Chat about People.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 444, 22 April 1890, Page 3

Chat about People.

(Late London papers.) BROWNING AND THB GOOD NWS. To the many that have wondered, and to the many that will wonder, what the news was that Browning told of in his spirited lyric, “ How the Good News was brought from Ghent to Aix,” it may be said on the authority of Allan Forman, editor of the New York Journalist, who had Browning’s word for it before th? latter died, that the poem was not based on fact at all, but was merely a matter of imagination, and that he had used the names of the riders and towns because of the romantic atmosphere of that part of the Low Countries.

THE NEW IRISH VICSBOT. Not much is known personally about the new Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Zetland. He was popular in the Blues as Captain Dundas. A London gossip says he is very ehy, very small and insignificant looking, wears an eye glass, and still looks overcome with surprise at finding himself a very rich man, owing to bis unole, the late Earl, dying without a son. He was once a Liberal, but couldn’t stand the Irish Disturbance Bill. Lord Zetland owns about 12,000 acres in Yorkshire, and has property besides in no less than six counties in ■Scotland. He is a large owner in minerals. He married the pretty, golden-haired Lady Lilian Lumbley, daughter of the late Marl of Scarborough. She is as shy and retiring and shortsighted as himself. BISMARCK’S LITBBIBT TASTES.

The Iron Chancellor is quite a connoisseur in books, and has added without very much expense at any time to the small library that he began to gather when a student. He is a good Greek and Latin scholar also, and often amuses himself by translating from the original. He is not nearly so voluminous a reader as Mr Gladstone, and is not always looking for a gem or something that will repay the perusal of a stupid chapter. He once explained to a friend that a book must interest him from the beginning, or he would have nothing to do with it. He pays little or no attention to English or American literature, and although many of the English and American men of letters have been presented to him he is not well acquainted with their works. He possesses a well-thumbed copy of Whittier’s poems, and likes to spend an hour occasionally with the * Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.’ When some great work has appeared in either England or America, and is translated into German, Bismarck reads it, but it must be of surpassing interest to engage his attention.

HOW ISMAIL EASHA LIVES. One of the most remarkable facts of contemporary history is the curious manner in which Ismail Pasha has been quickly permitted to drop out of sight and memory. Most people imagine that the ex-Kbefiive is dead, so little is the curiosity evinced as to the whereabouts of a man to wuom the Turkish Government has granted the enormous Bum of £1,000,000 per annum. A few years ago Ismail Pasha was perpetually to the front, now in Paris, at the Grande Hotel or at Vichy drinking the water. He passed the winter in the greatest magnificences at Borne or Naples, and the summer season at various fashionable water places, of which Homburg and Vichy were the favorites. Ismail is now living a prisoner in one of the most splendid palaces on the Bosphorus He enjoys his revenues and every luxury money can procure, but with the outer world he may not, and what is more, be cannot communicate. If he were buried iu a vault or dungeon bis seclusion could not be greater, for beyond the ladies of his harem and his attendants the ex-Khedive sees and hears no human face or voice. Oue day he will be found dead, and be sure there will be no inquest.

80THBBK AB A PRACTICAL JOKEB. Mr Toole can tell a lot of anecdotes of Sothern. He said to a questioner recently, * Dundreary 1 Ab, yes 1 He was the moat amusing creature on earth. You remember that absurd trick of his when be asked eighty people to supper, and wrote a private note to each man beforehand to ask him to be so good as to say grace, as the chairman was unavoidably prevented from attending the dinner ? The faces of those eighty men when they arose as in a body, at the tap on the table, which Sothern had severally informed them was to be the signal for grace, must have been a sight indeed I* BABNUII’s BAD SPEC. The visit to London has not benefited Barnum and Bailey financially. The attendances at Olympia have been fair, but the expenses are enormous; in fact it’s calculated that when all's done, the firm will leave £25,000 in England. The staging of ‘Nero’ alone coat £3,000.