The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-03-21 00:00:00

Miscellantrats 3ntelligturt.

HOE- FOREIGN, AND COLONIAL.

LII3ELLING A MIISICIAN.—For referring in print to
leader of the Stettin Academy of Music as a "violin-
scraper," a musical critic was lately sent to prison for
five days by a Leipzig court.
A ROYAL LIBRETTIST.—The Queen of Roumania
has written the libretto of an opera, " Neaga," which.
has just been produced at Stockholm with great
success.

NEW PASTE.—A Nuremberg chemist says that paste
made of starch, glycerine, and gypsum will retain its
plasticity and adhesiveness longer than any other
cement.

FRENCH FENSION.-At the request of the Republican
Senators the French Government has proposed a pen-
sion of 6000 f. to the widow of • Eugene Pelletan. Her
son, M. Camille Pelletan, is a Deputy, and one of the
chiet writers for M. Clemenceau's journal," Justice."
RoY,tr, Aurnon.—Another Royal author's name may
be added to the list which recently appeared. The
Princess Theresa of Bavaria, a daughter of Prince
Leopold, and consequently a cousin of the King, has
just published her" Sketches and impressions of a tour
in Russia.'"

A LUXURIOUS Cum.—The French Press Club
Cercle de la Presse") at Paris is unrivalled in its
surroundings and in its accommodation. The dinners
and " dejeilners " are served in different rooms at
absurdly low prices, and the cuisine is said to be un-
surpassed in all Paris. What here would be called the
hall is in reality a charmingly furnished large apart-
ment, guarded by domestics in irreproachable attire;
and there is an air of great refinement and luxurious
comfort about the writing, reading, and other rooms.
In the room where baccarat is played the walls are
covered with tapestry of immense value, at present the
property of a lady, who receives an annuity for allow-
ing it to remain on the walls. Originally founded by
ten journalists, the " Cercle de la Presse " has out-
grown the aims of its founders, and now numbers
fourteen hundred members, of whom the great
majority are utterly unconnected with the Fourth
Estate. The Prince of Wales is honorary member of
the club.—" Printers' Register."
REMOVAL or AN OLD THEATRR.—A building of some
little historical interest has lately passed away. The
old theatre at the corner of Richmond-
green, the boards of which were so of ten
trodden by Edmund Kean, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs.
Siddons, and Charles Mathews the elder, and where
George 111. and Queen Charlotte so often occupied the
Royal box while they were living in their favourite
palace at Kew, has been levelled with the ground, a
large portion of its old materials being used to widen
the roadway, which was dangerously narrow at that
spot. The theatre was built in 1750, under the superin-
tendence of Garrick, for his relative, James Dance, the
"Falstaff" of his day. In this theatre Charles Matthews
made his debut, and it was in a room adjoining the
theatre that Edmund Kean breathed his last. The
removal of the theatre has brought to light a still more
ancient relict—a part of the outer wall of the old palace
of Sheen, with an octagonal tower, of early Tudor date,
corresponding in size and appearance with another oc-
tagonal tower at the opposite or southern end of the
palace, which was removed within the memory Of some