Evening star., 1902-08-16

afford the best exper advice to detect open
naWs OF latents mischief, and when de-
tected, 1t can afford ito keep a large staff OF
Workmen to repair ;the mischief and pre-
vent 1t spreading.
There is probab ablya no public building In
england better 9ooked after than st. Paul's
Catneoral An annual report is made as to
the condltlon of9very part of the building
An efncient clerk OF the works and forty
men are regularly engaged in repairing op-
erations. canon New bolt is firm in his as
seftion that no part of the cathedral is in
danger. He suggests that the report may
nave arisen froms thesfact that in one of the
galleries the mortar has worn away in
places put that gallsry is so strong that it
was intended tonhaVe put a large body of
the public In = had the king attended a
coronation Thanksgiving service there, as
was at one time intended.
Sale of Burns Letter.
On October 20, 1887, Burns wrote from
Edlnpurgh to Peter Miller of Dumfries The
d PIP. 4to letter was included in the week
END sale in Wellington street, and realized
no less than f40. Burns says, characters
tlcaliy: Il want to be small farmer, about
a plough gang, in pleasant country, un-
oer the auspices of coed landlord. l have
no Ioollsh notion of being tenant on easier
terms than another. To find a place where
one can 1--we at all is not easy. l only
mean living soberly. The banks of the NTH
are as sweet, poetic ground as ever l saw"
save Tor the series of ten letters to Peter
Hill, 1I01-6, sold in the spring for 1865, this
IS one OF the most important Burns auto
graphs which has occurred in the auction
rooms since January
1t would be resting to know what has
oeen the total amount of money spent on
luhurles IN the way of objects of art, other
tnan pictures, engravings and books, during
the season, which came to an end on Satur-
day. Naturally enough, perhaps, the auc-
hirp 90 inc
10 yleld up the secrets of their ledgers, but
a lew ngures can be given which will serve
to show that the transaction as a whole
must nave peen on a gigantic scale. For
instance, half a dozen separate collections,
tnat is, collections which were the property
OF single owner, have produced the
enormous total of f2G5 122.
one collection alone, the magnificent
JeWeis or which the Earl of Dudley sent to
Chrlsties, realized close upon 900 000-and
thls sum was realized in ten minutes over
Ihe M hour for thirty-one separate items.
Ihere has been no such jewel sale in Eng
lana TOR a long number of years, and the
quality of these dazzling ornaments may be
judged by the fact that three of them found
new owners at the extraordinary sums of
tl3,o f16,1o0 and ED, ,2oo respectively.
II IS interesting to observe that if the IA
nous Maquise and Lyme Stephens collec-
tions, which together produced the great to-
tai OF t220o0o, are left out of account no
such remarkable result as half a dozen col
lectlonS aggregating over quarter of
million of money has occurred here for
more than a decade. The details are as sur
prlslng as the totals, for an analysis of the
hgureS show that no fewer than forty-six
individual articles changed hands at sums
OF tleo and upward and that half of these
realized between $1,000 and f22,000 each. 1t
seems trlfe out of place. in face of such
figures as these, to talk of depression and
the trail Of the South African war"
Lesson to Enterprising Publishers.
The severe lesson "enterprising" publish
ers received on the postponement of the
coronation has been taken to heart. 1 OBJ
serve that periodicals which had arranged
to publish their coronation numbers in ad-
vance of the event or so close to it as to
hand, are now wisely deferring their special
publications till a reasonable time after the
junction. In that Inflated last week of
June there were tons of wasted coronation
numbers. There were several narrow es--
capes, and there were two or three shock
ing examples.
l am told that the peers daughter who
got the publisher of the LadyS Realm into
hot water by describing gala operatic per
formance which never took place is in reali-
~ what she processes to be. Her father,
like many another peer, however, Is rot
rich, and his daughter is glad to strengthen
her finances by contributions to the press
She furnishes sketches regularly to one or
two society papers, chiefly for feminine con-
sumption, and is also writer of short sto-
rles There are other relations of peers
who earn an honest penny by Journalistic
work. and AS for what are known as go
ciety ladies' there are more of them than
people imagine who exc out slender in
comes by writing for smart ladies' period-
Gals. l.. II. MOORE.