ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
The Hon. George Curzon and Miss Leiter (U.S.A.) have been married. The State of Illinois is indignant. The two facts are more intimately connected than might be supposed. Four days after the wedding a resolution was introduced into the State Legislature of Illinois by a Mr. McCarthy, requesting the daughters of Illinois "not to accept the hand in marriage of any person who is not a citizen of the United States, as we are of opinion that the daughters of Illinois should be patriotic in their views, and should disregard the title of any foreigner, and marry none but a citizen of the United States." It is stated that the resolution "was referred to the Committee on Federal Relations." Surely a Committee on domestic relations or on titled relations would have been more appropriate.
The Illinois State Legislature obviously has novel ideas of its legislative duties. Imagine an English County Council treating seriously such fantastic rubbish as Mr. McCarthy brought before the law-makers of his State. Would it not be more to the point to look after the sons of Illinois, and to keep the hue of their resolution up to the mark? If they are laggards in love, who shall blame the British aristocrat for wooing with success the daughters of Illinois, whom their compatriot suitors abandon? Or again, if titles are so irresistible an attraction to the fair, why not establish titles in Illinois, and thus give the Earl of Bangs or the Marquis Saltontale that seductive influence which is apparently lacking to plain Zedekiah B. Bangs, and to the unadorned Jonathan K. Saltontale. For it is obviously better that the daughters of Illinois should marry than that they should waste away with an unbridaled (let the spelling pass) desire for a title.
At Oxford on Wednesday last the University beat Somerset by one wicket, mainly owing to the admirable batting of Mr. H. D. G. Leveson Gower, popularly known as "The Shrimp."
To the batsmen of Oxford, who looked very limp,
Father Neptune was kind when he gave them a Shrimp:
For a Shrimp on the grass is most worthy of rhyme,
When he makes a firm stand, but gets runs all the time.
The inhabitants of Christmas Street in Bristol want to have their thoroughfare laid with wood paving. At present, according to an indignant correspondent, "the pitching in the street is so bad that it is positively dangerous for vehicular traffic ... but the risk to life and limb are entirely subservient to the parsimonious policy of our Bristol Sanitary Authority." Might I suggest Yule logs as an appropriate pavement for Christmas Street? Certainly this accident policy of the Bristol Sanitary Authority ought to be allowed to lapse.
I gather from a letter in the Freeman's Journal that Bray is not being well treated by the Bray Township Commissioners. "If Bray is to march with the times," says the writer, "and keep pace with the laudable efforts of our Tourist Development Association," something must be done to improve the walk round Bray Head. The picture of Bray keeping pace and marching with the times by walking round its own head is too confusing for the intelligence of the dense Saxon.
An article in the Scotsman declares that "a great laxity of costume is characteristic of modern Oxford." Straw hats and brown boots appear to abound everywhere. It is added that "Bowlers are already beginning to be preserved as relics of a bygone race." This will be glorious news for the Cambridge Eleven, for a merely preserved bowler cannot be very dangerous.
From a recent issue of the Freeman's Journal I extract the following letter, which, it must be admitted, "makes both sides right" with a clearness that leaves nothing to be desired. Note, too, the writer's natural vexation at the idea that he "assisted the constable":—