Morning journal and courier., 1886-01-30
MAX O'RELL'S LETTER.
The New Ministry in Franee-Figaro's Advice Bradlaugh - Blackm alters Travels of Royal Rfng-Tenlpere ance Wines-AR AnecdOte of Hans VOn EsuIOxv.

ance WInes-AA Anecdote of Hans
 von RulOw.
 Special Correspondence of the JOURNAL AND Cou1-
 FER. All Rights Reserved!
 LONDON, Jan. 16. To the Editor of the JOURNAL COURIER:
 France has new ministry in the persons of M. de Freycinet (prime minister) and fourteen unknown nonentities. I must make exception in favor of Victor Hugo's son-in-law, M. Lockroy, the senior member for Paris and the witty Parisian journalist, who has accepted the portfolio of "Com- merce and Industry" to the astonishment of Lis friends and the great satisfaction of his opponents, who are glad to see that he has seized an opportunity of using himself up. Of course a change of ministry is no longer an event; it is not even piece of news. People meet in France now with the follow ing greeting: "We have new ministers I near; do you know who they are?" ''Not one of them; do you2' And the nation goes it's way perfectly unconcerned. Oh, patient Frenchmen. is it fact that foreign, CTS say that you are ungovernable? I have can stand treatment that would rouse Eng lishmen to revolution.
 The Paris Figaro suggests to the President of the French republic that he should al ways keep the same proper names for hls ministers to avoid confusion in the minds of his subjects. The advice is good. When ministerial crisis took place the ministers would disappear, and their posts would i'm mediately be filled without noise or confu-
 l zaoI to their names as we'll as to their offices. President Grevy would say to his new prime minister: "My last prime minister was called Isidore; am used to the name and So are the public and the foreign powers. You will therefore henceforward take the name of Isidore'' And on with the other minis ters. When folks change domestic servant, to avoid trouble they often impose the name of a predecessor upon the new conner. 1 would suggest that the Minister of Justice be called Aristides. An appropriate appella- tion for the Minister of Finance would be Crossus The name of the Minister of Pub lie Instruction might be Nestor and on. Unhappily nowadays men have such thirst after notoriety that it would be difficult to persuade them to serve their country under pseudonym. And yet if they would only see it in the right light the plan would really be to their advantage. If NJ. Jules Ferry, for instance, had but come to power under the name of Artaxerxes he would not be as he is at the present hour, used up, done with and President Grevy would be able to entrust him afresh with the task of forming a new ministry. M. Jules Ferry was very we'll for few weeks. Artaxerxes. would have been eternal.
 After six years of foolish persecution MT. Charles Bradlaugh has at last been permitted to take the oath and his seat for Northamp- ton in the new House of Commons. Thus ends a long and weary controversy which has reflected very little credit on MT. Brad laughs adversaries, but has done an i'm mense amount of good to Mir. Bradlaugh. Where would he be but for his enemies and the silly persecution he has. been subjected tot His books have been advertised and bis name constantly kept before the public; and if his books calculated, as his opponents say, to do a great deal of harm, 8 very few copies would have been sold if the Conserva- tive party had not talked so long and 50 loud about them. The Conservative party wanted to go on with the struggle, but the Speaker of the Commons interposed and said that they were assembled in a new Parliament; that he knew nothing of the resolutions of the past and that he had no right to inter fore with an honorable member taking the oath. Mir. Bradlaugh will probably be very little talked of in future and I doubt very much whether he will enjoy his new posi- ton.
 Mir. Bradlaugh knows English law to the tips of his fingers. Even Mrs. Weldon can't touch him. I find an excellent portrait of him in an excellent book, Public Life in England" by q countryman of mine. CA lawyer he? Certainly not. He is much worse. Picture to yourself the incarnation of chicanery hidden under the muscles of the Bengal tiger, and crouched in the most tangled jungle of legislation in the whole world. A Blackstone and Montesqnieu perpetually occupied, not in extracting the spirit of the law, but in discovering it's weak points; then treasuring up his discovery, let ting himself be condemned ill the first or second instance, accommodating expenses, piling up proceedings, but at the right mo ment, with a bound and bite, terminating the affair"
 There is no class of men more liable to that modern form of persecution called ''blackmail'' than the members of the medi- cal profession, and there is none that suffers more from it, for breath of islander is sufficient to ruin medical man. Not q week passes in London without the papers reporting a case in which some doctor Is charged with improper behavior to female patients. Doctors and clergymen are the easiest and commcnest prey to the increasing gangs of blackmailers. But whilst the cler- gyman has fixed salary to live upon, the doctor has to rely upon professional receipts to maintain his family. A London magis-
 
 asked to name the offense most often com mitted and least often convicted he would unhesitatingly say it was ''blaekmail." The class of women represented by Potiphars wife exist on large scale in London. The arguments they are the same those In vogue thousands of years ago, and their re- venge is equally certain and destructive, for give lie of that sort an hours start and you will never catch it again. Medical men have elefore wisely formed a Medical Defense association for the purpose of checkmatii;g the slanderer by Investigating charges brought against one of their craft, and help ing to clear the characters of their brethren when the accusations are believed to be un- founded. This association will, 1 hope, do much to protect the noblest and most de- serving of professions from the pestilence of hysteric females and scandal mongers.
 The well-to-do classes of England no doubt believers in the doctrine that the next world will be peopled with all sorts and con ditions of men, but they not anxious to commence acquaintance in this 1 witnessed the following scene in church last Sunday: A poor woman thinly clad had been brought by her daughter, well dressed lady's maid, to take part in divine service. The pew opener received the lady's maid with marks of deference and placed her in a comfortable pew. The mother was following her daugh ter when the man called her back, and point ing to the seat which should contain ''infe- riors," said, ''This is good enough for the likes of you" The mother asked why she should not go with her daughter. eff had known she was your daughter I would not have put her in this pew," was the reply. The poor mother called her daughter out and both went off to dissenting chapel in the neighborhood.
 A curious remark comes from Spa1n on the subject of King Alfonso's death. On the occasion of his first marriage with his cousin Princess Mercedes, daughter of the Duke of Montpensier, the King offered his young bride among other wedding presents, a beautiful little. ring, which he begged her to consider as a private gift quite indepen- dent of all the official ones. The young Queen immediately put the ring on her finger and never took it off afterwards. At the death of Mercedes the King took the ring and gave it to Queen Christina, his grandmother. A short time after Queen Christina died and bequeathed the ring to the Infanta del Pillar, Alfonso's sister, who died few days after wards. For the third time the ring came back to the King, who then gave it to the late Queen Mercedes sister, Christina, sec ond daughter of the Duke of Montpensier Three months later this young princess died. King Alfonso resolved to keep the ring him. l-.. --.t.s