The World.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2295, 26 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The World.

[This following paragraphs are extracted from the .London society papers and Other journals.] The Queen intends to go to Aix-les-Bains at Easter for three weeks. Her Majesty, who will be accompanied by Princess Beatrice and Prince llenry of Battenberg, will probably leave Windsor on Monday, the 4th of April, crossing in the Victoria and Albert from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, and proceeding from that, port direct to Aix-les-Bains by special train.

Tho Queen's coachmakcrs at Derby, Messrs. Holmes, have just renovated one of his Majesty's six State coaches, in preparation for the functions of the Jubilee year. The door-handles and armorial bearings are of gold, as also are the crest and Order of St, George upon the roof. The.body of the carriage is of vermilion picked out with gold, and the springs and all the ironwork are gilt. Representations of the Crown and Garter are among the adornments of the equipage, which is lined with blue silk. No fewer than four thousand leaves of gold were used in the decoration.

I hear that the Queen intends to purchase certain of the French Crown jewels, which are to be sold shortly in Paris.

It is said that when the Queen received the telegram announcing the death of Lord Iddesleigh, the Sovereign exclaimed, "Impossible !" The deceased statesman was to have visited Osborne this week. Her Majesty was greatly concerned about the illness of Lady Iddesleigh, whose uuostentations grief has, indeed touched all hearts

Those gilded youths in Paris who wish to be exceedingly ctlie in their talk allude to a visiting card as tin Bristol." The only possible derivation for the term that occurs to me is the fact that a Bristol board is the name given to card-board somewhat similar to that of which visiting cards are made. The average age of the fifteen principal reigning tnonarchs of Europe is fifty-five years and six months. The youngest of course, excepting the baby King of Spain, is the King of Servia, who is thirty-two, whilst the Kaiser of Germany is close upon ninety. The Czar of Russia and the King of Greece are both the same age —forty-one. American politicians (with that thoughtful kindness which characterises them) arc speculating upon the rheumatism from which President Cleveland suffers going to the heart during the present winter. Mr. Long, R.A., is painting a series of panels, representing typical English beanties. Lady Randolph Churchill has given him several sittings for one, She is, of course, represented as wearing primroses. A lady named McLane, while reciting at the Grant University in Athens, Georgia was smitten, when on the platform, with sudden blindness. Ladies and men alike who inflict recitations on drawing-room and audiences are invited to take warning from this deplorabie incident. It is now, I believe, probable that a. combined attack will be made on the Estimates of the Government. Lord R. Churchill and his small personal following will unite with the Opposition in supporting a resolution in favour of a reduction of expenditure; but Lord Hartington, who holds the balance of power in his hand, will be no party to these attempts to embarrass the Government.

Tlicro has beeu a very disagreeable rencontre in the reading-room of tho Carlton Club between Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr Henry Chaplin. Tho expressions used by the right honourable gentlemen on Wednesday evening were not cxactly Parliamentary, and all efforts at reconciliation have as yet proved unvailing. The origin of the dispute was the treatment of the ex-Chancellor by a certain Conservative weekly newspaper.

The mention of the 15-carat diamond reminds roe that Mrs Mackay has just bought from a Russian Prince—for the of £30,000 —a sapphire which is the most largest at present known in the world. Of this lady's matchless emerald and her pearl necklace much has been already written, but' the fame of her precious possessions has been cclipsed for the time by the uniqo set of coral ornaments literally entrusted with diamonds, which she has just become possessed of. It is said that the Duke of Leinster, who has already made arrangements for selling the bulk of his property in Ireland to his tenants under Lord Ashbourne's Act, has offered for sale the manor of Maynooth, which has been in his family almost ever since the Conquest, and which contains the splendid old castle (now a ruin) from which a monkey, according to the the tradition, rescued the heir of the Fitzgeralds on the occasion of a fire ; whence the monkeys in their armorial bearings to this day.

" If it were not "for London," said Mr Labouchereat the Dublin banquet, "there would be a majority at this momeat for Home Rule." Perhaps there would. A good things would be different to what they are "if it were not for London." There would be five millions fewer people in the country; there would be no happy hunting-ground for thousands of Scotchmen. Irishmen, and Welshmen prefer any country to their own; there would be no employment for 80 odd paid "patriots," there would be no place in which Truth could be successfully published ; and so on.

The late Mr J. S. W. E. Drax, who died a few days since at the age of eightysix, and was buried .last Wednesday in a magnificent mausoleum he had built in Holdnest park, was at one time a very familiar figure at Westminster, where he represented Warsshamfor forty years,tontill Mr Montagu Guest rented a house in his stronghold and beat him. He possessed more initials than any other member of the House, and was always famous for his oddities and eccentricity. Hi causrd a coffin-plate with a voluminous inscription to be prepared some days before his death, and at Holdnest park his statue stands on a lofty pedestal, which he used to make one of the chief objects of his bon mots. Count Beust, in his memoirs, tells rather a grim story of how Count Buannow concealed his wife's death for three days, keeping meanwhile the body in ice, in order that the disclosure of the melancholy event should not cast a shadow on the festivities then in progress in celebration of the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Archduchess Marie. It is not generally known that, for similar reasons, ihe death of the late l"rince Albrecht of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm's brother, was kept concealed for a longer period. The prince actually died on the eve of his visit to Berlin of the Czar and the and the Emperor of Austria, in the autumn of 1572. That visit lasted for a week, and it was not until the potentates had quitted Prussian soil, and the echo of the festivities had died away, that Prince Albrecht was proclaimed dead, and the mourning for him began. Here, therefore, are two precedents for the Tories of Plymouth cynically concealing the news of the death of Lordlddesleigh until they had finished their ball.

I hear from Italy that the ex-Empress Eugenie has in person communicated her approval of the marriage of Princess Lofcitia to Prince Roland Bonaparte, and has signified her intention of settling a dot on the young lady, and presenting her with all her jewellery. But the course of what may bo presumed true love, nevertheless, does not run smooth, although it is true that the pateral Plonplon iB quite willing that his daughter should tved the son of his despised cousin Pierre and of the milliner Clemence Ruflin. But King Humbert remains obstinately opposed to the match; his repugnance being caused chiefly by the circumstance that Prince Roland's income, of over £30,000 a year, is derived from the profits of the Monte Carlo gaming-tables. He was penniless until he married Mario Blanc, who died in 1882, leaving behind her an infant daughter, who is one of the wealthiest children in Europe,