The Poole Telegram. — 1880-08-20 (Poole, Dorset, England)

RUSSIAN EMPRESS'S JOKE.—The grim hum )ur of hcr uncle—di which, however, there was a scintilla of cruelty. a :41ispi chin that the fun was more d.l:cious from the fact that the feelings or fl,sh of others was lacerated—was on one or two erc.tsions manifested by Anne. Ai a palishment fir his relteilus apost ow, she nominated Prince G diitzin, a nobleman of middle age and :he wearer of an historic name, court page and court buffoon. There are few men heroic enough to prefer death to life on dishonourable conditions when one or other of the alterna tives must instantaneously be Chosi-ei ; and this prince was of opinion that even the life of a public butt was bett.-r toan li;e in Siberia or no life at all. Indignant that he wire he cap and Fells with a smiling 'ace and showed no sense of humiliation, the royal humouriat, with a broad grin on her broad face, and a malicious twinkle in her blue eye, ordered him t 3 marry a girl of low degree, promising to suparintend and pky the expenses of the marriage festivities, and to present him with a palace of great brilliance and beauty. The one she gave him was brilliant enough when the sun shone on it ! The festivities wero conducted on a scale of national magnificence. More than 300 man and women were ordered up from the several provinces of the empire to St. Petersburg to attend the nuptials of the prince, and commanded to come in the peculiar dress and costume of their districts. On the wedding day the motley mob was assembled in the courtyard of the palace, where the babblement of many tongues and the want of a coinnion dialect almost drove the responsible manaczers of the rejoicings to distraction, and whence the wedding guests started in procession through the principal streets of the city. At their head marched the happy pair, locked together in a cage perched on the shoulders of an elephant. The guests, brought from their far glens and hills to make an hour's fun for a queen, followed on sledges drawn by alt manner of beasts—swine, calves, does, reindeer, and boars. Some from far Archangel wen hoisted on the b icks of camels, fierce monsters'of whos, existence they wot not, and spent an hour of concentrated agony there; their reluctance to mount having been overcome by fierce objurgations which fell harmlessly on ears blissfully ignorant of their meaning,and by the free use of the cudgel,to the persuasive power of which they responded. A salute of guns announced to the citizens the departure of the procession from the palace; it was fired from four small cannon and two mortars. The cannon could only hold half-an-ounce of powder without bursting, and the mortars threw little wooden shells hardly as dangerous as a boy's squib ; for the murderous weapons were made of ice. Dancing and drinking were kept up till an early hour in the morning, when the bride and bridegroom were conducted home by a military escort to the mansion the Empress had promised them. It was a chamber of two apartments. built of ice. The furniture was of ice, the marriage bed was of ice, and into it the young couple, in obedience to orders from headquarters. after being stripped, were duly placed, and guards stood sentry all night at the door to prevent them seeking warmer shelter.—Gentletnaa's Maga7ine.