Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1879-04-26 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

GOSSIP. rench Re (prol the Referee.) l'he Countess of Balmoral is cominghome. Her sojourn at Bayou° has been most plea. sant, and, if the newspaper reports are t3•ive be anythingpbuub.t T d ,hdee President r company o f hast hbean was received on the top landing of a flight of stairs, interviewed in a spare room, and bowej down stairs again. An Italian rak,amniEn ha 4 not only been honoured with a long conversation, but Her Majesty has actually indulged him with i.epark 3 worthy o; a modern comedy. The Countess of Balmoral seems to have brimmed over with joke.,. She has cracked them with Italian gardeners, Italian butcher boys, and evert 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 Con. tinent.  • • • Strange that a lady so affable with foreigners and the Scotch should shrink from contact even with the pze of an English. man. Strange that the Queen, who can banter a Baveno beggar boy, orders the British public to be kept out of her sight and hidden when she 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 that.  A poor women, ill and almost destitute, I was the victim of a cruel practical joke. Some scoundrel sent her a farthing in an nostamped registered letter, and she tad to pay tenpence for it. Her disappointment and grief were so intense that she committed suicide. Tenpenny farthings come to most of us, but we don't all commit suicide. We pay tenpenee 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 pa/ den 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 tenpenny farthing. And all of us—all us great big British nation—there was a little something we took on trust once, and paid 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 tanrine patronymic, your Government is a very little farthing for a very big tenpence  It is rumoured that in consequence of the very skilful manner in whicti 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 "satisfied that the prisoner had really intended to kill his mother or to inflict any serious injury upon her." According to this theory,Mr Cross ought to have the same. Everybody must be satisfied that he never intended to kill his mother or to inflict any serious injury on her.  If these decisions, reversals, and this general damphoolishness continue to distinguish the office of Home Secretary, people will begin to wonder if it is the Earlswood Home that Mr Cross is secretary for.  Lord Derby has put Satan behind him at last. He has wished the C mservatives good. bye once and for ever. When the news was 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 not every day that a Tory Cabinet Minister gets so sick of Tory dodgery that he rushes to our 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 erract about Peace:—  Jack Sheppard and Tnrpin are now thrown in the  _ ahade- Since Peace has turned out such a curious blade ; He quite excels all other housebreakers by far, Of all the burglars we read of he was theater. . . . I At last arrived the long-looked for morning, . . .. . • could  Through the windoWs of his cell he see it adorning; And one of the cleverest rogues that ever did mist Marwood was waiting his neck to soon twist. The bell began to toll at a quarter to eight, While. the culprit was preparing so meet his sad  fate; He mounted the 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 earnest to God for his soul he did pray. He said the rope around his neck was too tight; Marwood repeated, " Ell not hurt you—it's all right."  That is a Peace of Poetry, if you like—per. feet in execution.