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Society at Aix-les-Dains,
AIX-LES-DAINS, Sept. 8-There is the usual motley group here of royalties and gamblers, faire rheumatics and sprightly Attires, for the town is full of Greeks. Two delightful royalties have just gone-the Duchess of Connaught, daughter of the Red Prince, and the Princess Louise. The Duchess of Connaught is a tall, slender, graceful woman of six and twenty, with the best, most dignified yet kindly manners in the world. Her husband is Queen Victoria's third son. Their pretty little children were sent on to the Queen the other day, and will, with their gentle mother, go to India in October.
The Princess Louise, looking like a blushrose, is very quiet this summer. She spent an entire afternoon painting the very pretty little daughter of the Countess Gianotti, and succeeded in making an admirable sketch.
Among the other distinguished people here are Mr. and Mrs. Wickham, the daughter of Gladstone; Sir Richard Wallace, the wealthy owner of the finest picture gallery in the world, the heir to the Marquis of Hertford. We also have an Indian Prince here, but I have not seen him. One famous physician, Dr. Beachet, gave us a delightful fete at his old chateau of Gresy last Saturday. We were received in a fine old court-yard under spreading chestnuts, with vineyards all about, and the picturesque peasantry stood in groups about the stables, granaries, wine vaults and pigeon-houses. The Duchess of Connaught presented Dr. Beachet with a gold cigarette-case, with her monogram in diamonds. It is, perhaps, the twenty-fourth jeweled cigarette-case which the popular Doctor owns, but this is by far the most handsome. It would be curious to trace the connection between royalty and tobacco. In the year of grace when Walter Raleigh discovered the fragrant weed he gave royalty a royal present. From that time gold snuff-boxes became the fashion. Elizabeth, James, William, and Mary, Anne, all the Georges gave gold [snuff?]-boxes to those whome they delighted to honor. Now that snuff goes out of fashion royalty gives cigarette-cases.
Many of the frequenters of Aix are vigorous huntsmen. They come here with their dogs and their carefully prepared hunting-dresses and evidently much satisfied with themselves. These gentlemen, who make a profession of journeying into the kingdom of St. Bubert, are of all classes. It is no longer the privilege of the grand seigneur. The hunters, therefore, realize the chimera called equality, Artisans and bankers, clerks and merchants, the bourgeois and the count, all meet at the railway station with dog and gun, to seek the covert of game, made one by commuity of ambition. Now immense flocks of birds are flying south, and in these migrations they are slaughtered indiscriminately. It is the paradise of amateurs in the art of shooting, and I saw a number of photographers carrying on both arts -taking pictures one day and shooting the next.
Of course wild ducks, quail and snipe, weedcock, and what I should call plover abound in the swamps and lakes and rivers of this curious country. The Kind of Italy however, flies at higher game. He is killing the chamels off on the other side of the Alps. Some of our sportsmen have just come from Lorraine and Alsace, the home of the German hunters; others from the plains of Champagne, where the vast forests are rich in game of all sorts - deer, wild bear, rabbits and gray partridges.
We have had some English doctors here who tell me that [Bath?], in England, has a sulphur spring that makes this at Aix a more spurt. That the volumes of boiling water which are utilized at Bath, and which come of their town account out of the ground, are forty times as great as this wonderful geyser at Aix. They have there an etablissement four times as large and twice as clean as ours here, all made of white marble, etc. That they are reviving all the gayety of the days of Beau Nash and of Miss Austin's novels.
"Have you the climate of Aix?" I asked.
"Alas, no!"
Sir William Jenan says a rheumatic wishes to be washed and dried and ironed. He can be washed in England, but when it comes to being dried and ironed he must come to the Continent.
Madame [Valda?], having returned from the United States on La Bretagne, went through Aix the other day on her way to Milan to secure singers for her new departure in America next winter, when she brings out Otello.
Two Russian ladies, Miles. Gortshakow, have lately ascended Mont Blanc. They were twenty hours in reaching the top. These two and one French lady are said to be the only women who have ever scaled that lofty peak.
We are just hearing rumors that Mrs. James Brown Potter refuses to accept Mr. Miner's proposals for her American tour. Punch says this has been a great year for Americans in London, what with the Wild West show and with the dramas - The Shadow of a Great City, written by Jefferson, being the best. I have just seen an article in the Figaro describing an interview with Buffalo Bill, who wishes to take his Indians to Paris, where, I think, he would be received with acclamation. How crazy they will be about "Chemise Rouge," as they call Red Shirt. It does not sound so strong in French, quite.
But "Fashion and Society Notes" can amuse themselves with describing the tollet of these aboriginal beaux and belles for Galignani. The English complain very much that Galignani is losing all its English complexion and becoming very American since Mr. Bennett bought it. - Corr. N. Y. World.
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WITI ISMS
The home stretch-a nap on the lounge. -Lowell Citizen. Voices of the night-squlling twins. Fall River Advance "There are no flies on me," murmurs the deserted summer hotel-Hotel Mail The home stretch-fixing up a story to tell your wife at 1a.m.-Washington Critic The wife who carries on her husband's pawn shop after he deceives truly a "loan wilder."-Washington Critic - Customer-What do you sell these cigars for? Clerk (absently)-Havanas, but they ain't by a long chalk-Tid Bits Tramp (meeting dude on the street)- Say, young feller, can't you give a poor gentleman a few people?-The Epoch "Tight money" murmured the unfortunate in the police court, as he paid the usual fine and costs-Boston Commercial Bulletin The boy who is obliged to go through the 'Shorter Catechism" wonders how it happened to come by its name-Boston Courier. "What shall we do to be saved?" asked a revivalist And a small boy in the rear shouted: "Let's trade teams with Detroit."-Judge Prize fighting of the present day is so weak that brutal policemen do not regard it as a disturbance of the peace-New Orleans Picayune "Land Leaguer" wants to know where the first recorded eviction took place. The first Eve-iction, we believe, was from the Garden of Eden-Buffalo Express Brown (solilcquizing at 2 o'clock a.m. -I wish all words in the English languish wuss shpeit wish an an "sh" Itshs shomuch eashier to obey-Ted Bets We learn that a train was ran a distance of thirty eight miles through Texas one day last week and was neve4r robbed at all. It was a gravel train.-Od City Blizzard. Little Jonnie's mother does not answer one of his many questions. Johnnie grows impatient and asks "Mamma, haven't you got any talk in your mouth?"-The Epoch Citizen (to policeman)-Do you think it will rain to night? Policeman-Oh don't know, sorr; Oi've only been on the force wan wake.- Harper's Bazar. "What was Nero's greatest act of cruelty?" asked the teacher of the class in history. "Playin' the fiddle," was the prompt response, and the teacher let it go at that- Washington Critic. He-Did you enjoy the sermon? She-Of course I did. I had on a new hat and and dress and the sexton seated me directly in front of that dreadful Miss Briggs-Detroit Free Press
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WILD WEST ECLIPSED. ------- The Great Sham Battle Which Put Buffalso Bill in the Shade. ------- Rifle Shooting and Other Features Attract Large Crowds to the International Encampment. ------- Massachusetts Carries Off the Honors of the Day-The Score in Detail-Camp Notes. -------- A GREAT SHOW. The day at the encampment was what might be classed as a red-letter day, because it was one of the few days when anything like a fair attendance was had. There were probably 8,000 people all told at the show yesterday afternoon during the skirmish fight and Indian trouble. The skirmish was between the Twenty third infantry on the one side, supported by a battery and the calvary, and marines on the other side, supported by a light battery. The fight was short and sharp. Both sides won the day and marched off the field with colors flying. Then came the Wild West show. The poor Indians were ambushed, and Major George came across the field on horseback in a lone horseman act. The Indians shot him and he fell off his horse in true Buffalo Bill style. Then the poor Indians rushed up and scalped him. They took a fine horse-hair wig as big as a blanket off Major George's bald head and waved it aloft in triumph, doing a scalp dance in the meantine. While they were going through this splendid performance twen privates stole up and began shooting them, but never a redman fell. The poor Loe returned the fire in style, and the ten men fell dead one by one. Then the calvary got word that there was business for them at the West Side Driving Park, and Captain Carr cried, "Come on, boys!" They came on in columns of fours, and charged right through the group of Indians, fifteen in all, slashing right and left with their keen-edged sabers. But they could not kill them. Instead, some more Indians got the tip that there was trouble among Red Shirt's little picnic party, and they hastened to get there. They charged on the calvary and shot carbines like real soldiers, and the result was that they drove the United States army clear to the quarter-pole of the Driving Park. Then the cavalry got together, talked it over, and determined to make another break upon the poor Indians. They charged real well, and then ensued a lively mix up. The soldiers and Indians were all shuffled up like a pack of cards, and if anyone had drawn five he would have got an Indian full on soldiers. Not that Indians ever get full on such a diet, but simply to carry out the poker joke so aptly suggested. Colonel King, who was running the Wild West show, went out and said: "Now, boys, 'this is enough." Then the men went out and picked up the dead Major George and carried him back to a place of safety, about twenty yards from where he died. Then he got up and put on his hat and came over to the club-house and washed up for dress parade, which followed within half an hour. Among the prominent visitors were Lieutenant General, IL Sheridan and Commissary General McFeely, Mayor Roche and family, Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Charles Schwartz, John Dupee, Colonel Follanabee, Mrs. General Bently, the Misses Bently, Mrs. Randall, Miss Boisot, Evanaton; Mrs. C.W. Wilkins, Mrs. C. Whiteker, Miss Bell, Milwaukee; Mrs. General Williams, the Misses Williams, Mrs. Moore, Mres. Reid, Mrs. and Mrs. C.B. Raymond. --------
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Every day or two the English dispatches picture Gladstone in the act of cutting down a tree. Is there to be no end to this thing? What has Gladstone got against the trees of England? If somebody doesn't head off the old man, Buffalo Bill will have a vast prairie to exercise his Indians upon.
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OUR PICA Y UNTES.
A time comes when summer leaves. Then autumn leaves.
The most raseal will do for a living is to "do" other people.
Roundabout and crooked railroads should prefer selling fare tickets by the mile rates.
"Do men gather figs off thistles?" They do not if they bet on the Thistles against the Volunteers.
A friend who playfull points a loaded pistol at another has too little sense to be tolerated as an acquaintance.
Mabel Stirling, who comes to the Academy of Music, has a play called "Three Corners." It will do to stand on if it is not like a cocked hat.
It pays to start a manufactory in the south, if it is kept going only long enough to sell out to a western trust company who will buy it to shut up.
Ambition took a tumble when lielen Dauvray concluded to give up trying to be a great actress and became willing to be the wife of a baseball shortstop. The match is something like Adah Isaacs Menken marrying John C. Heenan.
Concordia Empire: "People outside of Kansas seem to be horrified at the statement that the mayor of Argonia gave birth to a fine boy the 26th hit. It seems to be all right and there is no complaint that she is neglecting the duties of her office."
A big sugar trust is now in process of formation. There is nothing sweet about it to the people's taste.--[New York World.] When a fellow marries a nice young girl he has a big sugar trust on hand, and there is lots of sweet about it.
Americans recieved by London society are rich girls, hunting nobility, beautiful girls, hunting fame and position as professional beauties, boy boys like Buffalo Bill and sluggers like Kilrain, who has dined with the marquis of Queensberry, and will fight by his rules.
That the price of coal may be kept up high the Lehigh Company is keeping its miners idle. The price of coal depends upon no crop, flood, drouth, weather or grasshopper influence. The fueld is always there ready to be taken out, and can be made cheap for poor people wheneber the rich corporations are willing to give the poor miners work to do. Some trust company legislation is needed.
Washington Critic: "Can you tell me where I can find the reporter who wrote that article?" asked an irate individual of the city editor. "I want him discharged immediately." "I really don't think you could have him discharged," replied the city editor, cautiosly. "Why not, sir. I demand it." "You see, the proprietor of the paper wrote that. You might go and ask him to suspend publications, however."
A person who has seen the two card cases made for Pranzini's skin states that the material resembles pigskin, but is somewhat mottled in consequence of having been tanned too hastily. The reason why these cases looked like pigskin leather is because they were pigskins. It is estimated that enough of Pranzini;s skin was sold by the Paris policeman to cover twenty elephants. Anything that has the name of being horrible answers the purpose of the curiosity hunter.
A man who happened to be the only witness to a murder, with which he had nothing whatever to do, at Lancaster, Pa., was confined in jail in jail 298 days for fear he would go away without giving his testimony. When the trial was finally ended he was charged $3 a week for his board in jail, and paid $1 for each week day, so that he got less than $100 for his long detention. Some man may have been subjected somewhere in the world to meaner treatment than this, but we never heard of it. His case is worthy of special attention by the legislature.--[Savannah News.] That is nothing compared with the cases in which the murderers have been out on bond and finally aquitted on trial by hoodlum jurymen, the witnesses having been looked up for months.
Detroit Free Press: "Ah! good morning!" he saluted across the aisle of the car. "Good morning, sit," stiffly replied the lady addressed. "Did you enjoy your trip to the bay?" "What--when?" "Last week ma'am." "Why, I wasn't down there!" "No! But I saw your husband down there, and the register of the hotel bore the names of--" "She whispered a man beside him, at the same time giving his sleeve a pull. "Bore what names!" sharply queried the woman as her fingers clinched. But the two men stalked out of the front door and dropped off. She looked after them, shut her teeth hard together, and was out on the platform ready to alight before the car was within a square of her street. "Did you see him down there?" asked the friend as the two got away from the car. "Naw, of course not." "What did you talk it for?" "Her husband blackballed me in a society, and I've been laying for him for three years."