Round And About.

Round and About .

Her Majesty has been to sedate little Wales , has met with a very sincere—if not a very boisterous—reception , and has , I firmly believe , appreciated , as I thought she would , the beautiful scenery . She has been bothered with a number of very silly addresses , has been presented with a gold-mounted walking-stick , an oil-painting , and several other extraordinary gifts , and has in return Knighted the Mayor of Wrexham .

* * * It has often struck me as being somewhat of a pity that more of our " big " gentry do not establish seats in the Principality . I have never , in the course of my globe-trotting , come across anything more perfectly charming than the views of Llangollen . Were I anything but a compulsory resident of this city of perdition , where

the " Battle of Life " is being fought by little boys off Fleet-street while their leaders are away slaughtering Scottish grouse , I would shelter myself under one of the hills in dear little Wales , and wish eventually to die without sympatic or regret .

* " The Battle of Life ! " What nonsense . As far as I know of it , it is a battle of gold , silver , and copper . The man who wants it and gets it is happy , and his battle is victorious . The man who wants and misses it—he , poor man , is the pessimist , or some other " mist . " Life in the abstract , is the means of living and enjoying

it . Some enjoy the pursuit of horse-racing , some the study of literature , some enjoy the pursuit of swindling ; but all enjoy the procuration of the means to cultivate each and every enjoyment according to his special fancy . I remember reading some years ago a very excellent article in one of the morning papers . It made an

extract from the letter of a famous man whose name at the moment I forget ; but this is what he wrote : — " When I passed these poor fellows , on my way to and from the club , working and sweating at their daily task , I would either envy them or be sorry for them just as the condition of my pocket prompted me . If my winnings had been

large , I would pity them their lot ; if , on the contrary , the problem of a settling-day stared me in the face , I envied them their life of comparative monotony . But now , when I am working hard myself , and no longer afloat upon an impecunious sea , buffeted about by a tempest of fierce gambling , I neither pity them nor envy them , but trust God will always find them work to do , and strength to do it . "

* * * Here we get the keynote of the question , Is life worth living ? The answering chord can be struck by every social gambler who haunts the world in pursuit of " fatty wealth . " Let him but secure it , and life is to him bliss beyond compare . * * *

The Battle of Life ! Six hundred auctioneers' clerks apply for the position of secretary to the Auctioneers' Institute of Great Britain , the salary of which is ^ 120 a year . Presumably , the selected one of the noble six hundred will be a gentleman . That is to say , he will wear a top-hat on Sundays , be able to balance himself on the

door-step of the " Cri ., " with his hands in his pockets , for half an hour without falling off , and be competent to behave in an impudent manner to any one who happens to accost him in his own office . Well ! to the fortunate applicant who secures the post , the battle of life will be whatever he chooses to make it . With a wife and a couple of children he has no choice at all .

* * # I must say one word on the Maybrick case . I signed a petition for the reprieve of the unfortunate woman , on the grounds of a belief that the murder was not proved . I was certain at the time , and have been perfectly convinced since , that the most unfortunate thing that could possibly happen to the criminal laws would be an

interference with the sentence of Mr . Justice Stephens . As for the medical evidence given at the trial , Dr . Tidy ' s was ridiculous , and Dr . M'Namara possessed absurd views as to the effects of arsenic

when used for homicidal purposes after an habitual use of the poison in small doses . I am of the belief that impartial persons will side with Truth for once , and that hundreds like myself interested themselves on the side of mercy , without the slightest knowledge of why they did so . # * #

Bro . Railing was good enough to send me a special invitation to the meeting of the Essex Provincial Grand Lodge at Lord Brooke ' s house last month . The innovation in holding the Provincial Grand Lodge at the Prov . Grand Master's house is a very excellent one to be followed , it aids the sentiment of masonry in the effect it has upon the believer , and surrounds the official part of the

science with a deal that is attractive to the senses of a refined mind . What could be more impressive than a Lodge-room lined with " musty volumes " and portraits of the departed ? and what more effective than the introduction of the wife of the P . G . M . at a point in the after proceedings where a few well-timed remarks from his Lordship touched the very heart-strings of masonic feeling ?

* * * But what on earth prompted that grand official to indulge Lady Brooke and the gathering with an impromptu speech that clothed the proceedings with silliness and ungrammatical composition , and , worse still , that led many enthusiastic brethren , quite uninvited , to

clutch her Ladyship's fingers in a grasp that must have shook her very frame ? A gentleman who was present suggested to me that an Inquiry Committee be constituted for the purpose of inquiring how certain men have been so easily enabled to enter the portals of the Craft . The feverish desire of Worshipful Masters to procure business during their year of office has to answer for a great deal .

* * * Bro . the Rev . C . J . Martyn , D . Prov . G . M . of Suffolk , acting as D . P . G . M . in the absence of V . W . Bro . Philbrick , Q . C ., replied to one of the toasts at the banquet in a manner that was positivel y entertaining . The ground over which he travelled was not that irregular weedy and stony path along which the ordinary Masonic

speechifier drags us . It was a ramble amid the music of birds and the scent of sweet flowers . The happy , pleasant face of the rev . gentleman exhibited a charming accompaniment to his words , and his speech was one of the most sensible , most sound , and most free from " bunkum , " I have heard at Masonic gatherings .

* * * A certain P . M . of a certain provincial Lodge , who has been for the past twenty-five years a very regular attendant to the duties of his position , exhausted six or seven years ago his powers of replying in an original manner to the various toasts with which his name was coupled . He conceived a way out of the difficulty by printing on a

very small and neat card a few words which he might read on every occasion upon which he was expected to reply . The result has been perfectly successful , for no sooner does he rise in his place and produce the little pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket—previous to delivering his thanks in a highly deliberate fashion—than the humor

of the brethren is immediately tickled , and never is a " speech " received with greater approval than his . He carries the fun right through to perfection , for never a smile has been detected on his countenance . Why does not Bro . Kenning include this little card in his lists of Lodge furniture ?

* # * Francis Richard Charles Guy Greville , Lord Brooke , is the heir to the earldom of Warwick , and was born in 1853 . His Parliamentary career has been a useful one to his party , but perhaps his marriage with the beautiful Miss Maynard at Westminster Abbey , in April , 1881 , has been the most important public

event in his life . Lady Brooke is the daughter of the late Colonel the Hon . Charles H . Maynard , only son of the third and last Viscount Maynard , who , dying in 1865 , before his father , the title has become extinct . Miss Maynard became sole heiress of the extensive estates of the Maynard family ; but , like the noble woman that she is , she provided her sister ( the Lady Algernon Gordon