Heavy Lightning.—Lord Grimthorpe, à propos of Lightning Conductors, with his customary courtesy, writes to the Times of his opponent's (also a Correspondent to the leading journal) desire "to display his own smartness," and speaks of that opponent's opinions as "mere nonsense, due to his ignorance." He concludes, "If he wants the last word, he is welcome to it." Lord Grimthorpe's last word (if really the last) is preferable.
AMERICAN CHINA.
"The Mandarin had an only daughter, named Li-Chi, who fell in love with Chang, a young man who lived in the island-home represented at the top of the pattern, and who had been her father's secretary. The father overheard them one day making vows of love under the orange-tree, and sternly forbade the unequal match; but the lovers contrived to elope, lay concealed for awhile in the gardener's cottage, and thence made their escape in a boat to the island-home of the young lover. The enraged Mandarin pursued them with a whip, and would have beaten them to death, had not the gods rewarded their fidelity by changing them both into turtle-doves. The picture is called the Willow-Pattern, not only because it is a tale of disastrous love, but because the elopement occurred 'when the willow begins to shed its leaves.'"—Legend of the Willow-Pattern.
Scene—that of the tradition. Season, willow-fall. Hour, sundown.
Li-Chi (sings)—
The poor soul sat sighing by a rum-looking tree,