The age-herald., 1897-12-26
SOME GOSSIP OF
 ROYAL SOCIETY How the Queen and Her Family
 Spent Christmas. MERRY PARTY AT OSBORNE Unusual Christmas Presents Given by Ladies of the Upper Tendon. PHOTOGRAPHS IN NIGHT ATTIRE Sent to Their Favored Friends---Chron- icIe Comments On the Fad. MORE DECENT THAN BALLROOM GOWN Newspaper Scare On Eastern Situation is Pre- mature Only Watching Now-When
 the Time Arrives Great Britain
 Will Take an Active Part.
Sent to Their Favored Friends---Chron-
 icIe Comments On the Fad.
MORE DECENT THAN BALLROOM GOWN

London, Dec. 25-The temperature IS sea- sonable the yellow fogs in the middle of the week having given way to compara- tive brightness. The week has been the coldest of the season, 10 to 20 degrees of frost being registered, and skating has comemnced. All who could do so have gone to the country, where Christmas house parties are more numerous than usual Of the United States embassy, the United States ambassador, Col. John Hay, and Mrs. Hay alone remain in the town. MT. Merry White, secretary of the United States embassy, and Mrs. White spent the first part of the week at Hadfield, where the Marquis of Salisbury is spending the Christmas. MT. and Mrs. White first went to Benheim, where they participated in the Christmas rejoicings, which included two balls and the representations of two play lets, in which the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Randolph Church. i'll had parts. James R. Carter second sec retary of the United States embassy, and Mrs. Carter have gone to Biaritz, and Lieut.. Colwen, the naval attache of the United States embassy, and Mrs Colwell are in Paris.
 Party at Osborne.
 Queen Victoria has Q merry party at Osborne. There was grand Christmas tree loaded with presents for the royal children, the members of the household and the servants The party includes the Battenbergs, Connaughts, Lornes and AL banys. A royal baron of beef cut from a Devon OK fed the royal family at Windsor and was roasted at Windsor by cooks sent by a London caterer, who forwarded to Osborne on Friday with the boar's head .xl..z the queens sdeboard at Christmas. This years boar's head is a genuine Hure de Sanglier from the Coburg's preserves in the Thuringian forest. The Prince and Princess of Wales early in the week purchased pres ents as is customary from the royal trades- men, who displayed the wares in an apart ment of Marlborough house. which the roy altes selected. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Victoria of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of York, Prince and Princess Charles of Denmark, and the Duke and Duchess of Fife all assembled at Sandringham for Christmas, where the usual festivities took place.
 The Earl and Countess of Craven (form- erly Miss Cornelia Martin, daughter of MT and Mrs. Bradley Martin of New York; are entertaining house party at Combe Abbey. They gave their tenants a ball on Christmas Eve Lord William Beresford and Lady Beresford formerly Mrs. Louis Hammersey, and later the wife of the eighth Duke of Marlborough, who died in 1892 are also entertaining a de- pendency.
 Lord Alfred Rothschild made his usual distribution of 5000 pheasants to the omni- bus drivers and conductors, every buss- man getting brace of birds.
 According to the newspapers the ladies of upper tendon, married and single, are tired of the hackney Christmas cards and are sending their favored friends photo graphs of themselves as attired for bed. The Chronicle thinks that although such souvenirs are suggestive of a good deal, night dress pictures are less improper than presentments of the same figures in ball dresses
 As soon as Jackson, the explorer, com pletes the work connected with his Franz Josefland expedition, he will start for the north pole. He informed a representative of the Associated Press that his original plans were identical with those of Lieut.. Perry. except that he intended to take the east coast of the inland instead of the west, mapping out undiscovered land on
 
 Peary lectures, Jackson has changed his plans considering what the American ex- porer claims
 MT. Jackson says: q expect to be ab- sent two years.'
 Scare Premature.
 In well informed circles the general in- pression prevails that the scare in the newspapers and among the general public {,,r rl fA t1,r, for in mature. While the members of the gov ernment are reticent, they are evidently sincere in disclaiming the least alarm. The impression gathered in ministerial quar- ters is that Great Britain is carefully watching events, biding her time, and she will certainly not fall to act promptly and vigorously when the proper moment comes. It is intimated in quarters usually well posted on such matters that Germany either has or wishes to have an under 41.a o,k