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Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2274, 5 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

THKKingof Portugal has conferred the three military orders of Portugal upon that illustrious in'fant-in-arms, the baby king »f Spain. A perfectly lovely anecdote is going the rounds of the French papers. A pretty girl called upon Rubenstein and entreated him to hear her play. With rather a bad grace he consented, and the lady sat down at the piano. When she had hammered out one piece she turned round and modestly asked, " What ought Ito do, Mr Rubenstein ?" The great pianist gave his back hair one shake and growled out, " Get married."

I hear, says Labouchere, from St. Petersburg that the health of the Czarewitch causes his parents the greatest anxiety. The poor lad was always delicate and has lately been subject to epileptic fits. He is the Czar's favourite child and everybody else's favourite besides, having a frank, open nature and nothing whatever of the autocrat in him. He is, in fact, very much .like his grandfather. King Christian. He is called Nicholas, after his Russian great grandfather, and is eighteeen years of age. Besides the Czarewitch, the Emperor has two sons, George and Michael, the former being fourteen years and the latter eight years old. John Chinaman, with his usual shrewdness, has hit upon an article of export from Germany, which has thus far escaped the attention of the enterprising Teutons. It is neither tnore or less than cast-off horseshoes, of which some Berlin firms are about to ship some 3.000 to 4,000 tons. The "heathen Chinee" has found out that the wrought iron, of which horseshoes, are mude, owing to the constant and even hammering on the pavement, together with the equine animal heat, gradually assumes the hardiiass of steel, combined with great malleability and elasticity—qualities which fit them more especially for the manufacture of knives and sword blades.

The Council of the Senate of Cambridge University (says the European Mail) recommended that the University of New Zealand should be adopted as an institution affiliated to the University of Cambridge, and that graduates of the University of New Zealand who have satisfied the examiners in one language in addition to Latin and English, either in the matriculation examination or in the examination for the degree of B.A. or B.Sc. of that University, or in some examination held by the University of Cambridge, should be entitled to the administration to the privilege of affiliation. A Buckingham correspondent says :— " A local farmer has just presented his first born for christening at the parish church with twenty-six Christian names selected from Scripture, representing every letter of the alphabet, and only with the greatest difficulty could the clergyman dissuade the farmer from laying such an incubus upon it, and get him to content himself with the first and last of the names proposed. The full title of the unfortunate infant was to have been— Abel Benjamin Caleb Daniel Ezra Felix Gabriel Haggai Isaac Jacob Kish Levi Manoah Neheiniah Obadiah Peter Quartus Rechab Samuel Tobiali Uzziel Variah Word Xystus Yariah Zachariah Jenkins."

Another royal victim of the vicissitudes of fortune is now occupying the gossips of Milan. His history runs thus: Leon de Luzignano, Prince of Koricosz, descendant of the Kings of Armenia, died in Italy in the year 187b". Up to 1559 he served in the French Army, and was wounded at Solferino. Napoleon the Third gave him a pension, whioh enabled him to live comfortably. The pension was paid regularly for ten years. At that perion he was living with a Milanese beauty, by whom he had several children, \vhom he legally reoognised, but he would nover consent to marry the mother. In IS7O, his pension being stopped, the Prince sold his house, and ultimately fell into the most abject poverty, when he died. Three of his children, a girl and two boys, survived, and were brought up in a public asylum. The daughter became servant to t\\o Bishop of Bergamo, but as she would not abjure her Greek faith, his Eminence dismissed her. The eldest son, who bears the title of his father, married a peasaut girl, and is now serving as a waiter in ouq of the cafes iu Milan,