The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 2, 1869

MEI ROPOLITAN GOSSlP—Thursday.

June has come and gone, but we have had no summer.
Day after day the cold north-east wind blows and carries
before it an endless scroll of grey cloud, which blots out the
sun and covers everything with a cheerless grey. The parks,
which this time last year were burnt dark brown by the
overpowering brilliance of the sun, are this year sickly
yellow through the sun's absence. In fact, it would seem
as if it had, like a thriftless prodigal, exhausted all
its capital of caloric by last year's riotous excess, and is now
left a shivering pauper. ]do not know if other places are
suffering to the same extent that London is. I am inclined
to think not, for spending two days in Somersetshire in
the early part of the week I found the weather clear
and bright. Yet even there the sun seemed to have lost
its burning power, seemed to have forgotten that it wns
midsummer and not early April. Nevertheless, I heard
good tidings of the most abundant hay crop known for
fifteen.years, and the promise of a good wheat harvest if
only Phcebus Apollo will be propitious during the coming
month.

But what has your London correspondent to do with
hay and corn, with crops and harvests? Well even in this
great province of houses we miss the usual solar heat and
light. There have been flower shows, for instance—none
more brilliant, so far as flowers and company went, than
the two held on Tuesday at the Crystal Palace and South
Kensington, or than that held yesterday at Regent's Palk.
But they, yesterday's especially, sorely needed brightness.
The dull, iron grey of the atmosphere was painfully out of
time and place, and one could not help shivering as one
gazed at the scanty muslins and thought of the chilled
wearers. This week is the culminatrng week of the season,
and henceforward the year will decline. The Pasha has
come and goes to-day, to the great disappointment of
those who expected to see him at South Kensington
to-night. He has had a lively time of it altogether, and
will take awaypleasant reminiscences, in spite of the unfor-
tunate contretemps which greeted him on his arrival. The
review at Windsor was a very pretty sight, more on ac-
count of the beauty of the scene and of the weather (it
was fine, though cold) than by reason of the military dis-
play. That must have seemed small enough in the eyes
of Ismail, who has seen reviews in the Bois de Boulogne
as well as in sight of the Pyramids, where " forty centuries
looked down," &c., &c. The Queen's breakfast party at
Buckingham Palace wasone of the most successful events of
the Court year. The gardens, which runup from the Palace
by Constitution-hill, are both extensive and pretty. For
instance, they contain a sheet of water large enough to
boat on. The trees are of fair size, and the groups of fair
women,' brilliantly dressed, set off by the surrounding
dark foliage and darker male attire, were most picturesque.
The most important incident was the reappearance of
brass buttons. The Prince of "Wales, it is supposed, is
about to reintroduce the costume of his lamented uncle,
the good and great George IV. This is a subject of pro-
found importance, which has driven the Irish Church into
the shade.

The habits of our aristocracy are just now worthy of
minute study. In the morning, that is to say somewhere
about noon, their day begins, with a canter in the Row,
if they are up to anything requiring so much physical
exertion. In the afternoon the more adventurous of our
golden youth go to Hurlingham Park or some other of
those places which are set apart for the compara-
tively modern, but immensely popular, sport of
pigeon-slaughter. They drive down in faultless
coats by Poole, in faultless gloves by Jouvin.
Arrived on the ground, they take their stand boldly like
Britons, and pop away while those birds of prey, with
fearful talons and cruel beaks—the pigeons—are let loose
from their traps. No one flinches. Everyone remembers
that the eyes of England are upon him. There they are,
up in the gallery, the eyes of the fairest and gentlest women
in England, raining down sweet influences, full of tenderness
(for the heroes) as one fiendish bird after another falls to the
ground, bathed in blood and gore. Who could feel fear,
who would not peril life against the harpies themselves
when British maidens are looking on? The slaughter
over, the earth relieved from the presence of the blood-
thirsty birds, there is quaffing of wine, and heroes and
spectators drive back to town, take a turn or two in the
Row, go to a kettledrum, and then home to dress. The
Opera has its attractions for some, but these are the old-
fashioned fogies chiefly. Youth likes something more
elevating. It goes to St. James's Theatre and sees the
adorable Schneider display her legs in a manner
that must make her humbler rivals of the Alhambraready
to die with envy. Pall-Mall has outdone Leicester-square.
Cora Pearl and the " Can-can" are surpassed. After the
play there is the ball and the rout ; or, as men don't dance
much now-a-days (dancing being beneath the dignity of
pigeon-slayers), there is the club ar d the gaming-table. There
is plenty of mcney lost and plenty of scandal talked. And
everyone asks who will be the next owner of a coronet to
go to the dogs, or the hbrses, or the Jews. Such is life in
what penny-a-liners call the " highest circles."
' On Saturday I spent a very charming evening with the
members of " Our Club." This club consists of some of
the best-known literary men in London, who meet every
Saturday at a hotel in T.ondon and dine together without
formality. Last week was the closing dinner of the
season, and was eaten at the Star and Garter, Richmond.
Hepworth Dixon was in the chair, and had on one side of
him Storey, the sculptor, and on the other Dr. Richard-
son, the well-known scientist. Mr. Eastwick, M.P., was
vice-chairman, and among the other guests were Dr.
Doran, Horace Mayhew, Ff azlitt, John Cordy
Jeaffreson, Charles Dickens the younger, and other
well-known literati, barristers, and professional men.
It need hardly be said that the talk was of the best, and
that this and the charming view made the evening worthy
of being marked with a white stone.
The Spiritualists are just now making strong efforts to
convince an unbelieving world that they are the people,
and that wisdom dwells with them. Wherever you go
you are told wonderful stories of wonderfulfeats performed
by mediums under the influence of spirits. One of the most
celebrated of these is said some time ago to have taken
a red-hot coal out of the fire with his hand, and to have
placed it in the hands of the rest of the company in suc-
cession without the slightest harm resulting. One of
them, a well-known literary man, who had held the coal
innocuously at first, afterwards touched it incautiously,
and got burnt. So runs the tale. There are others not
quite so wonderful, but a good deal more credible. Take
the following as a sample. An artist friend of mine, very
sceptical so far as regards spiritualism, attended the
B:ance of a well-known lady medium. He sat with the
rest of the party round a table, and soon there was the usual
performance of knocks and raps, and fiddles playing in
the air, and convulsive tables, and revolutionary chairs.
The company were convinced ; not so the artist. He
determined to do a little spiritualism on his own
account. Noticing that opposite him there was
a charming girl who was evidently a devout
believer, he gently stroked her foot with his.
The result was magical. " Sweet spirit, kind
spirit !" exclaimed the young Pythia, in a state of
rapture, to the great astonishment of the presiding spirit-
hostess. She called for the alphabet, and the spirits
rapped out not ricks," which the artist rightly enough
interpreted to be "no tricks." Suspicion fell upon the next
been
m
le ar
yr eoaduk tongw ag
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mae
oorf trueet htehsoapnni
one,
,its.
andTh
convinced e man;
worthyif e
was s
ot af teai
enthusiastic,
ntchewupast
neighbour of the prophetess, who stoutly denied that she had
e
hen
dEevc
siaa
att
and ready to go to the stake in testimony to the reality of
the spirits and their doings ; everyone except the artist,
who at last confessed what he had done, to the indigna-
tion and wrath of the mistress of the ceremonies.
I do not think velocipedists need fear that the omnivo-
rous Mr. Lowe will tax their vehicles. A. little while ago
the Chancellor of the Exchequer was himself receiving
lessons at a velocipede school. The teacher did not recog-
nise in the white-haired, pink-faced man the arbiter of our
taxes, bat another pupil did, and communicated the secret
to his master.
If any of your readers cares to see the celebrated pictures
at Venice before they are utterly ruined, he had better go
there this summer. They are just now undergoing the
process of restoration. A little while ago a man, apparently
belonging to the house-painter class, was seen operating
upon one of these grand works, with a potfull of vermillion
paint by, his side. Fortunately, Titian's great work,
" Peter Martyr," escaped this degradation by being burnt
two years ago.
One of the most remarkable works now going on in
London is the construction of a second Thames Tunnel.
But so great is the advance which has been made in
engineering since the days of Sir Isambard Brunel that no
one takes much interest in this wolk. Hitherto it has
progressed most satisfactorily. The ground has turned
out to be firm clay, and so impermeable is it, so dry
is the tunnel, that the water used by the masons in erecting
the brick work has to be brought to them. The
"Tower-Subway," as it is called, is being completed at
the rate of nine feet a day, and will be an immense con-
venience when it is open.
The book season is still lamentably dull. There are
few new works, fewer announcements, and the
literary journals never had so small a show of
advertisements as at the present time.' Ainmg the few
books coming out this month are Mr. Walter Thornbury's
new novel " The Vicar's Courtship ;" Mr. .Toeeph
Ilalton's " Christopher Kenrick" is just out. Mr.
Anthony Tiollope's story, "The Vicar of Bull-
hampton," which was to have appeared in Once
a Week, will be published in monthly parts,
with illustrations. Tinsleys are about to publish
a volume of travels by Mr. and Mrs. Pethe-
rick ; Mr. Petheriek was our consul at Khartoum,
on the Nile. Mr. Bosworth has just published a volume
of poems by Charles Edward Stuart, a gentleman well-
known to-readers at the British Nlusetun, and otherwise

known as a claimant to the British Throne by virtue of
hii descent from James 11.

I have left political news till last, for there is little
definite to say. Mr. Gladstone's speech last night at the
Mansion House is this morning generally considered as a
proof that he will not accept the Duke of Cleveland's pro-
posal to grant glebes to the Roman Catholic priehts and
Presbyterian ministers, and that if the Lords insist upon
making the change in the bill, the Commons will
dissent from it and throw upon the Upper House a
responsibility which they are scarcely likely to incur—that
of allowing the bill to fall through. The fact is, though
the opponents of State Churches have been very quiet
about the matter hitherto, they do not intend to remain

The parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of elections,
now going on, is likely to lead to an action for libel. A
gentleman who supported the Conservative candidate for
Cardiff at the late election, and was stoned by the mob,
gave evidence before the committee as to the riotous con-
dition of the town. For doing so he was accused by a,
Liberal paper of stating what he knew to be false. An
apology was demanded, but not being rendered; an action
has been instituted, and the Solicitor-General and other
eminent counsel have been reta'ned for the plaintiff.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Uhler Judge would be made; the bill, "by an un-
worthy trick," proposes to give no additional salary to
Mr. Commissioner Bacon, who, by the universal
voice of the House, was pronounced to be the best
man for the office of Chief Judge. This omission,
our contemporary thinks, may endanger the success
of the measure.