The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1894-03-31 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

GIVEN TO THE ESCAPED BEAST. —HOW HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TREATED. THE BALLAD OF THE NEW TALE OF A TUB.—THE TIGER WHO OOT HIS TAIL THROUGH THE BUNG-HOLE OF A CASK. THE HAND-WRITING OF ENGLISH ROYALTY—KING JOHN COULD NOT SIGN HIS NAME AT RUNNYMEDE—THE BRITISH MUSEUM COPY OF THE CHARTA BOUGHT FOR FOURPENCE FROM A TAILOR.—QUEEN VICTORIA'S SIGNATURE TO THE PASS • WORDS OF THE TOWER OF LONDON. " PALL MALL GAZETTE " ON FEMININE RAND- WRITING. SERIOUS CHARGE BROUGHT AGAINST THE LADIES. —MY OWN EXPE 'HENCE IN TUE MATTEL A HUNDRED LETTERS FROM LAMM IN THE COURSE OF EVERY WEEE—WHY WE DO NOT WRITE AS WELL AS OUR GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHERS DID—PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.—THE DUKE'S OWN FAVOURITE ONE—WAS NAPOLEON THE GREAT A GENTISMANT—THE PERILS OF ORANGE PEEL.-11E. 011TRIFT015 OPINION ON THE SUBJECT.—HOW MANY MILLIONS OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE HAVE HEAD THE ORANGE-PEEL EPISODE IN OLIVER Preaching at Bt. Paul's Cathedral on the morning of Easter Day, Dean Gregory incidentally remarked that "no endeavour should be spared to make the Cathedral, as the central Church of that wealthy and important diocese it should be, a model and example of all that art can furnish in order that it might be made worthier of the great end for which it existed. For too long a time it bad lacked the decoration wherewith it was in. tended to be adorned by its great architect; and, While the residences of the wealthy had been magnificently adorned and deccrated with all that the skill of man mild furnish, that Church had remained unadorned."  True, most lamentably true, Mr. Dean; although, if your reverence's sermon was accurately reported, the sentence which I have quoted is slightly tautological. 111 happily it was a high episcopal authority, who, more than a hundred years ago, despotically frustrated a magnificent scheme for the decoration of St. Paul's. It was the original intention of Sir Christopher Wren to fill up the blank maces on the walls of the metropolitan basilioa with paintings; and in 1776 the leading members of the Royal Academy offered the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to execute gratuitously an aktended series ef mural decorations. Sir Joshua Reynolds promised to paint the Nativity; Benjamin West promi,ed a picture of Moms with the Tablee of the Law; Barry, Dance Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann were Hedy to aid in the good muse. DraFi Newton applied to the King, who gave a willing consent to the plan; so did the Archbishop of York and the Lord Mayor of London; only one more vole:. of acquiescence was needed, and that was the voice of the Bishop of London.  " My good Lord," wrote Bishop Terriek to Dean NeWton, who was aleo Bishop of Bristol, " I have already been informed that such an affair is in conteinplatum; but while I live and have the power, I will never suffer the doom of the Metropolitan Church to be opened for the introduction of Popery."  Well, Easter has fallen in Our Lady's Lap"— that is to say Easter Day has been concurrent with the Annunciation—but as yet no great mishap appears to l-ave fallen on London, although the bloodthirsty husband of a woman, who kept a tobacconist's shop in London, availed himself of the great Paschal festival to try to murder her by Jiang a 'evolver at her, lie only succeeded in badly wounding her; and after firing at two other persons who tried to seize him, he shot himself dead. 8o the earth is rid of one villain; but that is a scant crmsolation when it is notorious that the murder and suicide craze shows no signs of diminution.  The lerSers of the Countess Granville, for many paws British Ambasradresa in Paris, contained • wonderfully comprehensive series of thumb nail portraits ol the most notable personages at the period of the Restoration of the Bourboue. She describes King Louis