"When the King and Queen visit Nottinghamshire as the guests of the Dukeand Duchess of Portland at Welbeck, three representative colliery ownersand four working miners will," we read, "be presented to their Majestiesat Forest Town." A most embarrassing gift, we should say, and one whichcannot, without hurting susceptibilities, be passed on to the ZoologicalSociety.
Are the French, we wonder, losing that valuable quality of tact forwhich they have so long enjoyed a reputation? Amongst the Ministersintroduced at Paris to King Christian of Denmark, who enjoys hisdesignation of "The tall King," was M. Maginol, who is an inch tallerthan His Majesty. He should surely have been told to stay at home.
In the Bow County Court, last week, a woman litigant carried with her,for luck, an ornamental horse-shoe, measuring at least a foot in length,and won her case. Magistrates trust that this idea, pretty as it is, maynot spread to Suffragettes of acknowledged markmanship.
Extract from an account in The Daily Chronicle of the Silver Kingdisturbance:—"The officers held her down, and, with the ready aid ofmembers of the audience, managed to keep her fairly quiet, though shebit those who tried to hold their hands over her mouth. A stage hand wassent for ..." If we are left to assume that she did not like the tasteof that, we regard it as an insult to a deserving profession.
"Do people read as much as they used to?" is a question which is oftenasked nowadays. There are signs that they are, anyhow, getting moreparticular as to what they read. Even the House of Commons is becomingfastidious. It refused, the other day, to read the Weekly Rest Day Billa second time, and the Third Reading of the Home Rule Bill was regardedas a waste of time and intelligence.
The superstitions of great men are always interesting, and we hear that,after his experience at Ipswich and on the Stock Exchange, Mr. LloydGeorge is now firmly convinced that it is unlucky for him to haveanything to do with anyone whose name ends in "oni."
Professor Metchnikoff, the great authority on the prevention of seniledecay, will shortly celebrate his seventieth birthday, and a project ison foot to congratulate him on his good fortune in living so long.
The Central Telephone Exchange is now prepared to wake up subscribers atany hour for threepence a call, and it is forming an "Early Risers'List." So many persons are anxious to take a rise out of the TelephoneService that the success of the innovation is assured.
By crossing the Channel in a biplane, the Princess Loewenstein-Wertheimhas earned the right to be addressed as "Your Altitude."
We see from an advertisement that we now have in our midst an "Instituteof Hand Development." This should prove most useful to parents who owntroublesome children. No doubt after a short course of instruction thespanking power of the hand may be doubled.
Reading that two houses in King Street, Cheapside, were sold last week"for a price equal to nearly £13 10s. per foot super," a correspondentasks, "What is a super foot?" If it is not a City policeman's we give itup.
There are now 168 house-boats on the Thames, states the annual report ofthe Cons