. James Gazette." "Immediately it gets into its quarters in the Ca>tlc it has to despatch a representative body through the oldest streets to cry out at the top of their voices that the citizens must be wary of the soldiers' beguiling ways. This is called 'crying down the credit of the regiment ,' and the ceremony has just been performed by the Seaforth Highlanders- Oue Sunday forenoon a detachment of these, accompanied by a drummajor, paraded High street and neighbourhood to discharge what must be described as this unpleasant duty. It consists of a proclamation to all whom it

may concern, that any one who is so foolish as to supply the soldiers with goods on credit to the amount of more thin a tingle day's pay does so At his own riik. At her own riak it might be said ; for, owing to some reason unknown, it is understood that the proclamation is specially addressed to shopkeepers of the softer sex."