New-York tribune., 1874-03-16
BRITISH TOPICS.
NOTES FROM LONDON.


IRON THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THB TRrBusb.l
LONDON. Feb 25.-There il, / believe, no truth
whatever in the story of Kossuths destitution,
copied from an American paper into some English
journals, and attributed to DIR. Max Schlesinger,
correspondent of the Frankfort Gazette Dr. Schlesin
ger is of the most accurate and careful of men,
aud as little likely anybody to set piece of mere
| gossip ahoat He is not, am told the author of
| this. The Daily Ne,cs, seeming to speak with
thority, says Dr. Schesnger never had any such in
| tervlew as he Is said to have had with Kossuth,
never contributed any such article TO the Frankfort
Gazette and that the article never appeared in that
paper at all 1t adds that Kossuth living In Turin
| IN easy circumstances-a statement confirmed and
amplitied by Mr. Charles Gilpin lone of the members
for the borough which did not elect Mr.. Bradlaugh.
in a letter published this morning Mr. Gilpin
kOssntb in May last. in Turin. He found him hv-
ing, not IN an attic, but in comfortable and we'll
] furnished apartment on the ground floor icaed in
America the first floor which in Europe il always
the second except when it is the third.) The win
| d0ws opened on garden. The Hun garian leader
has lost neither his children, except daughter who
died in 1859 or 1890 his friends Mr.. Gpin saw
his two sons and his old friend and aide de camp
| Col. Ehaz all living with him. He scouts the
tion of Kossutb giving lessons in his old age affirm
ing that his circumstances do not require il, and
that his Sons would not allow him 10 be in need of
such support. Neither bis appearance worn,
nor were his eyes sunken or hls cheeks hollow.
| The best proof, perhaps that Mr.. Gilpn gives of
KOssuths easy circumstances is the fact that he and
his friend Col Ehaz make periodical excursions into
Switzerland and the Tyrol, i'll search Of plants for
| the garden. It may have been on his return from
one of these excursions that / saw Kossuth, two
years ago last Summer, in Domo dOssola, the first
town the Italian frontier after you cross the
. hot fl.atf Of
what is called the irst-class and Kossuth stay
ing at one of them, which does not look if he
were then in great poverty. Arriving about dusk
one September evening i'll 1871 and ordering dinner,
| was asked, with the usual Italian pOliteDess,
whether should object to sit at the table with
two other guests. Of course | did not object. On
going down TO dinner, party met
and salnted by two gentlemen. One of
them was elderly and white-haired and when we
came in was speaking some language we did not
understand The two said good evening TO us in
French which they spoke fiueutlv, and there was
some talk of the easy kind which goes on between
strangers meeting anywhere in a hotel on the Con
tnent. Presently the master of the hotel came in
20 look after bis guests-anOther good old European
custom. slowly departing in these days of joint
stock ed-alnlity monster hotels twice as
dear and not half az good the old. With him
the white-haired, elderly gentleman cOnyersed III
Italian lust as fluenty in French Not long after
he was talking with his friend in German; and
when after that he began in English, also fluent and
pure we became curious about him. People who
speak three or four languages are not rare in Eu-
rope but English is not likely TO be one of them.
unless the speaker be German, which our friend was
not or perhaps Russian, winch set him down TO
be, because of the unknown tongue in which
he spoke first We found ncxt morning
that it was KOssuth, and as soon as
knew it / thought was very stupid not to have
known il before. But he gone. and have not
seen him since. / had seen him last quarter of a
century before, and heard him speak in a NeI-En-
gland city when had boys admiration and re-
spect for him as patriot and orator which | have
never lost. would have gYen n good deal for a
talk with him. but !; cnan6e of that sort does not
come twice. At that time lie certainly was not poor,
nor ILL., His appearance was just what Mr.. Gilpin
describes il last May, and his manner had sweet
ness aud charm about it which not in our imagi
nation because we spoke of ii before knew he
was Kossuth
Mr. Shirley Brooks's death could have surprised
nobody who knew that he had long been suffering
from an affection of the heart He was one of those
voung-looling Englshmen of 60, of whom one sees
50 many. 1t is not often that they seen in the
profession of literature. With Shirley Brooks liter
atnre was profession and practice which absorbed
all the energies of the man, and he had many.
Florid gray haired robust brisk in manner smile
always on his face and in his eyes, full of talk.
quotation or a story always on his lips thoroughly
good-natured with slight flavor of cynicism, sub
acid but never bitter, Shirley Brooks was one of
the men whom every body liked, who did much work
GOOD in its way and who probably had it i'll him to
do better if he had been content to do less His in
dustrv was muhfarious and ineXhaustIble He had
been a journalist in the usual fashion, and
was one of the first of special correspond
ents He wrote novels all clever, and with
brilliant bits in them, but all, as a whole, sec
ond rate. l suppose none of them are much
read now. or remembered. He wrote plays which
a few men in London who writing biographical
notices of him in the papers recollect with effort and
tell YOU were effective and well put together But
they are never acted. Magazine articles and mis-
cellaneous work in the daily and weekly papers he
also did. and did readably. In short pieces he
never dull. OF late years his greatest fame
contributor TO, and after Mark Lemons death
editor Of Punch He was as well fitted for this as
for ANYTHING. Two-line jokes, verses comic and
pathetic pungent paragraphs, all the various ma
terial of that unique paper flowed readily from his
pen. There was, above all, the weekly Essence of
Parliament - usually the best thing in Punch, and
ont of which, spite of its avowed humorous and
satrical turn stranger would get good notion Of
what really was done in Parliament. 1t was terse
never dry bristled with apt quotations, and many
pompous humbug was neatly mpaled therein OH a
sharp sentence. Also it must be said that many
men of a very different sort suffered Mr.. Shirley
Brooks did not like Radcalism nor Radicals. Panch,
under his hand, lost its old reputation for fearless
satire of abuses, for independence, for scom OF
snobs. for sympathy with the people and with the
boet foil N wi