Topics of the Day.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 586, 24 March 1891, Page 3

Topics of the Day.

[TIMES COBKSSPtrvDIINT ]

London, Jan. 16.

X COSTLY LIBBL -CflON,

A very curious libel action has been occupying Mr Justice Hawkins and a special jury during the present week. It was brought by Mr Foot, the Vicar of East Cleveden, in Somersetshire, against Hr Edmund Elton, his father-in-law, chief parishioner and patron of the living. Some time ago Mr Foot libelled a curare by cahing him a drunkard, and, there not being a vestige of evidence to support the accusation, the rev. gentlemin had to pay £3OO for his mistake. Sir Edmund E ; ton was called as a witness in the curate’s favor, and subsequently wrote a letter (very guarded y) to the Bishop of the Diocese, in which he said that he could not approve the vicar’s conduct in the matter. Mr Foot, having possessed himself of this document, pronounced it libellous, and thereupon brought an action. The case occupied four days, and despite the paltry character of the t-qaabble, must have cost the two parties concerned a pretty penny. The jury ultimately decided the defendant’s letter contained no libel and was written without malice. The costs of this action and its predecessor will, amnont, even when strictly taxed, to nearly £2OOO. B'D FOB THE BARINGS. Though the public were not (thanks to Mr Lidderdale) to any great extent affected by the recent financial crisis in the house of Barings, the connections of that firm have one and all to mourn a and decrease in their incomes. Lord K» velstoke, whose drawings for the last twenty years have not fallen far short of £50,000 per annum, will now, even with the proceeds of his wife’s jewels, only have about £3OOO a year left to live upon This is bad indeed, but Mr Francis and Lady Grace Baring are, it ie said, left absolutely penniless by the reconstruction of the firm. Apropos of the Barings’ breakdown, here is a new but true version of th-* momentous interview between the Governor of the Bank of England (Mr Lidderdale) and Lord Salisbury, at which the Premier was at laet induced to come to th? rescue of Messrs Baring. At first, runs the story. Loid Salisbury curtly refused to assent to Mr ladderdale’s propositions, and intimated very decisively that people must take the consequences of rash speculation Mr Lidderdale then played bis trump card. Walking close up to the Premier, he said, ** My Lord, I did not expect to find you so well acquainted with the details of finance, but 1 am instructed to tell you that unless the Government come to the rescue of Messrs Barings, ‘there is hardly a bank in England that can be relied upon to meet its creditors 24 hours after the disaster we fear.’ ” Lord Salisbury jumped up as if he were shot, promptly changed his tone, and in result decided to adopt Mr Lidderdale’s suggestions and save Barings’. baron Haussmann, The death of Baron Hausmann at the age of ninety two, which took place i<» Parial at Monday, removes one of the few remaining cognate personages of the Second Empire. The autocratic Prefect, who practically rebuilt Paris, was st cond omy to the Emperor in the sixties. But be had outlived his reputation, aud Englishmen, who re-td tbe announcement of his decease on Tuesday morning, had, I imagine, but a vague idea of the great man’s life work. The baron was born in 1809, and his achievements were exclusively arsocia'ed with ihe most glorious period of Napoleon lll.’a t?ign. It was his good fortune to be dismissed before M. Ollivier en'e ed on his n«w system which proved to he but the beginning of the end, and he therefore escaped the persona! bumilia tions which befel the leading Royalist- 9 on tbe downfall of the Imperial system. But bis woik was done. He bad rebuilt Pari?, and his successors had only to carry out the details of his vast design. For seventeen ' years M. Haussmann bad matter? all his own way. He constructed boulevards, built bridges, created parks, established an adequate water supply—in fact made Paris the most delightful city in the world to live in ; yet Baron Hausmann died a poor and forgotten man. DEATH OF TWO DUKES. The eleventh Duke of Somerset l?ft three bods, all of whom curiously enough have succeeded to tbe title, Tbe twelfth Duke married and had two sons, but they both predeceased him, and, dying at tbe age of eighty-one, in 1885, be was succeeded by bis bachelor brother Lord Archibald St. Maur. This worthy, after a reign of six years, departed this lif? on Saturday latt, also aged eighty.one. The third brother. Lord Algernon Percy St. Maur, now becomes fourteenth Duke of Somerset, He is seventy eight years of age, and has several sons, the eldest, now Earl St. Maur, being in bis forty-fifth year. The St. Maurs are a respectable ducal family, not blessed with much brains. The Duke of Bedford was known to most Londoners simply as tbe landlord of Covent Garden, or “ Mud Salad Market,” and a •• terrible bard nail/’ In reality his Grace secretly dispensed exceptionally large sums in charity (I beard tips from one of bis almoners) and was one of the kindest landlords in the three kingdoms. In appearance the Duke was the reverse of aristocratic, and lived very frugally for a person of his vast wealth and possessions, No doubt these facts led to his being reputed miserly, though nothing could really have been further from tbe truth. On bis country estate the Duke knew every tenant personally, and took a warm interest in even his humblest employee, They say at Woburn no farmer ever asked him fur repairs or improvements in Uin. BJ,P. »

Coder the heading of * Deranged Domiues the Catholic Times thus begins a scathing article upon the Auckland branch of the Education Institute ‘If, which Heaven forbid, certain State school teachers of Auckland are fair samples of the bulk of tbe State school teachers of New Zealand, there is not the slightest difficulty in understanding bow it is that a Urge number of the youths educated at those ota’e schools are boorish and beari-h in manners and larrikin in behavior.’ The article concludes‘ At th* same time we are very unwiitiag to believe that this gathering pf Auckland school masters at all represents the Intellect of the schoolmasters of this colony. Like, we know, gravitates to like, and we can only suppose that this accounts for this assemblage of pompous and dull* wilted individuals,’