The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-09
 THE NEWS FROM LONDON Chamberlain 10 Take the Stump to Champion Imperialism. 4 His Majesty sn Experienced Man aMOde Peace Maker @
BY HENRY DEvEREAux.


 hour from midnight to sunrise and after: encamping, going across country, and so on. And then the uncertainty of the climate. The night and early morning were lovely, just to lure people on. Af- forwards rain came but not continuous ly. On the whole, the weather was not too bad, but otherwise there was quite enough hardship for real enjoyment. Rush. crush, over-fatigue, and the gen eral want of knowing what it was all about supplied most of the necessary constituents of modern amusements. Popular feeling was little in the matter, the motor" being as yet much of a for eigner over here which was a great com fort. l do not think, when all is said and done, that We want to have another motor week. though, perhaps this should only be whispered. The man in the street. may want 1t again, and who can stand against him? Fred, who went by motor to Kildare, says that the Naas high road in the early hours of dawn on the race day was the most weird sight that he ever saw. Motors, cycles, cars carts, of all kinds of methods of progress sion mixed together fortunately, all go- ing the same way, or many ghastly things might have happened. What would you say to those who projected another motor week?" I inquired of Fred. What Punch said to those pro- jectlng marriage" was his nnhesitating reply
 The Princess Mathilde has surmounted this time the apopleetic attack that so nearly carried her off. She Is eighty three. Her sister -in-law. the Princess Clothilde. started for St. Gratien to nurse her directly she heard of her illness. Mathilde has also with her a mathemat- fcal repetiteur at a state school who formed what the ex-Crown Princess of Saxony might term an intellectual friend ship with Mathilde. This friendship dates from the year following that in which the illustrious lady lost her sec ond husband, M. Poquelin, a distinguish ed artist Mathilde, as Princess Anatole Demidoff, shone as a beautiful woman in the last four or five years of Louis Phillippes reign. She then separated from her Russian husband, and when her cousin, Louis Napoleon. became president. helped him to do the honors at hls fetes at the Elysee. She is a woman of head and has been, as the ladies of the Bonaparte family under stand the term, woman of heart. She manages, though so advanced in years to have many friends The widow of General Espinasse, who lost his life in the battle of Magenta, Is one of her old cronles, and Is now also with her. The princess has a masculine mind. and the frankness of n femme du peuple who knows nothing of the complexities of re- fined societies.
 Mir Stanley Austin, the editor of the Printseller has this month directed the attention of the print collecting public to a matter which will certainly cause gen. eral surprise and regret. The remains of Lucas, the great English engraver, whose work is so eagerly sought after, are said to be buried in a pauper s grave in the grounds of the Putnam workhouse. It is earnestly to be hoped that this report is incorrect The many rich admirers of the work of Lucas. men and women who pay enormous sums for prints done by him, should exert themselves to rescue his remains from so improper a resting place-if they really are in a pauper's grave-and should do their utmost to raise a monument to the memory of one of this countrys greatest artists.
 Almost every day Eight is thrown on the conduct of the war in South Africa. While thousands marched to the front to the music of the band, the hurrahs of the population lined up to sec them pass. the British contractor rubbed his hands in anticipation of fat contracts. The mother, the wife and the sweetheart returned home to weep and pray, the contractor to figure out profits.
 The explanation of the wholesale de- struction of army rations at Pretoria that was issued last week is on the face of it satisfactory from the military point of view, though possibly the contractors concerned may have something to say about it. It appears that the stores were condemned after a special examination, on the ground that they had all gone more or less bad; and as a substantial portion of them, namely 1869, 3s2 tins of meat and vegetable rations. had all been delivered within the previous two years. and some of them within the previous year, some answer to this allegation may reasonably be expected from the con- tractors concerned. As the case stands. it affords an advertisement of a some what undesirable character to these firms. The question also suggests itself, how far the same state of things existed in other stores supplied at earlier stages of the war. when. presumably they were looked at most critically. II was in con sequence of sickness among the troops that attention was directed to the condi- ton of these stores and the reflection that naturally arises is that possibly good deal of previous sickness which has been set down to the account of the South African climate. of the hardships of campaigning might have been trace able to a similar cause.