Morning journal and courier., 1886-09-21

She Has Distributed a Lot Among Her
 Friends and Made Them Fashiona-

From the New York Sum-
 Queen Victoria has made the opal fashion able again. All the gifts of jewelry that she has bestowed among her friends for the past year have been opals. Sometimes they have been set alone, sometimes set with diamonds, but in every instance they have been there. The Queen has always had penchant for these alleged unlucky stones. She has in sisted that they brought no more bad luck to those wearing them than any other jewels, and she has long tried to allay that supersti- ton. Her rather profuse distribution of these stones among her friends, it is said, had for it's object the doing away with the super stition altogether.
 The Queens own jeweler naturally took the hint, and the other jewellers who were not the Queens own, but who were more than willing to be, were not slow in perceiv- ing that there ready sale for the very gems that had been heretofore looked upon with suspicion. So they made up into rings, pins and ill other ways, all they had in stock and sent out for more. Thus it was not very long before every blooded English lady gentleman who wore jewelry at all sported many and beautiful opals. Then it wouldn't be English, you Know, if the blooded Amer jeans didn't have lot of opa!s too, and al though President Cleveland didn't have any town jeweler'' to set the opal a rolling, there were lots of jewellers who did. There wasn't big stock of opals in these parts, so orders were sent to Hungary, the great opal market, to rush on here the best they had. Then opals went up. To-day they are one hundred per cent higher than they were a year ago. Geod ones sell for ffty-five dol lars carat and increase in price in almost 4l,a small and inferior stones can be bought as low five dollars carat, but they are not 8 bit pretty. The big jewelry houses are work ing them into all sorts of jewelry, and are very sad because they cannot get as many as they want.
 The jewellers and precious stone dealers of the eighteenth century, who had invested largely in opals, were nearly thrown into bankruptcy by Sir Walter Scott, who in one of his Waverly novels pretty nearly ruined the opal's reputation forever, and it is said that many jewellers of the present day cher ish resentment against the great novelist on account of the injury that he did to their forefathers, and will not allow any of his works on their library shelves. The ancients had called the opal the Glove stone," and no blooded young Roman or Greek would have even faintly considered engaging himself in marriage if he hadn't an opal ring for the girl And any ancient who had very choice opal at once became proud and looked down on the other ancients who were not so fortu- nate.
 Indeed there are strange stories told of these men of old and their opals. It is chronicled in the encyclopaedia, which took the fact straight from the old records, that Roman Senator named Nonius had an opal that made all the other opals in those parts pale. One day Marc Antony happened to see it and he wanted it for himself. He in timated to the Senator that it would not be bad scheme to make him present of it. But the Senator didn't it in that light. Then Antony said he would have to give him that opal or be banished. Nonius re- left the country with his opal, all his other goods having been coniscated. The an cient Pliny, who saw this opal, says that it was worth in Roman money equivalent to five hundred thousand dollars. When Sir Walter Scott wrote that novel, it was "Anne of Geierstein"-and told about the Baron Von Arnheim, who had an opal that occasionally got angry and flashed red fire, the opal market dropped at once. That opal worked too much mischief not to ruin the reputation of it's family. Its first little eccentricities weren't so much, but it's wind up was very bad. The baron had welded a beautiful Persian maiden, and for year or two, while that opal was behaving itself, af- fairs went smoothly enough.
 Then the baron and his wife went to church to have their baby christened. It was all right until drop of holy water fell on that opal There was & sizzle and lot of red fire darted out of the opal, which at once became as dull and lustreless as piece of dinner plate, and it wasn't long after this that the baron and the baroness died.
 After reading that story nobody cared much for opals, and it would have been hard to find a girl who would have consented to have one in her engagement ring. Appa- rently Queen Victoria doesn't believe the story, or superstition isn't as strong as it was At any rate the latest engagement rings will contain opals.
 One thing has leaked out since opals have again become fashionable, and that is the dealers in Hungary have been playing it low on the other dealers. The best opals were said to come from Hungary and everybody sent there for them Now the truth is that the best opal mines are in South America, just where nobody is willing to tell, and the Hungarian merchants have been having them shipped to Hungary, where they are sold as home product. One bright jeweier of this city tunbed to this fact and sent an agent down to South America, who bought up twenty-five hundred very fine opals and bar gained for several thousand more. The oth CT jewellers have tried hard to get him to tell where the mines are, but he won't.