  According to an official of the Imperial Japanese household, the poems composed by the late Dowager-Empress of Japan numbered 30,000. But these were never published, and the Empress died universally respected. A foolish hoax is said to have been perpetrated on the authorities at Dublin Castle. An anonymous communication informed them that a Dreadnought had been purchased by the Ulster loyalists, and would shortly make her appearance off the coast of Ireland disguised as an outrigger. Urgent instructions were in consequence issued to the coastguards not to be caught napping. "I honestly hope," said General Villa, "that the Americans will bottle up Vera Cruz so tight that one can't even get water into it." But this surely would place America's teetotal navy in a very awkward predicament. His Majesty King Ferdinand of Bulgaria has, a Paris newspaper informs us, purchased four elephants as pets. We trust that this is the beginning of the end of the toy-dog craze. We have always considered elephants more interesting, and ladies no doubt will not be slow to realise that there is more effect to be got out of them. The dogs which are to accompany his expedition are, Sir Ernest Shackleton states, coming to London and will spend some little time here. It is to be hoped that they will be given a good time and shown the sights, and that no one will be so thoughtless as to mention emergency rations in their presence. Says Mr. Filson Young in The Pall Mall Gazette:—"I began yesterday by swimming in a sunlit sea, continued it by motoring through a hundred miles of lilac and gorse, and ended it listening to the most perfect concert programme at Queen's Hall that I have ever heard.... Was it not a happy day?" The answer, Filson, is in the affirmative. Forty years ago, £1,000 a year was spent on wines and spirits at the Medway (Chatham) Workhouse and Infirmary, while to-day the annual expenditure is only £5. In these hard times even paupers have to economise. St. Mark's Church, Tunbridge Wells, which has been troubled with a plague of flies, has had to be closed for a week for the purpose of fumigation. Many members of the congregation had complained of being kept awake by these vivacious insects. Apparently the modistes have resolved that this shall be a butcher's year, for we are promised leg-of-mutton sleeves, ham-frill skirts, and pork-pie hats. Although M. Jean Worth, the famous creator of fashions, has declared that the mania of modern women for changing styles of dress amounts to a disease, it is not, we understand, the present intention of any of the leading dressmaking firms to offer a prize for a cure for this ailment. M. Worth also stated that "Quality, not quantity," is the right motto for women in matters of dress. For all that, we trust that the irreducible minimum has now been reached. According to the calculations of a M. Verronet, the earth has only another two million years to live. We hope that the effect of this statement may not be to encourage jerry-building. |
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