The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1892-07-14
FADS OFFAMOUS PEOPLE
How They While Away
Their Leisure Mo-
mentS.
ELLEN TERRY KNITs OR sEWs.
Modjeskl Smokes an Occasional
Cigarette-Nilson Collects Fans
Mrs. Beere Likes
Mechanical Toys.
ELLEN TERRY KNITs OR SEW

ally.
A smart person sets up his W fad.
The crowd usually run together in
common pursuit of the fad that is the
fashion; it is pink tea, or it is coach
ing, or it is living whist, or it is skirt
dancing, or it is a society circus per-
Torrance, or it is Summing.
One of the busiest lawyers in Boston
spends his spare time with a micro
scope and a drop of dirty pond water,
and says he should have been crazy
long before this time but for this fad.
Charles Egbert Craddock is devoted
to fancy work, and so is Mrs. A. d. T.
Whitney. Louisa Alcott used to pinch
herself On getting up stunning pro-
grams for evening entertainments, and
considered tableaux her strong point.
Mrs. Margaret Deland takes to
carving chimney-pieces, and Mrs.
Celia Thaxter to poppy gardening.
ELLEN TERRY KNITS.
Miss Ellen Terry's hobby is one
with a practical aspect. At her
charming home in South Kensington
she keeps a huge work basket full OF
odds and ends of things for the poor.
When her friends go to see her they
must take their choice of knitting,
crocheting or sewing, and use their
needles like SO many Penelopes when
they talk.
Mrs. Bernard Beere, "England's
Tosca," as she is usually called, has a
strange fancy for mechanical toys,
dancing dolls and money boxes. A
horseshoe which she picked up once
upon a time at Sandringham hangs
over her boudoir door.
MODJESKA'S HOBBY.
Modjeska's is cigarette smoking, a
habit she learned in her girlhood.
She wanted to. be with her brothers,
but the smoke of their cigars made
she herself learned to smoke. She
package Or SO of cigarettes every week
should not be regarded as a heinous
offence.
Il do smoke, but / am not a
smoker. Ny clothes never suggest
the smell of tobacco, my breath is not
tainted, and there is not a trace of
nicotine on my fingers. / do not shop
or gossip; l am neither a candy-eater,
a tea-drinker. MOI a wine-drinker. ]
require something to quiet my nerves,
and l think | have chosen the least
injurious of all stimulants."
NELSON'S FAD.
Madame Christine Nilsson has a
hobby for collecting fans.
Most of her fans have been given
her by eminent people. The finest
one she has was presented to her by
the sahib of Moroi; it is made of gold,
gems and feathers. Another, which
was given to her by a Russian prince,
is an exact copy of the Queen of
Dudes famous fan. 1t is made of
white silk, and sticks of ivory and
gold, the whole being covered with
rubies, diamonds, pearls and emeralds.
The Empress Eugene once gave
Nilsson a fan which formerly be-
longed to Madame Dubarry. and was
painted by Boucher; another fan in
the fair songster's collection was pre-
sented by the city of Venice. 1t is of
silver filigree and point lace. Still
another one belonged to Marie An
toinette and was used by her in
prison. Altogether Missions collection
of fans is valued at $50, 000.
MENTAL TELEGRAPHY.
Today one would better hesitate to
call a person ''superstitious" simply
because he is rather inclined to be-
lieve there may be something in
thought transference.
The fact is that everybody one
meets seems to have an experience to
relate bearing upon the subject.
The other evening at a family din
ner table, anecdotes of the wal went
around. One brother said:-"The
funniest thing l heard during the
four years was in my first battle. I
don't know when / have thought of it
before.
"A man near me was overcome by
pure nervousness and broke out into
loud weeping. His brother stood by
him mortified and ashamed. Stop
that he said, shaking him. You
cowardl anybody would think you
were a baby!'
"Oh, l wish L was a baby blub-
bered the miserable one in solemn ear
nest, and a girl baby at that!'"
The next morning at breakfast the
ma rrator of this anecdote said:-
Whom do you think | saw last
night? The man who wanted to be a
girl babv!' / haven't seen or heard
of him since the war. He lives in the
| West and was here for the first time
in twenty years. Doesn't it seem as
though his vicinity put that old story
in my mind?
Most of us are familiar with the
psychical phenomenon Of the arrival
of a letter from a person of whom we
have been suddenly set thinking, or
his ring at the door, thus announced.
DICKENS AND LITTLE NELL.
During the period when Master
| Humphreys Clock" or, as it became
afterwards known, the .Old Curiosity
Shop" was running in some current
magazine, a young girl in precarious
health became perfectly enthralIed
with the story, and so absorbed did
she grow in the developement oil
Little Nell" that she felt persuaded
her own life would continue just sc
long as the little heroine's, and that
both would terminate together.
This she told her father one day
adding that she knew Little Mel
must die in the course of the story
And then began piteous letters from