Morning journal and courier., 1886-04-03

ding friend out of his money, and by such | means too as MT. Belt was accused of having used. But the evidence has proven only too clearly that Sir William Abdy only just es- | capped being culled out of eight thousand pounds sterling by the enterprising sculptor, l for had all the transactions between them been carried out he would have paid fourteen 1 thousand two hundred pounds for jewels I which only cost Belt six thousand pounds, | and about every article of which he had in vented some plausible story to induce the simple baronet to purchase them. The sculp- tor was found guilty; So collapses the char well know artists career is twelve months imprisonment with hard labor, l but there are probably few peo- pie, outside the professional money | lending frat ernity, who will consider that ! MT. Justice Stephens has been too severe on l the prisoner. When the man of culture goes in for the sharp practices of a common and vulgar swindler, it is question whether he does not deserve severer punishment than an ordinary rogue.
 The Paris dandy has of late been appear ing at balls in a gloyeless state. Now to dispense with gloves at theatre is all very well, and is of course an economy which a l man may fairly practice, especially in these hard times. He does not hurt anybody, but when it comes to putting 8 warm gloveless hand on the waist of delicate ball dress, tue gain IO HIS OOcket IS d Crln6 compared uO the loss from that of his partner, and the proceeding savers of anything but good taste. So ladies, who think so too, are beginning to put at the foot of their invitation cards: You are requested to wear gloves;" and nowt Parisian who affected no gloves for a while turns round and says the fashion was an American importation. I leave you to decide whether he is telling the truth. l suppose whenever we get reproved for bad he bit we have taken, up, we like to make folks believe we learnt it of our neighbor, and that 1t was none of our inventing.
 The Duchess of Marlborough has come out as political agitator. Whether Her Grace has been fired with desire to serve the Con- servative cause, by seeing the activity of her daughter-in-law during the late electioneer- ing campaign, or whether she thinks it is time vulgar prejudice on the subject of duchesses should receive a shock, it is of course impossible to say, but certain it is that not Lord Randolph Churchill himself could have displayed more assurance on the platform than his mother did last Saturday, at the Star and Garter Hotel, when Her Grace made her first appearance on public platform. From her speech it was evident that the duchess holds a comfortable little creed which runs something in this way Liberals bad men. Conservatives are good men. The Primrose league is grand institution, and if we only all stand by it and by our beloved church all will go well
 
 duchess!
 Alphonse Karr, after having made a name as novelist of the first rank, suddenly abandoned his pen and made up his mind to live simple life, far from the madding crowd of readers and reviewers. He left Paris and went and settled at Nice, where he spent his days, and still spends them for aught know, in the culture of flowers which he had always loved, ill other words he turned gardner, selling his sweet blossoms for money like any other gardener. When l was living in Paris some years ago, it was the fashion to send to Aiphonse Karr when one wanted bouquet for presentation, and the lovely blooms came beautifully arranged and bound around the stem with d ribbon bearing the great novelist's name. Is there something satiating about success novel, ist, I wonder? Count Leon Tolstoi, the eel ebrated Russian novelist, whose "Anna Karenine" and other works have been wide ly read, even outside his own country by means of the French translation, has said adieu to fame, and is about to take the awI and the last. He is man of deep religious feeling it seems, and having made up his mind to live up to the precepts of CSrist's Sermon on the Mount, has taken it into his head that he can do it better while pursuing the calling of cobbler. Unfortunately for the world, it is probable that the count will never make good a shoemaker as he made a novelist. It is to be regretted that he does
 
 with the precepts given in the Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoi was never a chsry writer. I hope he will now make jolly cobbler.
 Lady Burton writes to the Academy from Morocco that she has not read and does not intend to read, her husbands famous trans lation of the Arabian Nights," but that she has read all the reviews, and is con- vinced that man who devotes years of study to great work purely with the motive that the rulers of his country may thoroughly un- derstand the peoples they are governing by millions, and who gives that knowledge freely and unselfshly, deserves great com mendation. "To throw mud at him be- cause the mediaeval Arab lacks the vGrnish of our world of to-d day is as foolish as 1t a few spots on the sun" Captain Burton did not publish his translation for the Brit ish 'Fgood young man" who is still at lib erty to prefer Miss Charlotte Younge's pro- ductions, but for English students for large minded, strong and healthy brained men, who are no more likely to be corrupted by the reading of Burton's Arabian Nights" than by the plays of Aristophanes. I should indeed have very little confidence in the morality of man who would be in fuenced for evil by the reading of such books, and personally greatly pity the man who is not able to discern art from realism.
 It is officially stated that England possesses sOO,ooo spinaters. The emigration of young men to the colonies probably ac- counts for this overerowding of women, who, if they went to the colonies themselves, would immediately find employment as wives. Although this mode of earning living is thought very hard one by some American lady writers it is eagerly sought after. It was announced few days ago that the board of guardians of a London suburb had received 192 answers to a letter sent them by soldier out at the Cape king for wife. This august body, how ever, ''would not turn into a matrimonial exchange and mart-not for all the spinsters in the Kingdom" It appears that the real number of plications-ridiculous and seri ous-was not 192, but 246. Some sent pho tographs, some were pretty, some ugly, but all breathed strong desire for matrimony. One lady cut out the face from her photo graph, and requested the British warrior to judge her by her figure alone. Two young women declared they would go to South Africa together on approval if allowed their fare there and back. No doubt the Ennigra- ton society is right when it declares that if shipload of women were wrecked in Table Bay and each had nothing but the clothes she stood in, they would all be snapped up in no time.