The Church Weekly from London, Greater London, England • Page 16

8 7 4 THE CHURCH WEEKLY. Nov. 24, 1899 PARAGRAPHS. resent for each Soldier from the Queen The Secretary of State for War has received the following communication from Sir Fleetwood Edwards, Keeper of her Majesty's Privy Purse Windsor Castle, 18th November, 1899. Dear Lord Lansdowne, The Queen commands me to inform you of her anxiety to make some little personal present as soon as possible to each of her soldiers serving in South Africa.

Her Majesty has decided upon sending chocolate, which she is given to understand will be appropriate and acceptable. It will be packed for each man in a tin that has been specially designed for the occasion. The Queen hopes that you may be able to arrange for its conveyance and distribution. Believe me, yours very truly, FLEETWOOD J. EDWARDS.

The Marquess of Lansdowne, K. G. The Queen's order is for, 100,000 boxes of chocolate, and has been divided among the firms of Gad bury, Fry, and Rowntree. The chocolate, which will be suitable either as a beverage or a sweetmeat, will be supplied in tin boxes, each containing half a pound. A special box has been designed.

The lid will have a red ground, with a large gilt medallion.of the Queen in the centre, the Royal monogram in red, white, blue, and the inscription, "South The whole nation will appreciate the gracious act and thoughtful kindness which dictated the expensive gift of her Majesty. An Incident of the Queen's Thoughtfulness. The Queen, after her visit to Biistol, sent from Windsor to the Lord Mayor of that city the following telegram The Queen hopes no accident occurred among yesterday's vast crowds, and that the children got home si -ifelj'." The Lord Mayor replied, Since receiving her Majesty's gracious message have made careful inquiries, and no accident is reported en ioute. Children all got home safely." It has been estimated that fully 800,000 persons witnessed the pageant, and the Queen made special reference to the great success of the day's proceedings and herenthusiastic reception. The Roll of Heroes.

Commander E. F. B. Charlton, of II.M.S. Orlando, last week received the Royal Humane Society's silver medal.

He courageously dived several times into the Duda river, near Penang, which is infested with crocodiles, to save the life of a petty officer of the ship, but his attempts were unsuccessful. For attempts to rescue a man from a limekiln at Ayr, in Scotland, John McGregor was awarded a silver medal, and Joseph Irvine, a btonze medal. These were very gallant actions. Irvine went down the kiln first, but was overpowered by the fumes of the burning lime. Then McGregor descended and dragged both men out, but Irvine alone was alive.

George Sautiders, of Wigan, a plucky hoy of thirteen, won his medal by swimming out into 20ft. of water at Port Skillion, Isle of Man, and rescuing Dr. Martin, who tras fast drowning. In Aid of the Ragged School Union. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was accompanied by the Countess of Dundonald and Lady Nottage, opened a sale of work at the Polytechnic, Regent-street, last week, on behalf of the Barefoot Mission of the Ragged School Union, the object of the organisation being to clothe the very poorest of the children attending the public elementary schools of London.

As explained by Mr. Montague, a member of the council, nearly 50,000 garments and over 4,000 pair of boots were distributed through the agency of the mission last year. Thoughtful friends had furnished oth 'T articles of infinite flowers, fruit, crutches, mail-carts, spectacles, dolls' houses, old clocks, coffee-pots, bath chairs, fishing tackle, bird cages, feeding bottles, white mice, a wooden leg, and a policeman's rattle. The Baroness, after saying she had not been in the best of health lately, and feared her voice would scarcely fill the hall, expressed her deep interest in the wonderful work accomplished by the union. The singing of the National Anthem impelled her ladyship to say she was sure everybody present ferventty prayed that her Majesty the Queen might long be preserved and that the labours of our brave soldiers and of our gallant sailors, too in far-off South Africa would promote the glory and honour of the nation.

A Wonderful Kun of in Newfoundland. The outside world can have no conception of the vastness of the catch of the weirs and nets at Provincetown at the beginning of this month. The total taken in ail the nets in Province- townduring the year 1898 was 199,000. In the past three days alone 300,000 mackerel have captured in set nets at this place. The nets at Truro have yielded enormously, but the weirs have taken thousands of barrels besides.

The stock of ice in town is runninsj low, every store and dwelling in the place is being ransacked for empty barrels, and it is jokingly said that every man in the town except the preachers and depdt master is at work picking ont fish or caring for the gigantic catch on shore. 'Fred Williams, 14, caught 2,400 mackerel. Freeman Bowley, 80 years of age, a veteran lobster fisherman, is working like a youth, his nets having yielded gloriously. The waters off the Princetown end of the cape are. alive with mackerel, and vessels coming in from sea report having seen massive schools, or rather one gigantic school extending from Race Point, thirty miles away.

Singularly, the mackerel are not reported plentiful at any other point. Gift From France. The Central British Red Cross Society has received from the French Red Cross Society, through the Due d'Auerstadt, its president, a generous gift of a complete equipment of medical appliances, surgical instruments, and other details, sufficient for two field hospitals. Lord Wantage, the chairman of the British Red Cross Society, in his reply, sajs "I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your grace's letter informing me of the veiy generous and valuable gift the French Red Cioss Society propose making to our society. I need not say that we gratefully accept the same.

The appliances in question will be placed on board the hospital ship which our society is sending out to South Africa, and which is equipped by, and bears the name of, our honorary president, the Princess of Wales. It is deeply gratifying to us. to receive this tribute of friendly feeling and sympathy from your nation. It is an act that will be greatly appreciated by the English people, recalling, as it does, memories of mutual friendship and good feeling between the two nations in days gone by, when they fought side by side in the same cause during the Crimean War, and again in the campaigns of 1870-1, when the English Red Cross Society was allowed the privilege of sending succour to the brave soldiers of France. In Memory of the Dead.

A tablet to the memory of Lieutenant Robert Grenfell, who fell in the famous Lancers' charge in the last Soudan campaign, was on Saturday placed on the north wall of.Beacons- field Church, Bucks. It is of white marble, with a dark Oxford border, and bears the arms of the Grenfell family and of the deceased officer's regiment. The incription is In memory of Lieutenant Robert Grenfell, 12th Royal Lancers, killed in the charge of the 2Lt Lancers at the Battle of Khartoum. Sept. 2nd, 1898.

Erected by his brothers and sisters. 'Loyal Grenfell's sword will be hung beneath the tablet. The German Servants' Ordeal The young person who fills so important a place in our domestic arrangements as housemaid, parlour-maid, or general' often enough takes a pride in her appearance, which, though entirely natural, is sometimes irritating to the less reasonable type of mistress, says an American. What would she think if it were necessary for her, as it apparently is in Geimany, before taking a place as domestic servant, to provide herself with a special pass book, in which a full description of her appearance must be entered This description of the German maid-servant is entered by the police of her native district, and is sometimes dictated more by candour than chivalry. The colour of the eyes and hair, and the shape of the nose, are.

all duly chronicled, and if the constable is of the opinion that any of these features are he has no hesitation in saying so. Such a system can hardly fa.il to lead to undesirable situations at times. The Ceeil Rhodes Steamer. A special train conveyed a numerous party of guests, on Saturday, from Liverpool-street to Wyvenhoe, to witness the launsh of a historic little vessel. The Cecil Rhodes is the first iron steamer intended for the navigation of Lake Tanganyika, and her primary business, when launched on that great Central African sheet of water, will be to assist in the work of laying the wires which are to form a section of Mr.

Cecil Rhodes' Capeto-Cairo telegraph undertaking. She is built of Siemens-Martins steel, vanised, and her dimensions are: Length beam and depth As the little vessel sat on the waters the Come after a successful launch, she presented the appearance of a very handsome steamer of solid and substantial construction. In order to transport the Cecil Klwdes to Lake Tanganyika it will be necessary, as soon as she has completed her trial run, to take her altogether to pieces. Hull, boilers, and machinery have all to be packed into parcels of from forty to sixty pounds weight each. In this form she will be shipped Chinde, East Africa, from which port the packages will be conveyed to the mouth of the Zamhesi riven and thence transported by native porters to Lake Nyassa.

The launching ceremony was performed by Miss A. Williams. Clubs for London Girls. Viscount Morpeth presided on Saturday evening, under the auspices of the London Girls' Club Union, over a largely-attended social meeting, held at the Church House, Westminster. Among those present' were the Hon.

Lyulph Stanley, vice- chairman of the London School Board; the Hon. Maude Stanley, one of the founders of the Union; Mr. Will Crooks, L.C.C., and the Rev. Canon ilberforce. The Hon.

Maude Stanley, in referring to the great increase in the number of clubs for girls and young' women in recent years, said they had almost come to be looked upon as a necessity. They formed one of the most important and valuable factors in the development of a higher social wellbeing among working girls, and, in addition, aimed at providing facilities for education and physical recreation of a healthy, useful, and sensible character. A musical programme was gone through by a choir drawn from the principal clubs in the metropolis. A Postman who has Walked 232,872 Miles. David Ramsay, a postman, of the Kirriemuir Post Office, Forfarshire, who is nearly eighty 3- ears of age, has resigned his position, owing to ill- health, after thirty-seven years' service, and has been succeeded by his youngest daughter.

He was never absent from duty a day through sickness or pleasure, and regularly for twenty-five years he covered twenty-four miles daily, and twelve miles daily for the remaining twelve, totalling what is believed to be the world's postman's record of 232,872 miles. Two Scottish M.P.'s attempted a few 3 ears ago to get Ramsay a small retiring allowance, but were only successful in obtaining from the Government a gratuity of a few pounds. Origin of the Game of Chess. The origin of chess is shrouded in mystery. There is little doubt, however, that its birthplace was in India, and that it was an offspring of a game called chaturanga, which is mentioned in oriental literature as in use fully 200 years before the Christian era.

From India chess spread into Persia, and thence into Arabia, and ultimately the Arabs took it into Spain and the rest of western Europe. The game was in all probability invented, for the purpose of illustrating the art of war. The Arab legend upon this point is that it was devised for the instruction of a young despot by his father, a learned Brahmin, to teach him that a king, notwithstanding his power, was dependent for safety upon his subjects. The Greek historians credit the invention of the game to Palamedes, who, tfiey claim, devised ir, to beguile the tedium of the siege of Troy during the Trojan war. The Editor is glad to receive paragraphs of Parochial news; also Parish Magazines containing items of interest..