The Weekly Gazette for Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool and Cleveland District. — 1879-04-26 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

GOSSIP. (From the Referee.)  , The Countess of Balmoral is coming home. Her sojourn at Baveoo has been most pleasant, and, if the TIC .v,paper reports are to be believed, her company has been anything but select. The President of the French Republic was received on the top landing of a flight of stairs, interviewed in a spare room, and bowed down stairs again. An Italian , ragamuffin has not only been honoured with I a long conversation, but Her Majesty has , actually indulged him with repartee worthy of a modern comedy. The Countess of Balmoral seems to have brimmed over with jokes. She hai cracked them with Italian gardeners, Italian butcher boys, and even had a passing chaff with an Italian bobby. Mind you, I don't say all this on any one person's authority. I say it on the authority of the united prints of England and the Continent.  • • • Strange that a lady so affable with foreigners and the Scotch should shrink from contact even with the gaze of an Englishman. Strange, that the Queen, who can banter a Bayou° beggar buy, orders the British public to be kept out of her sight and hidden when sho travels. Some day, perhaps, we shall read in some "diary" or " journal" the reason of our sovereign's Anglophobia. At present it is shrouded in mystery as black as Cetewayo's nob thatch. _ _  A poor women, ill and almost destitute, was the victim of a cruel practical joke. Some scoundrel sent her a farthing in an tinstamped registered letter, and she tad to pay tenpence for it. Her disappointment and grief were so intense that she committed suicide. Tenpeuny farthings come to most of us, but we don't all c mama suicide. We pay tenpence for a farthing oftener than we like to confess. That wife of ) ours, my dear sir, who was to be the light of your home and the sharer of your joys, she runs you into debt and flirts you into fury. She is your tenpenny farthing. That country house of yours, my dear madam, that was to be such a pleasure, with its garden and lawn and shrubbery, it is damp, and gives you the fever; it is lonely, and gives you the hump; it is expensive, and gives you long bills. It is your teupenny farthing. And all of us—all us great big British nation—there was a little something we took on trust once, and RAid a big price for. It was going to give Us peace and prosperity, prestige and power, and it has given us —what ? Oh, John, John with the taurine patronymic, your Goverumeat is a very little farthing for a very big tenpeuce ! _  It is rumoured that in consequence of the very skilful manner in widen the daily papers are conducting the trial of Kate Webster the case will be left entirely in their hands. The evidence given is much nicer to read than when it is on oath and mixed up with the quarrels of counsel.  • • * Mr Perryman is to have penal servitude for life, according to Mr Cross, for this reason: The judge was not "saiisfied that the prisoner had really intended to kill his mother or to inflict any serious injury upon her." According to this theury,Mr Cross ought to have the same. Everybody must be satisfied that he never intended to kill bis mother or to inflict any serious injury on her. • • •  If these decisions, reversals, and this general damphoolisliness continue to distinguish the office of Ho,lic Secretary, people will begin to wonder if it is the Earlswood Home that Mr Cross is secretary for. • • •  L rd Derby has put Satan behind him at last. He has wished the C ,uservatives goodbye once and for ever. When the news WBB first put about it wasn't believed. The Derby tip has turned out not to be a 'Oaks, however, as alleged. The a Leger was wrong for once. I think such remarks as these are allowable under the circumstances. It is 11.4 every day that a Tory Cabinet Minister gets so sick of Tory dodgery that he rushes to ,nir open Liberal arms to be nursed and cured. Most Tories have stomachs as strong as their heads are weak.  Down at Middlesbrough there is a working man whose poems at a penny each have obtained an enormous sale. When I meet with really good swinging, sonorous, and musical verse, descriptive of real flesh and blood life, I like to quote it Here is an elegant ex. ract about Peace :  Jack, Sheppard and Turpin are now thrown in thc  Since Peace has turned out such a carious blade; He quite excels all other housebreakers by far, Of all the burglars we read of he was the star.  At last arrived the long-looked for morning, Through the windows of his cell he could see it  adorning; And one of the cleverest rogues that ever did exist, Harwood was waiting his neck to soon twist. The hell began to toll at a quarter to eight. While the culprit was preparing to meet his sad fate; He mounted tho scaffold better than the warders did expect, But still a little nervousness there was to detect. To the reporters around him a few words he did  say— Very earrio6t to God for his soul he did pray. He said the rope around his neck was too tight; Marwood repeated, "I'll not hurt you—it's all right." .  That is a Peace cr :Poetry, if you like—perfect in execution.