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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
A pretty little anecdote called « The Officer's Olive-branch » is going the rounds. It may be true in the main, but contains a slight anachronism in detail. Two gentlemen could not exchange a Christmas card annually for thirty years, inasmuch as thirty years ago Christmas cards did not exist.
One of our contemporaries states that a Maori prisoner had tattooed on his arm « the Roman numerals H P, » which, it explains, were his initials « in the Maori alphabet. » Since « the days of Roman barbarism, » H and P have had no numeral value, and the consonants in the Maori alphabet are the same as in our own.
A fine newspaper property, the Manchester Examiner and Times, has changed hands. From its birth, as the organ of the Anti-Corn Law League, till the present time, it has been one of the most important organs of the Liberal party in England. The great Glad-stonian schism, however, has introduced a third party into politics, and divided the Liberals into two hostile camps. The Examiner remained Unionist; its rival, the Guardian, joined the ultra-Irish party, and, as the champion of Mr Gladstone, sought the Liberal support. The old Liberal party have rallied, and purchased the Examiner for £40,000, and will run the paper on the old lines of Liberal Unionism.
Mr Labonchere tells the following story of himself. While at Eton, and having more money than he knew what to do with, he entered the largest hotel in the town, and ordered a private room and a bowl of punch. What to do with the latter, he knew not; but the desire to « do the big toff » was full upon him. He flung the mixture into a cupboard, and astonished the waiter by ordering a second bowl, which went the way of the first. Then the young rascal swaggered into the street, « fully persuaded, » he says, « that the eyes of the whole inn were upon me, which., in my exultant state of mind, were tantamount to those of all Europe. » —If this little autobiographical incident is true, the editor of Truth has changed very little since his Eton days.