The Saint Paul globe., 1898-04-17

of Boston. amusements from the bar
barous time when religious lectures
were the sole recreation and were of
such long continuance into the night"
that the general court objected, down
to the more civilized era of the Ly-
ceunf The institute, which has given
| over 5000 free lectures during it's fifty
| nine years of existence, is really moth
ing but some living representative of
Mr.. John Lowell Jr., the founder,
cousin of James Russell Lowell and
first conceived the idea of manufac-
turing cotton in the United States.
Edna Lyall, generally regarded as
the champion of piety, appears in
rather queer company as one of the
! signers TO an admiring letter to Nj.
Zola ;tmodestly superscribed: From the
women of England who appreciate
courage and love of justice" The other
signatures are Sarah Grand (Mrs. Nc
FalD, Ellen Terry, Miss Bradden, Fan
ny Davis and Mrs. Sydney Webb, and
the letter waits at the house OF it's
composer for more Signers. One cannot
help wishing that there were some shu-
| man power strong enough to prevent
clever Englishwomen from doing such
| things after few years of interview
ing and paragraphing have destroyed
their natural tinnidity. Imagine an
American. author of pious books ac-
knowledging that she cared for any
thing that M. Zola or his English and
American 1mitatorS might do or sufferi
Exactly three months ago, Punch
published the first of a series of pic
| tGres OF members of parliament and
ether noted personages, giving each
caricatured head affixed to a body in
d1cat1ng some of his characteristics
, Mr.. r.Chamberlain was compound of the
kangaroo and giraffe, with his eyeglass
very evident: the lord chancellor was
mueh like: hedgehog. with wig. and
buckied shoes. and Mr.. Balfour sthe
f'alph," was very long-limbed ape
in eyeglasses and CATERS, and armed
with a golf-stick. The carefully mis-
spelled motto was: 'This fascinating
animal lives chiefly in a bunker. and
feeds on stymies, cleeks, and yoats of
censure, 1t is very clever and has no
enemies, but it simply won't" Now.
III the beginning, these pictures. which
are called Mr.. Punch's Animal Land"
were headed with Acknowled gment
to Sybil and Katharine Corbet's Re-
! Gently Published Book" but this
seems forgotten by the many American
critics who have praised the pictures.
The volume was issued last year and
purported to be the work of two little
girls, who drew the pictures and wrote
the descriptions Of beasts imagined bv
themselves, and it was too funny and
| too good for any one who has enjoyed
1T to be willing that it should be left
| without proper credit. It may be that
the two little girls and the mother
who introduced the book with a few
remarks of her own, were all myths
invented by the Punch artist, but. if
they were, they and the book should be
remembered to his credit His descrip-
tions of his Animals are witty and
the names given to them are very in
I genlous. new New Zealand poet
who writes a little like Keats and very
much like Mr.. Robert Buchanan, is
| also among England's new acuuisi-
! tlons, and it is reported that she has
bought 250.000 of Mr.. Farjeon's Crit"
although it is not wicked in the least
Laird Cloves "The Royal Navy"
published by Little, Brown e,
Co., owes something to a strange
~ acquired mass Of papers. A
few years ago, a German book seller
sold the author a collection of docE-
ments relating to the navy under Viii
liam and Mary and Anne The eager
ness OF Prince George of Denmark and
leading admiralty officials made him
suspect that the papers at one tine
belonged to the admiralty, and had
been either stolen Or sold for old rub
bish, but they contained information Of
much value to him. Who would believe
the incident if it appeared il a novel?
The late James Payn once wrote a
story in which young man was kill
ed by falling meteorite and another
was accused Of his murder, and the
story was instantly labeled improbable;
but now comes a dispatch saying that
a warehouse in Fuime. Hungary, has
| been burned by a fire caused by a
four-ton meteorite, discovered after the
fire in deep pit. The tale appears
without comment. in the Daily News,
with which Mr.. Payn was for a time
connected. Still another coincidence.
Stephenson Browne