| OCR Text |
Show Pebbles on the j Shore of Knowledge In a recent essay Mr. Michael Davitt recalls tbe-fact tbe-fact that the use of Captain Boycott's name to denote social and economic ostracism was first suggested by Father John O'Malley, parish priest of The Xeale, County Mayo. The word now exists in French as boy-cotter, boy-cotter, in Dutch as boycotten, in German as boycottircn, and in Eussian as boikottizovat. A man with a large thumb should never marry a woman with a similar characteristic. There will in such case be a constant struggle for the mastery. , . 1 Mme. de Navarro (Maiy Anderson) sat to the painter Watts for five years before her portrait wa3 finished. She loved to hear him, talk, and he talked most of the time. i Peers of the realm in England cannot be bound over to keep the peace like ordinary citizens, and the old time privileges of the members of the house of lords in this respect were called to attention the other day by an unfortunate individual who, having received re-ceived the promise of a sound thrashing from the exceedingly ex-ceedingly irascible and pugilistic Lord Lonsdale, en- ueavorea io becure pruieciiun num iuc mjjiriiuin hj- sault by appealing to the courts. ! "At a social gathering at my house the other evening," even-ing," said a well-known Xew York physician. ''I had as guests eight men. every one of whom is or has been, a potent factor in the affairs of this city, in politico, finance, the legal and medical professions, journalism and railroad management. It came out that not one of them was a native of the city. Not only was none of them' a native Xew Yorker, but, with one exp-tion, exp-tion, they were all born in isolated rural hamlets or on backwoods farms. The one exception was bora in an incorporated village of 1,000 inhabitants." Most people .outside Bussia are under the impression impres-sion that the latter's designs upon Constantinople are based merely upon the rights of conquest and upon the more or less mythical political testament of Peter the Great, in which stress is laid upon the fact that the possession of Constantinople was indispensable to Bus-sia's Bus-sia's national grandeur and to her political asvell a? economic development. The Muscovite determination to secure Constantinople sooner or later is Tounded, however, on the popular conviction that the city belongs to the czar by right of inheritance.- Ivau the Great married a princess of the impernal Byzantine en.perors or Caesars of ' Constantinople. It. was on the strength of this matrimonial alliance and of his wife's rights to Constantinople that Ivan the . Great assume! not merely the Byzantine. title of ;Caesaiyf corrupted into the Bussian "czar," but likewise the double headed eagle of the emperors of Byzantium, which symbol has formed the national and imperial device of Bussia and of her reigning house ever since. T ; n-i . . i" A -.ii x j- i r i i-it. i cen jmi? xvi iuui iouiiueu me laniuus rounu muie he requested Merlin, the enchanter, to arrange the seats. Merlin arranged one set of seats to represent the apostles. apos-tles. Twelve were for the faithful adherents of Jesus Christ and the thirteenth for the traitor Judas. The first were never occupied save by knights distinguished for their achievements, and; when a death occurred among them the seat remained vacant until a knight surpassing him in heroic and warlike attainments should be considered worthy to fill the place. If an unworthy un-worthy knight sought the chair he was repelled by some magic power. The thirteenth seat was never occupied but once. The story gies that a haughty and insolent Saracen knight sat down upon it and was immediately swallowed up by. the earth. . Ever after it "was known as the "perilous-seat," and, brave as the celebrated knights of the round table are .said to have been, not one ever had the courage to sit on the thirteenth chair, and the superstition against it still survives. - ; ' '. Although no room could be. found for. Stanley in Westminster abbey, which is always described as the Valhalla of England's greatest men, ye't there are plenty of individuals entombed there who have assuredly no claim to grandeur.,, lnus, among those whose remains have found place in the ancient abbey is John Broughton, a -professional-pugilist and prizefighter of the eighteenth century, who kept one of the most disreputable dis-reputable resorts in Tottenham court road, and who has sometimes been described as the father of prizefighting prize-fighting in England. Then there is Thomas Parr, an illiterate il-literate Shropshire farm servant whose only title to fame was that he attained the extraordinary age-of 152 years and lived to see ten rulers succeed one another on the English throne, dying in 1635 and being buried in the poet's corner. Alphia Behnspy, playwright and demi-mondaine, in turn likewise reposes in the abbey, as does also the infamous Thynne, who has a magnificent magnifi-cent monument! But -Lord Nelson, who frequently spoke of his earnest desire for a tomb in Westminster abbey, was interred, in St. Paul's cathedral, while many other distinguished men like Sir Henry Stanley Lave found the doors of the 'abbey closed against their rc-rcmains. rc-rcmains. Marquis de Fontcnoy in Chicago Tribune. V ; - -; -- v - . |
