"THE BONES OF PAGANINI."
A paragraph with the above startling heading has been going the round of the newspapers. It seems that the bones of the great violinist have been turned into bones of contention, by the priests who have refused to bury them. Several lawsuits have taken place, and there has been one appeal to the Court of Nice, which treated the matter as a Nice question. This court refused the request of Paganini's executors, who were anxious to get the bones buried; but rather than submit to the decree, without making any further bones about the matter, they appealed to Genoa, which it seems is somewhat over nice, for it superseded Nice in its decision. A further appeal has, however, been made to Turin, which reversed the judgment of Genoa, and a reference to the Holy See is now spoken of. "There the matter rests," say the papers, but where the bones will ultimately rest remains a problem.
THAT VERY SMALL (POLITICAL) PARTY.
Lord John Russell, in his recent speech at Greenock, alluded to the "absence of party" as a thing scarcely to be hoped, but greatly to be desired. The word "party" is so vague in its ordinary sense, that we should be glad to know the "party" to which Lord John alludes. He may either mean "that party" over the way, on the other side of the House, or that "other party," or that "Irish party," or that "troublesome little party" that is always asking inconvenient questions, or some "party" that some other "party" is always egging on to annoy the Government. The only "party" to which we are quite sure his Lordship did not refer is the "Protectionist party," for it would have been absurd to express a wish for the absence of what has already ceased to be, and it would be even worse than crushing a butterfly on a wheel, to call for the annihilation of a nonentity.
Arms for Ireland.
The Queen has suggested to the Irish the propriety of mending their own clothes. Hitherto, when we have sent steel to Ireland, it has been in the shape of swords and bayonets. Queen Victoria, however, a right royal housewife, presents sister Hibernia with a packet of needles.