The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-06-22 00:00:00

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

The Prince and Princess of Wales must be acquitted
of all blame for the gloom which fell on Ascot. The
female members of the Royal Family were one and all
exercised by the imperial ukase which forbade the
procession at Ascot; and one of them sagely remarked,
" If our Queen herself were to die, the State festivities
in St. Petersburg would be neither postponed nor
interdicted." _ . _

l ladies appeared in what I suppose they
Intended to represent as white dresses, but which, a
few years ago, would have been set down as what ,
they were, viz., buff or straw colour. Long black
gloves, with innumerable buttons, did duty as Court
mourning with these costumes; but one of these fair
ones poked her fun too far, when, to a dress of this
buff shade, was added a black hat trimmed with red
roses, and passed this off as • garb of woe.
It may be noticed that many young men you meet
nowadays are prematurely round-shouldered, and walk
with bent knees and • sort of crab-like movement.
This is not the result of over-study or weakness, but
the consequence of perpetual wobbling on what is
called the "steel horse.' This peculiar and ungraceful
appearance, which is becoming indelibly stamped on
many youths, is known as the " bicycle back."
Frank Buckland, the friend of fishermen and
monkeys, is, I am sorry to say, in failing health.
Owing to the dropsical nature of his complaint he
finds walking difficult—as if, to use his own expression,
his legs were in Wellington boots full of water. Not-
withstanding those physical troubles, life is full of
interest to the naturalist. Mr. Buckland at home is
surrounded by all his pets from dried gorillas to living
creatures of every sort. He sit. in John Hunter's chair,
regardless of uncomfortable angles, and considers it
more deligktful than the downiest of couches without
historical interest; and the angles, too, are so
convenient for the monkeys. They can sit aloft and
watch the progress of the fishery commissioner's
reports, and pounce down among proofsheets at will.
Mr. Janirach, a retired organ-monkey, is a great
favourite with his master, and shares with him the
frugal meal to which his doctors limit him. There is
not much ceremony observed on these occasions, for
everything is turn about, even to the claret-and-water.
The expression of the monkey's face, as it sits watch-
ing an opportunity for a raid, I have only seen equalled
in the children brought to our London hospitals from
poverty-stricken homes. The face of the starved
human baby, lit up with a gleam of gratitude to the
nurse' and the face of the spoilt monkey, sitting in
muteadmiration of his kindly muter, are alike to a
wrinkle. _

The deathblow to the late Czarina was undoubtedly
the substitution of the Treaty of Berlin for that of
San Stefano. She had watched the Eastern War
with absorbing interest, and was strongly averse to
any modification of the new Bulgaria, Servia, or
Montenegro. When she found her husband had
consented to it, she took to her bed; for a few days her
life was then despaired of, and from that time she
never regained even her previous amount of strength.
At a dinner given in Pont-street last week, the
decorations of the table and dining-room consisted of
real fruit-trees in full bearing—peaches, nectarinwt
and cherries—a novel and exceedingly pretty mode of
decoration. Ihe guests could eat their dessert from
the trees. Why is not this more general