The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-06-30 00:00:00

COURT AND SOCIETY.

[Pitom WortiD.l
Sir Morell Mackenzie, accompanied by his eldest
daughter and one of his sons, is at present travelling
in Switzerland. He will return home in about a fort-
night. It seems scarcely ;necessary to say that the
stuff about an intended prosecution of the English
physician by some German patriots is arrant non-
sense.

Prince Albert Victor has named the 21st of July for
the day of his promised visit to Bury, which had to
be deferred this month on account of his Royal High-
ness's absence at Berlin. The young Prince pays his
first visit to North Lancashire, to open the new recrea-
tion grounds which the people of Bury have recently
been fortunate enough to acquire, in one of the prin-
cipal suburbs of the town.
The opening of the new College of Science at New-
castle will take place towards the end of October,
and Princess Louise, who has engaged to perform the
ceremony, will, with Lord Lorne, be the guest of
Lord and Lady Armstrong at Craigside, their place
near Rothbury, where the Prince and Princess of
Wales stayed when they visited Newcastle four years
ago:

-The Government consider that Lord Reay's Dutch
descent qualifies him admirably for the Governorship
of the Cape. In the ordinary course of things two
years should elapse before he leaves Bombay; but
an arrangement is proposed by which he is to be
transferred to the Cape in the course of the next
six months as Sir navies Robinson's successor, and
with the prospect of seven years' tenure of office.
In spite of semi-official denials, Mr. Raikes has the
refusal of Bombay.
Lieutenant Blakey, who was "found drowned" the
other day, was well known for his eccentric deeds of
" derrin-do " in swimming, riding, &c. He had the
misfortune about a year ago to win the long odds-
-1000 to 30, or something of the sort—on a race; but
unfortunately racing history would not repeat itself
—it rarely does.
Mr. Leopold de Rothschild has been ordered abroad
on account of ill-health, from which he has been a
sufferer for some time past.
Mr. Henry Matthews is at present suffering from a
severe attack of inflammation of the eyes, a cotkplaint
to which he is subject from time to time. This, I
believe, is the immediate cause of his suggested retire-
ment from the Home Office.
General G. Whichcote is the oldest survivor of
Waterloo, and with the veteran Lord Albemarle re-
presents all that is left of Wellington's army on the
pension-lists of the War Office. Although they are
borne on the list of general officers, Lord Albemarle
and General Whichcote are majors unattached, "on
half-pay of their former commissions." As showing the
liberality of Pall Mall officials, I may mention that
some time ago it was suddenly discovered that
General Whichcote was living, and it was decided to
confer upon him a Distinguished Service reward, he
having served in the Peninsula for five years before
he appeared on the field of Waterloo. The usual
amount of such reward is £lOO a year. His being a
special case, however, the sum was fixed at £-50,
because presumably he was so old a man, and had
gone so long without any kind of recognition, that it
was thought he would be thankful for small mercies.
So far as it depends on the exertions of the English
committee, the success of the British section of next
year's Paris Exhibition is declared to bo assured. A
sufficient number of exhibitors have sent in their
names to make it certain that, after all, this country
will have a show of which it will have no cause to be
ashamed, while the funds actually paid or promised
by the exhibitors aro sufficient to ensure that no call
will be made upon the guarantors. At the rate at
which applications for space are now coming in, it
seems certain that all the available space will be gone
in a very few more weeks, and, as it is, several in-
teresting applications for space in the gardens have
already had to be refused.
Several French hostesses this season have intro-
duced the detestable American fashion of giving
presents at dinner-parties under pretext of souvenirs.
The cotillon accessory in the form of an expensive
bibelot is bad enough; but a scarf-pin, a bonbon-box,
or a bracelet offered in a soup-plate is bad taste.
What will be the end of such ostentatious expense as
this? Evidently the substitution of margarine for
butter in the kitchen; for there are but few fortunes
nowadays large enough to enable a hostess to give
her guests a good and wholesome dinner and a present
besides.

[FRom " Tntri rr.l

A great deal of work remains to be done at
Windsor Castle in connection with the new wing
which is to be inhabited next autumn by Prince and
Princess Henry of Battenberg and their children and
by the children of the Duke and Duchess of Con-
naught. The work is to be finally completed, and
all the rooms furnished and ready for occupation,
by August 11, and the Queen is to arrive at Balmoral
for her autumn residence on Friday, August 24.

The Prince and Princess will not visit Scotland
this autumn, as they intend to be abroad for some
time.

H.R.H. has also abandoned his projected visit to
Nottingham during the Royal Agricultural Show; but
the Duke of St. Albans will, nevertheless, entertain a.
party, of men only, at Bestwood. 'rhe Duchess in-
tends to remain in town at Hampden House, which
they have rented from the Duke of Abercorn, till the
middle of August.
The Princess of Wales will probably go to Scliwal-
bach about the end of next month for the purpose of
taking a course of the baths, and H.R.H. and the three
young Princesses will afterwards pay a visit to the
Duke and Duchess of Cumberland at their beautiful
place on the Traun See, near Gmunden.
. .

- Vanity Fair, desiring to correct "much misappre-
hension about the methods by which the Princess of
Wales obtains her partners, announces that she
chooses them herself. It need not trouble to correct
a "misapprehension " which must surely have been
evolved out of its own fertile imagination, for
Royal ladies of the rank of the Princess of Wales
always choose their own partners. Early in
the present reign a notable peer, who was
then young and unsophisticated, was informed at a
State ball, by the Lord-in-Waiting, that he would
have the honour of dancing the next quadrille with
the Queen. The amazement of the Court functionary
may be imagined when the selected individual replied
that he could not do so, as he was already engaged to
Miss H., a sprightly beauty of the period. The late
Lord Delawarr, who was Lord Chamberlain was
hastily summoned, and his interference prevented so
heinous a breach of etiquette as the ignoring of a
Royal compliment of this kind.

We are extremely fond of prating about "British
fair play," and of asserting that in no other country
are strangers treated in such a scrupulously honour-
able manner as in England. The behaviour, however,
of the M.C.C. towards the Australians at Lord's last
week can scarcely be deduced as an instance of this
rule. On the Friday morning the M.C.C. authorities
would not allow the Australians to go on with their
second innings, simply because the wicket was wet
Ef nd.easy, and.they feared that the colonials would make
a long score. They adjourned play until two o'clock,
, but when two o'clock came the players sat down
to lunch, and the game did not proceed until twenty
minutes to three. And all the time a hot sun was
caking the surface of the ground and turning an easy
wicket into one which was almost unplayable! I
was glad to observe that the crowd understood the
situation perfectly, and showed their feelings in the
matter by cordially hooting the English Eleven when
they turned out to field. I was also delighted when,
in spite of all this dodging, the Australians won the
match. The tactics of the M.C.C. were, no doubt,
extremely smart, but they were most discreditable to
the leading club of the world, and all sporting
cricketers rejoiced heartily at their discomfiture.
The Queen telegraphed messages of sympathy and
regret, expressed in very warm terms, both to the
Duchess of Connaught and to Princess Frederick
Charles of Prussia, as soon as the news reached her
of the death of Princess Albrecht of Saxe-Altenburg.
The Princess was the eldest and favourite sister of the
Duchess of Connaught. She was first married to Prince
Henry of the Netherlands, who died in a few months, and
when she was a richly-jointured widow there was a
project for making her the second wife of the Grand
Duke of Hesse, but she preferred a union with
Albrecht of Saxe-Altenburg, who was formerly a
general in the Russian army. They were married
about three years ago, and have since lived prin-
cipally at their beautiful place on the Elbe near
Dresden.