The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-18

Continued from First Page.

Continued from First Page.
performances have passed off with far less
display of hostility than was foreboded,
but every body will be easier in mind when
they are finished altogether. BY present
arrangement they stretch Oil till January
is, the date OF the proclamation of the Ger
man Empire at Versailles, ana this implies
prolonged strain on the French patience.
The news that Arohduke Francis Ferdi-
nand, who has been treated as the heir to
the Austrian throne since his cousin Ru-
dolph's suicide, has been seized with a
dangerous pulmonary affection has created
much agitation in political circles, both
inside and beyond the dual monarchy. He
is not by any means an ideal heir presum p
tive, but his brother Otto is so unspeakably
worse that people nave grown reconciled
10 his shortcomings. If he dies, however,
it will be impossible to keep the unhappy
state of the Hapsburg succession from pub
lie discussion much longer.
Yelled illusions to certain complications
surrounding another heir apparent are
being succeeded i'll the London papers by
open hints. 1t seems that the Shahzada,
who had such an imposing reception as
the Ameer's son several months ago, has
got loose and stoutly declines to quit Lon
don at any price. 1t is said that the Ameer
has sent repeated messages ordering him
home, and everybody here from the Prince
of Wales down has been telling h i'm plainly
to go, but he refuses to bulge. There is
an official story that he is delaying his de-
parture on account Of misunderstanding
as to who shall pay the expenses of his
projected Continental tour, but the real
reason is understood to be hat he is hay-
ing more fun in London than any Asiatic
second son ever dreamed of before, and in
sists on. settling down to it as life job.
1t now seems settled that Sir Garnet
Wolseley is to succeed the Duke of Cam
bridge in October as commander-in-chief,
though with functions of the post con-
siderably limited. This result, if it be now
really secure, has been won only after a
stubborn resistance of the court party and
the old fashioned military magnates who
owe their promotion to that party. All
the officers who are keen about introducing
reforms and bringing the British system
up to something like a recognizable rela-
tionship to the continental military
standards are enthusiastic over the
promised change. The only drawback is
that the advocates of a greatly increased
navy, who just now enjoy the popular ear,
suspect Wolseley of undertaking the value
of preponderant naval force.
The late Canadian Viceroy, the Earl Of
Derby, has engaged in a combat with the
inhabitants of one of his Flintshire manors
which tonight, it is reported, has devel-
oped into a small civil war. They have
enjoyed a short cut for path over the hill
on his castle domain for three generations.
He has now inclosed it with high fence
and ordered that admission to the hill and
castle ruins shall be only by ticket. Mobs
of in dignant villagers tear the fence down
as fast as it is built and burn the notice
boards; and a Welsh member who passed
through the district to-day tells me that
the expectation is that force of Chester
police will be brought out to coerce the
crowd, which is quite resolved to resist.
Kier Hardie, who sails to-day for a lee
ture tour in America, deserves no atten-
ton from any labor leaders or anybody
else, and will probably get what he de-
serves. John Burns really has something
in him, but Hardie is mere empty fraud,
who won notice in the Commons only by
wearing dirty old clothes and coster's
cap instead of hat of Parliamentary ira
dition. This would have been forgiven as
part of his general scheme of securing
an audience if there had been anything
genuine behind his affectations, and peo-
pie tolerantly waited to see if there was,
but in vain. He is blatherskite pure and
simple.
Gladstone. now issues postcard judg.
ment on some book or ethical problem
submitted to him nearly every day, and,
sad to say, the papers have taken to print
ing them in very small type in obscure
corners. One to-day contains the state
ment that while he is personally grateful
to science for all that it has done and is
doing, Christianity stands in no need of it
and is now as able as ever to hold its own
grounds.
A curious report is afoat that Swinburne
is about to be made poet Laureate, and a
| friend, who ought to be well informed,
says that it has always been mistake to
suppose that the Queen opposed him so
| strongly. The real opposition, according
| to this account, came from Gladstone and
was based chiefly on personal grounds.
| The appointment is, however, strictly a
royal prerogative, and the Queen is so
| tenacious in these things that the story
seems to have a weak point somewhere,
and I am inclined to doubt that Swim
burne will get it after all.
Mr.. Marston of weilrknown publishing
| firm writes of the Canadian copyright
controversy. He ridicules the idea that
Americans have anything to fear from
| Canadian reprints of British books if only
| for the reason that their Importation could
be stopped by our customs and declares
that the present American cutlery against
the proposed Dominion law is raised purely
! to screen our own improper claims from
Canada. He advises the Canadians to
abandon their present position and pass
instead strong law to exclude American
| reprints of copyright books from Canada