466 



The Review of Reviews. 



that number has more than once been achieved 

 in the amateur championship. 



Mr. Melbourne Inman, champion of English 

 billiards, contributes liis say on the modern 

 game. He says we have reached such a high 

 state of efficiency at the present time, that to him 

 the future seems to rest with the individual 

 player himself, his precision of striking, and 

 consistency of form, plus the various scoring 

 systems. The first place in scientific billiards, 

 he says, was taken by a French officer, one of 

 the survivors of Napoleon's Grande Arm^e, 

 Capitaine Mingaud. While in captivity in Paris 

 he conceived the idea of dispensing with the 

 mace and using the leather-tipped stick now 

 known as a cue. The father of modern billiards 

 is John Roberts. He lifted the billiard table 

 from amongst unpleasant surroundings and 

 showed it to be the medium of scientific 

 recreation. 



REMINISCENCES OF A COLONIAL 

 JUDGE. 



In the September number of the Canadian 

 Magazine Mr. D. W. Prowse gives the remi- 

 niscences of a garrulous old man, of " dear, 

 delightful days of Arcadian simplicity, when 

 port wine was a shilling a bottle, and we had 

 no debt." His has been an unusually varied 

 career. As a young fellow he was a lawyer, 

 estate agent, representative of a great English 

 fire insurance office, and member of the Legis- 

 lature. Later in life his multitude of offices 

 were worthy of Gilbertian comic opera. He was 

 district judge, police magistrate, chairman of 

 Quarter Sessions, chairman of the Board of 

 Health, and inspector, with full control of the 

 police. One morning he found himself admiral 

 of the Bait Squadron and called upon to take 

 command and fight the French fishermen. 

 When nominated for judge in 1865 he had two 

 opponents. Unfortunately for themselves, these 

 individuals were overcome by lavish hospitality, 

 and at the moment when the nominations had 

 to be handed in found themselves on the steamer 

 one hundred miles to leeward of the district. 

 From his rich store of anecdotes regarding 

 wrecking, robbery, and forgery, I select the 

 following, which tells how a cross-hackling 

 judge was forced to laugh by an Irish in- 

 spector's wit. A man had been caught setting 

 (ire to his house. It was a clear case of arson. 

 At the trial the judge cross-examined the in- 

 spector very severely : — 



" You arrested the prisoner? " 



"Yes, my lord." 



" Was he very much frightened? " 



" Terribly scared, my lord." 



" You searched the prisoner — what did you 

 find, sir? " 



" I found, my lord, the ' Key of Heaven ' (a 

 Catholic prayer-book) in one pocket and his 

 insurance policy in the other. He was prepared 

 for both worlds, my lord." 



MISSIONARIES AS MISCHIEF- 

 MAKERS. 



The arrest of a number of Christians, charged 

 with conspiring against the life of the Governor- 

 General of Korea, is still " wropt in mystery." 

 The Oriental Review contains an article by 

 Bishop Harris, in which he says the kindest 

 things about everyone concerned, and especially 

 eulogises the paternal toleration of the Japanese 

 Government in all matters of religion, and the 

 missionaries work hand-in-hand with the 

 authorities. He says : — 



The naming of so many leading missionaries in Korea 

 as being implicated in the conspiracy against the life of 

 the Governor-General is not to be taken in the sense that 

 the Government is seeking to discredit them. After the 

 conclusion of the trial, I am confident that it will appear 

 that the authorities have not for a moment regarded the 

 missionaries as being connected with this scheme of 

 murder, but as pursuing a directly opposite course. 



To arrest and imprison one's friends is cer- 

 tainly Gilbertian, but we hope with the good 

 Bishop that the incident will end happily for 

 evervone concerned. 



"BULLS IN THE AIR." 



Mrs. E. Lvttelton, describing in the Nine- 

 teenth Century the humours of Irish servants, 

 turns in a drove of Irish "bulls." She 

 says : — 



I believe it is commonly supposed that no Irish man 

 or woman ever opens his mouth without letting fall some 

 pearl of price in the shape of a " bull " or other uncon- 

 scious witticism. This is perhaps a slight exaggeration, 

 but one does now and again come across a genuine speci- 

 men. I once had the good fortune to overhear one 

 myself. Two working men were walking close behind 

 me in Stephen's Green, and one said to the other, " I 

 niver seen sich times ! What wid the cowld, an' what 

 wid wan thing an' another, there's people dyin' now 

 that niver died befower." Bulls are certainly in the 

 very air one breathes in Ireland, and that among all 

 classes. A friend once explained to me how that "my 

 mother was the only one ol my aunts who was ever 

 married." .She conld see nothing amiss with the sen- 

 tence, and was decidedly annoyed at the smiles which 

 greeted it. (liut, after all, ns a " bull " was it any worse 

 than Milton's " fairest of her daughters Eve," or the 

 remark of Thucydides that the Prloi)onnesian War was 

 the greatest of those that had gone before?) My husband 

 was one dav trying to find a place in the electric tramway 

 from Portrush to the golf-course, but was told by the 

 oondurtor, " Sure, there's no seats here barrin' ye'd 

 stand." 



