Abergavenny Chronicle

Herbert James Gore, aged twenty-five, a shipwright, of Chatham, was reccntlv fined R5 for evading the Registration Act and for being an absentee from service. U. G. King-sland, twenty-three, artist. the jILed man who broke i^io a flat in Picca- -i,1. stole jewellery, and was chased by the ?T.?c, was sentenced to twenty-two months' Jm'4 ?bouT at the Old Bailey.

I I GRAND FLEET STRONGER. SUBMARINES AND MONITORS FOR COAST DEFENCE. Following the visit of a deputation from Lowestoft and Yarmouth to the First Lord of the Admiralty in reference to the recent bombardment, the following letter has been received by the mayors of the boroughs from the First Lord: "In accordance with the promise which I made to the deputation from Lowestoft and Yarmouth which was good enough to wait upon me this morning, I have much pleasure in sending you, for communication to your town council, a brief letter upon the subject of German raids on the East and South-East Coast of this island. "From the naval and military point of view, the German bombardment of open towns has so far been singularly futile. Judging by the three attempts already made, their method is to send over a squad- ron of fast battle-cruisers to bombard some undefended watering-place or fishing town for half an hour, and then return at full speed to the protected waters of the Heligo- land Bight. A certain number of non-com- batant men, women, and children are killed (the total number in all, with raids, is 141), a certain amount of private property is de- stroyed, whose value does not greatly ex- ceed the cost of the material used in its destruction. An ever-deepening disgust is aroused against German methods, and no military advantage whatever is obtained. But this is only part of the story, and you have emphasised what the Admiralty well know, that even half an hour's bombard- ment must cause anxiety, and, in some cases, even terror among women and child- ren who cannot estimate the power of the enemy or forecast his purposes. "You, therefore, ask me whether I can say anything to reassure these helpless civilians, whose fathers, brothers, and sons are so gallantly fighting in the North Sea and the Mediterranean. I think I can. I A RISKY OPERATION. "In the first place let me observe that, considered by itself, the recent raid on Lowestoft and Yarmouth is not, from the German point of view, a verv wise opera- tion. There is little to get by K, and much to lose. "It is true that the hurried visit was so shortened as to make it unlikely that the Grand Fleet could intercept them before they regained a place of safety, but, while this made it impossible for them to effect anything of importance from a military point of view, it did not save them from serious risk. "They cannot again count on coming into an area patrolled by submarines without suffering a loss far greater than any which they inflict upon us. b No damage to an un- fortified town could compensate them for the loss of a Dreadnought cruiser. j "Why, then, it may be asked, did they undertake the adventure? The answer, I conceive, is that, having decoyed the Irish rebels to their destruction by the promise of a serious attack on Great Britain, they made a show of fulfilling the engagement by bombarding Lowestoft and Yarmouth for thirty minutes. "It is not an experiment which (so far as we can judge) they would be well advised to rem1 at. This would be true, even if the dis- tribution of our naval forces on the East Coast was undergoing no alteration. "In the earlier stages of the war con- siderations of strategy required us to keep our battle fleets in more northern waters. Thus situated they could concentrate effec- tively against any prolonged operations, such as those involved in an attempt at in- vasion, but not against brief dashes effected under cover of the night. "But with the progress of the war our maritime position has improved. Submarines and monitors, which form no portion of the Grand Fleet, are now available in growing numbers for coast defence, and, what is even more important, the increase in the strength of the Grand Fleet itself ena bles us to bring important forces to the South without in the least itIlperilling our naval preponderance e lsew here. "It would be unfitting to go into further details, but I have, I hope. sufficiently stated the reasons for my conviction that another raid on the Norfolk coast (never a. safe operation) will be henceforth far more perilous to the aggressors than it has been in the past. and. if our enemy be wise, is, therefore. less likely. I "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOVR.

I. LARGE LINER SUNK. I WHITE STAR VESSEL TORPEDOED IN ATLANTIC. The White Star liner Cymric was tor- pedoed on Monday by a German submarine when homeward bound from America. The vessel sank at three o'clock Tuesday morning, fifteen hours after she was attacked. The liner was on her way from New York to Liverpool with general cargo when she was attacked" in the Atlantic by the enemy sub- marine at middav on Monday. In view of the fact that fifteen hours elapsed fiom the time she was struck to the sinking the White Star officials were led to believe that the crew had all been saved; but a Queenstown telegram states that five out of the crew of 112 were killed by the ex- plosion of the torpedo. The survivors have been landed by steamer at Bantrv. The Cymric, a vessel of 13,370 tons, is the third White Star boat to be lost in the war, the others being the Arabic, torpedoed off Cork on August IDth last with the loss of thirty lives, and the armed auxiliary Oceanic, wrecked on a reef near the north coast of Scotland in September, 1914.

I MILITARY AGE NOT TO BE RAISED I In Committee on the Military Service Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, Mr. Hume-Williams moved to raise the age of ser- vice to forty-five. There was a great amount of work in the Army which could be performed by men between forty-one and forty-five, apart from actual duty in the trenches. Tho onl" objection he could see to his proposal was that it would deprive fihe House of Commons of some of its most promising young politicians. ] Mr. Walter Long resisted the amendment. The mover had talked as if all we had to think of was men for the Army, and he ignored en- tirely the other work that the country had to do. The ages had been fixed with due regard both to the military requirements and to the demands for men for other purposes, and diminishing the number of men required for work at home would not help in the successful prosecution of the war. We were not yet driven to our last man, and the time to call for tho last man for the Army had,. thank God, not yet come. The amendment was negatived without a division.

I PARCELS TO BULGARIA. The Foreign Office states that all parcels and remittances intended for British pri- soners of war in Bulgaria should be addressed to them: "C/o Lieut. W. E. Gilli- land, prisoner of war, Phillippopolis, Bul- garia," by whom arrangements will be made for their distribution. Parcels and letters for prisoners of war may be handed in at any post office, and are forwarded free of charge.

I LORD DERBY AND HIS SCHEME. Speaking in Manchester on Saturday, Lord Derbv said his critics overlooked the fact that the machinery for gett'ng recruits had to be set up while the work was in progress, machinery without which the whole compulsory movement to-day would be of no avail. It would take time to rake the single men out of the munition works, and he hoped to have the assistance of Mr. Lloyd George. His lordship added that his resignation which was clamoured for would I have gained him popularity and would hare lost him his self-respect. He had never been a servant of the Government, but he did hope he had been a friend of Lord Kitchener.

I KUT WOUNDED ARRIVING. I GENERAL JOFFRE'S TRIBUTE TO THE DEFENDERS. I The Secretary of the War Office issued the following on Friday afternoon:— I "MESOPOTAMIA. "General Lake reports on May 3 that the military situation is unchanged. The arrival of the first batch of sick and wounded from Kut is reported by the Corps Commander." A subsequent announcement from the War Office says: "In continuation of the communique issued earlier to-day, information has been received from General Lake to the effect tuat the first batch of wounded from Rut, which reached the Headquarters of the Tigris Corps on May 3, was composed of three British officers and 173 Indians. "On May 3 parties of the Turks were sent out under the white flag in the Beit Aieesa area, on the rio-ht bank of the Tigris, in order to bury their dead. Mutual arrange- ments for this purpose was made, as, since April 17, fighting in this neighbourhood has been almost continuous. "With reference to the recent operations in Mesopotamia, the following message has been received from General Joffre: The French Army has followed with admiration the heroic defence made by the garrison of Kut-el-Amara, a defence which nothing could break, during a siege of 154 days, except the complete exhaustion of its resources; it has followed with the same feelings the brilliant efforts made by the relief column in face of the most unfavour- able conditions of country and climate, and of the difficulty of obtaining supplies. I beg you will be so good as to convey these sentiments* to the officer commanding the troops in Mesopotamia.' "The following reply has been despatched to General Joffre: Pleas* accept our most grateful thanks for ycur sy'mpathetic message, which has been at once conveyed to our troops in Meso- potamia. Thev will be cheered and en- couraged by the assurance of the admiration of the great army which, under your leader- ship, has for many weeks broken the enemy's most powerful efforts to reach Verdun.' A further War Office announcement is as follows*: General Lake reports that the second and third parties of sick and wounded from Kut reached the headquarters of the Tigris Corps on the evening of May 4 and 5 respectively. The second party consisted of 210 and the third of 243. The hospital ship returned to Kut on the morning of May 6 to bring back a fourth party.

I ANZACS IN FRANCE. POSTICN OF THE FRONT TAKEN OVER On Monday night the Secretary of the War Office issued the following announce- ment "The Australian and New Zealand troops have arrived in France and have taken over a portion of the Front." The troops include the pick of the men sent from the Dominions. Nearly half of them saw service in Gallipoli, the strength of the various units having sinci been made up by drafts from Australia and New Zea- land. General Birdwood has resumed com- mand. Shortly after the last New Zealanders ar- rived in France the new troops were given a section of the British Front to occupy. Upon the day of their entry the Germans hoisted a board bearing the words, "Wel- come, Australians! A few days later, at another place, the Germane exhibited this notice: "Australians, go away home. You are good fellows. We are Saxons, and have no quarrel with you." The Australians re- plied individually in characteristic Austra- lian fashion. General Birdwood's address, which he de- livered on the last day of the trip across the Mediterranena, to 3,500 men, has been dis- tributed to every Anzac soldier in the field. When the official statement was brought to the notice of Mr. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, he said: "I hail the announce- ment with satisfaction, feeling perfectly confident that they will repeat in France those deathless achievements which in Gallipoli raised our countrymen to tho highest pinnacle of renown."

I HEAVY SENTENCE REDUCED. Owing to a technical mistake at a trial the Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday reduced a sentence of fourteen years' penal servitude passed on Henry Harris at the Central Criminal Court to one of ten years' penal servitude. The Lord Chief Justice said the prisoner had been guilty of one of the gravest of offences. By means of boy decoys he enticed people to his premises, robbed them, and by threats of exposure made them pay him money. The Recorder, who passed the heavy and maximum sen- tence of fourteen years, was justified in his action, but unfortunately it was not proved that the goods the prisoner stole from his victim were valued at over E5, which must be done before the maximum sentence could be passed. The heaviest sentence thQ Vaw allowed was ten years' penal servitude.

I NO MATCHES BY POST. The Postmaster-General announces that the despatch of matches by pCtit. has resulted in numerous fires which have destroyed a large quantity of mails. It has consequently been necessary to withdraw the concession which permitted the despatch of safety matches, subject to certain conditions, to the Expeditionary Force in France. The despatch of matches by post to any destination, whether in the United Kingdom or abroad, is now entirely prohibited. The prohibition will not result in any hardship to the troops, as matches are now regularly issued to every member of the Expeditionary Forces.

OUR MERCHANT SEAMEN. I Dr. Macnamara, Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, moved a resolution of deep thankfulness to God for the unceasing vigil of the men of the Navy and auxiliary Fleets, for the heroism of the merchant ser- vice, and for the courage of our armies," at the ninety-eighth anniversary meeting of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, held at the Mansion House, London, on Monday. After paying a high tribute to the crowa of the mine sweepers, he stated that the question of granting some official mark of recognition to seamen of the mercantile marine at the close of the war was under consideration.

I EARTHQUAKES AS GHOSTS. Speaking at the Royal Society of Arts on Monday on "Vibrations, Waves, and Reson- ance," Mr. J. Erskine-Murray said Professor John Milne was once called by the Psychical Society to test whether it was possible that the suggested presence of ghosts in some of the Scottish castles was due to seismic vibrations. In many cases he found that when the supposed ghost walked the move- ments, noises, and opening of doors were due to the trembling of the earth.

I BOY AND MOTOR LORRY. I A verdict of "Death from misadvoenture" was returned at an inquest held at the London Hospital on the body of Joseph Sacks, aged fifty-eight, a blind man, who was killed by a motor lorry when sitting en a chair outside his door in Fashion-street. Spita Melds. The evidence showed that a hid of eight years, in the absence of the driver, got on the lorry and started the engine, with the result that it mounted the pave- ment and ran into a group of Jewish people, killing the deceased and injuring several other peop)e.

I MR. LLOYD GEORGE. I VIGOROUS REPLY TO LIBERAL CRITICS Addressing his constituents at Conway on Saturday on the Compulsion Bill, Mr. Lloyd George said there was no indignity in com- pusion. Compulsion and voluntarism were not inconsistent in a democratic nation. Compulsion simply meant the will of the majority of the people, the voluntary de- cision of the majority. He did not say that we could make the same contribution in men in proportion to popluation as France. We were supplying France with steel, with *coal, with the material for explosives; we were supplying other Allies with munitions of war; we were supplying them generally with transport on the seas. We had, in addition to a great Army, the greatest Navy in the world, and well did our Allies, and still better our foes, know that. The number of men engaged in equipping the Navy with munitions of war wa.s almost as great as the numbers engaged in France in producing munitions for thair Army. But after deducting all that, there was still a considerable margin of men who would be availabie in this country, if the need arose, for increasing our armies. That margin was not merely a great one, it was a growing one. Women were coming more and more to the rescue of the men. In munition works we had nearly 300,000 of them engaged on tasks of which before the war no one ever assumed a woman waa capable. He thought the necessity for compulsion had arisen in September. He still thought ao. He was told that the fact that he sup- ported it proved that he was no longer a Liberal. I "POISON-GAS." He had been subjected to a cloudy dis- charge of poison-gas, and he was glad it had been done. These things had been going on clandestinely and surreptitiously for months, and he could not deal with them. His diffi- culty was that no self-respecting man or newspaper could be found to give publicity to these attacks, and therefore he could not answer them. He was not surprised. We, as a country, had produced millions of fighters, but we very rarely in history pro- duced an assassin. They found one at last, and he was glad of it. There was one very disagreeable form M neighbour. He was the man who gathered together all the vile weed", in his garden, and when the wind was favourable set fire to it, when he was quite sure it would go to- wards his innocent neighbour. Well, all you had to do was either to keep away or hold your nostrils, and you knew it would be burned out. That lie was going to do. Millions of gallant lives had fallen the Fate of Europe, the fate, perhaps, of the British Empire, peihaps the fat- of human liberty for generations, was trembling in the balance and if any man believed the testi- mony of the person who published or in- vent.ed private conversation in order to malign a friend, if any man believed that he was capa ble, amid such terrible surround- ings. of engaging in a base and treacherous intrigue to advance his private ends, let him believe it. But there were honest Liberals who had no taste for that kind of nausous slander who were worried about two things. One ?vas that he seemed to have some differences of opinion with his chief. Good heaven! What use would he have been if they had not differed? Freedom of speech was essen- tial everywhere, but there was one place where it was vital, and that was in the council chamber. Again, some of his very best Liberal friends were rather shocked in their hearts because he was throwing such fervour into the prosecution of the war. It was the busi- ness of statesmen to strain every nerve to < keep a nation out of war, but d once they were in it it was their business to wage it with all their might. A badly conducted war meant a bad peace, and a bad peace meant n3 peaco at all. I TIME NOT AN ALLY. He believed that in this war freedom was at stake, so he had thrown himself with heart and soul and strength into working for victory. Nor had he ever had any doubts about the result, if we fought with intelligence and resolution. The funda- mental facts were in our favour. But it took time to bring them all into full operation. The business of the enemy was to destroy or wear out one of the Allies or break up the alliance before the time came. Our business was to minimise those risks, shortening the time within which we could bring out our maximum strength to bear on the enemy. Time was not an ally: it was a doubtful neutral at the present moment, and had not vet settled on our side. But time could be won over by effort, by preparation, by determination, by organisation. We must have unity among the Allies, design and co-ordination. Unity we un- doubtedly possessed, design and co-ordina- tion let yet a good deal to be desired. Strategy must come before geography. The Central Powers were pooling all their forces, all their intelligence, all their brains, all their efforts. We had the means; they too often had the methods. Let us apply their methods to our means and we should win.

I AGENTS FOR FOREIGNERS. The Army Council learn that, notwith- standing the notice that was issued by the Home Office in May, 1915, firms and indi- viduals in the United Kingdom are still re- ceiving from neutral countries requests to act as intermediaries or agents for the re- ceipt and retransmission to other neutrals of postal and cable correspondence. The retransmission of correpondence by an intermediary is dangerous to the inter- mediary himself, since as a rule he has little or no knowledge of the transaction he is indirectly assisting to carry out, and may unknowingly become implicated in enemy trade or in the transmission of undesirable information, thereby causing his own legiti- mate correspondence to be regarded with suspicion. All persons in the United Kingdom are therefore warned to refuse to act as inter- mediaries for the retransmission of tele- graphic or postal correspondence, and all such intermediary correspondence will be specially liable to detention.

I A SWIM FOR LIFE. I A foreign sailor aroused the inhabitants of Bull Bay, North Wales, at midnight on Saturday, stating that he had been cast ashore from the barquentine James A. Fisher, of Barrow. The Bull Bay lifeboat went out and searched the coast, but found no traces of the ship's boats or the rest of the crew of six. The James A. Fisher was broken up by the waves by the time the coastguards arrived.

I CRIME AND THE CINEMA. I Official reports received from provincial towns show a considerable increase in juve- nile offences during the past year. "It is generally believed," said Mr. Her. bert Samuel, answering a question in the House of Commons, "that one of the causes is the character of some of the films shown at cinematograph theatres. The subject ia receivi-nl, cle-ie attention."

I r 7,047 BRITISH PRISONERS. I Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary for War, has informed Mr. George Lambert that ac- cording to the latest information in posses- sion of the War Office the number of British and Colonial prisoners in the hands of the Germans is 26,800, of the Austrians two, of the Bulgarians 449, and of the Turks 9,796.

An artillery sergeant, writing home to Hitchin, .ays a blackbird has built her nest on a siege gun dailv in action at the Front, and now has four eggs in lt-« As saucy as she is confident of our protection," he addB." The Pietermaritzburg Chamber of Com- merce has passed a resolution recommending the repatriation of enemy subjects within the Union, and the adoption of steps to pre- vent the immigration of enemy subjects after the war.

I OTHER MEN'S MINDS. Respectable, orderly singing is killing religion.—DB. WALFORD DAVISS. I A BASKETFUL OF PUPPIES. There was a time when a bulldog was our national type. So it is still when you get down to the real nation, for the nation, though liable to partial and temporary de- ception, is as sound as ever it was. But if we are to judge it by some of its Press and some of its public men we should have to drop the bulldog, and take a basketful of puppies, all whining and yelping together, as a more appropriate national isymbol.-SIR A.. CONAN DOYLE. I EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS. It is an excellent principle to mind one's own business, and at the present time, more than at any previous time, public waste is everybody's business, and its prevention everybody's foremost duty.-MR. H.. G. WELLS. I OUR DEBT TO SHAKESPEARE. Before such an accumulated debt as we owe to Shakespeare we must confess our- selves bankrupt beg-gars.-MR. MARTIN HARVEY. I OUR SURE SHIELD. I I havo seen the mightiest instrument of power ever fashioned by man. Stretching away into the far horizon, great grey shapes, in numbers seemingly without end, I have seen the invulnerable Navy, behind whose ample cover the Empire has rested since the outbreak of war, and still rests in perfect security.—MR. W. M. HUGHES. I PROBLEMS OF AVIATION. I The problems of aviation are as yet only half solved. We should spend hundreds, even thousands, of pounds a year on the dis- covery of scientific facts. The nation which first achieves such discoveries will have an I enormous advantage.-LoRD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU. I WHEN THE MEN COME BACK. I I When the men come back from the trenches, especially the agricultural labourers, they will not be content with the old conditions for themselves or their chil- dren. They will tell the local and Im- perial authorities, cost what it may in rates and taxes, their children are going to have a fair chance in life.-Alp.. A. W. DAKERS. I INDUSTRY AND THE ARMY. I The Army Council and Labour both want the same thing—that a man essential to a national, industry shall not be taken for soldiering; but, on the other hand, that a man not so essential shall not take advan- tage of a protection intended for other people and escape service to the State.-Mn. WALTER LONG. I EQUAL SACRIFICE. I I I am in favour of conscription owing to the exigencies of the war and nothing else. I I know the horrors of it just as much as r anybody else, but I am in favour of equal sacrifice as far as you can make it.-Sin EDWARD CARSON. I SURPRISING. I A feeling which is gradually growing upon me is that of the old French cynic who on his death-bed said that the one thing that surprised him was with how little wisdom the world was governed.-MR. S. I WALSH, M.P. I THE BRITISH ARMY. I If we search for tho causes which have made the history of the British Army in all ages such a great and glorious record, we shall find that far and away tho most marked and prominent are the close and cordial relations which have existed at all times between officers and men.-VISCOUNT FRENCH. I THE MEN WE WANT. I Until we produce more men who can do new things and not merely know about old ones, it is futile for Great Britain to hope to gain pre-eminence over Germany in scientific industries.—PROFESSOR J. A. FLEMING. I CHRISTIANITY STANDS. I It is not Christianity that has failed, but the dreams of our materialistic civilisation. These are tested and found wanting, and they are destroying- themselves. Christianity stands where it did.—REV. R. J. CAMPBELL. SHAKESPEARE'S PATRIOTISM. 1 If England is to be sound and strong against her foes, her reputation throughout the world, 1Must be clean and wholesome. That was Shakespeare's patriotism. That is the patriotism which will stand us in good stead in this great crisis.-BisHop BOYD CARPENTER. SHAKESPEARE AND THE WORLD. I Irritated as we may be at the egregious I attempt of tho Germans to denationalise and Prussianise our poet, we have great cause for pride that all the nations have clairne(I this Englishman n.s belonging not to Eng- land alone, but to the whole world.-BISHOP I FRODSIIAH. ORGANISATION IN INDUSTRY. I The spirit which animates modern in- dustry is the spirit of organisation. It is the very life-hlood of all modern industry.— MR. W. M. HUGHES. OUR PART. I There are two limiting conditions in the matter of recruiting whick apply to us, and hardly at all to any of the other belligerent countries. I mean first the maintenance of sea power and sea supremacy, both by nieans of the Navv and of the Mercantile Marine, and next the financing ef the Allies. -MR. ASQUITH. PESSIMISTIC LONDON. I Ever since the war began the atmosphere of the Metropolis has been poisoned by one form of venom or another. It has been more subject to alarm and rumours than any other part of the country, more ready to believe that the Government was rotten to tho core.-MR. WHYTE, M.P. THE TALKERS. I It makes me tired to hear men in the House breathing nothing but complaints against Cabinet Ministers. Heaven help us if we had some of them as Ministers, for they could not organise a tea fight success- fully.—MR. C. B. STANTON, M.P. A DEBT OF HONOUR. I We all admit that we who have stayed at home in comfort must, when the war is lover, recognise that our great trust is to do justice to the men who have fought for ua. -SIR EDWARD CARSON. THE BURDEN-BEARERS. I We cannot carry-I say it deliberately- we cannot carry the heaviest burden that has ever been laid on the shoulders of British statesmen unless we can feel that we have not only the sympathy, hut the trust of our fellow-countrymen.—MR. ASQUITH.

TEACHERS SENT TO PRISON. I Two school teachers of Cefn, near Mer- thvr, named David John Evans and Thomas Morgan Thonia.s, were charged at Penderyn Petty Sessions with distributing a No Con- hcription Fellowship leaflet referring to the Everitt case. For the defence it was urged that the leaflet was not calculated to inter- fere with recruiting. The magistrates re- garded the offence as a very serious one, and pent both men to gaol for one month and fined each £ 10.

I TEA TABLE TALK. I TEA TABLE TALK. Lady Eva Dugdale is one of the most prominent ladies in the Royal entourage, and has been more constantly in attendance on Queen Mary than any other of <he ladiee- in-waiting since the war begun, with the possible exception of Lady Bertha Dawkins, whose special duty it has been to aid the Queen in dealing with the extra burden of personal correspondence that has fallen on her Majesty since the outbreak ef war. Princess Mary goes about a great deal with her mother now, accompanying her to most social functions which have the helping of our soldiers and sailors as their object. She works very hard indeed, and the table in her own little sitting-room at Bucking- ham Palace is always covered with garments she is making for the soldiers and sailors and for the children of the poor. "What a. pity it isn't Mary who's to be King," the Prince of Wales remarked one day as a tiny lad, "she's so clever and she's so good at managing us all." And her brothers are managed by "Mary" to this day. < Princess Mary takes the keenest interest in the career of her brothers. Indeed, the affection the Princess has for all he* brothers and they for her has helped tc. make the Royal family a very united and happy one. In bygone days Princess Mary would often make unexpected gifts to her brothers, much to their delight. Sometimes the gift would be a toy for which one of her brothers had expressed a particular desire sometimes a book, sometimes a box of sw.eeti. These gifts were always purchased by the Princess Mary out of her own pocket- money. In those days Prince Albert 1* stowed the name of Fairy Godmother on E, sister. In writing to their sister the Prin- cess will sometimes even now address her R(ival Highness as "Dearest of Fairy God- mothers." < Madame Sarah Bernhardt is an actress of. wonderful resource. Once, when she was acting in Italy, the audience was rather Ull- friendly owing to the fact that the prices cf the seats had been considerably increased After the first act, Madame Bernhardt, called her maid and gave her some direc- tions tn an undertone. The maid left the theatre, but speedily returned, and just before her mistress went on the stage again s he handed her something as she stood in the wings. The scene progressed. "TIle Divine Sarah" seemed hoarse. She tried to clear her throat, passed her handkerchief across her mouth and suddenly a stream of blood poured from her lips, and she fell into the arms of the actor with whom she waa pL laJ ying£ > The curtain was promptly rung down, and the audience waited breathlessly to hear the worst. All their previous vexation was turned to sympathy, and when it was an- nounced that the great actress would shortly resume her part rather than disappoint them the cheering was deafening. When Madame came on again the people applauded her as loudly as formerly they had shown their disapproval, and the rest" of the play was one long triumph. put that audience never knew the truth, for when Madame had sent her maid out of the theatre it was to get her a small bladder of red ink, which she kept in her handkerchief, and which she bit thiough with her teeth so as to produce the alarming effect that had transformed her audience. < Self-willed, serious, and grave beyond her years, the Grand Duchess Marie of Luxem- burg, who is Europe's youngest Sovereign, has ruled over her miniature State, which has an area of only a thousand square miles, about one-seventh the size of Wales, in a manner which has caused her to be regarded as a model ruler. She succeeded to the throne in March, 1912. on the death of her father, William III.. Grand Duke of. Luxem- burg, being then within two months of her eighteenth birthday. The Grand Duchess I yit 11 a 11 y enjoys an autocratic sovereignty, for Luxemburg's small legislative body is in session for only a third of the year and has hardly any powers of restraint on the monarch. The Grand Duchess attends all functions in full state, insisting on a large escort at all times, though the Luxemburg army hardly numbers two hundred men. Madame Christi10 Nillson (Comtesse do Miranda), the Swedish singer, was once, it is said, at the house of a retired Chicago merchant. A distinguished company had been invited to meet her at dinner. On entering the dining-room she dropped her host's arm, and, hurrying in amazement to the stately voung butler, seized him effu- sively b 7 the hand, and engaged him in conversation, while the other guests looked on in astonishment. "That man," she ex- plained, when all were seated at the table, <• :.s the rton of a kind old nobleman on whose estate my father worked as a day labourer when we were children. Fortune liis smiled upon me, while it has frowned on myoId playmate." The Empress Eugenie of France, who is one of the richest women in the world—her fortune being estimated at no less than = £ 6,000,000—is certainly one of the most charitable. When her only child was born. Napoleon III. announced the fact that he and his wife would lie the god-parents to all the children w h) were born in France on the same day. No fewer than 3,600 children claimed Imperial god-parents, and the Empress still keeps a list of her charges, and has put aside a legacy for each child now living. ■ The Empress was noted for her wonderful generosity in France, and she ia no less charitable in England to-diy. # A clever, practical-minded woman, Lady Cowdray is a fitting wife for the man who is regarded as the greatest contractor in the world. Raised to the peerage eight years ago, Lord Cowdray, formerly Sir Weetman Pearson, is president of the firm of S. Pear- son and Son, the great firm of contractors, which employs something like 30,000 hands. Engineer, dock, tunnel, railway, and bridge builder, his lordship has carried out some gigantic contracts. Indeed, it has been said that he seldom undertakes anything less than a million-pound job. A charming romance was that of Lady Cowdray'a youngest son, the Hon. Geoffrey Pearson, who in 1909 married that clever sin ger and actress, Miss Ethel Lewis, who made quite a name for herself with the D'Oylev Carte company. But the war has left her a widow, for her young husband was killed in the early days of the war. ♦ As practical housekeepers Lady Poore allows that Australian women are far ahead of us, but she adds in her book of Recol- lections: "The perfection of domestic ser- vice, as it is to be found in the great nouses of England, cannot be looked for in Australia of the Australians, because this is the growth of centuries, like the velvet turf of English lawns; and the independent spirit in Australia of that class from which our best servants are drawn forbids one to suppose that domestic service will ever appeal to its representatives as an honour- able and desirable calling. Mrs. Arthur Hamilton is well qualified as an authority as to what can be done in the sea, for she is a champion swimmer and holds medals. To her belongs the distinc- tion of being the first lady to swim across the Sol-ent, a difficult feat with its cross cur- rents. Off the coaist of Brittany she has achieved much in the way of long-distance swimming. She has done much war work in France. She is the daughter of the late Sir Charles and Lady Fairlie Cuninghame, and her husband he-Ids a staff appointment. She has invented a wonderful medicated trench sock, which aims at increasing the circulation of the blood an j. so preventing frostbite.

Among the events of a sports gymkhana carried out at the Norfolk War Hospital was a race for invalids on crutches, which, so far from being pathetic, was, owing to the fine spirit of the contestants, made quite humorous. A Rotherham firm, applying at the South Yorkshire Tribunal for exemption for two married men, said all their young men had joined, and among the clerks they had left one had been with them sixty years, another fifty-eight, and a third forty-six years.