In London a brilliant season, damped only by the catastrophe in Paris which has put one Court into mourning, and carried mourning too into the homes of English leaders of fashion, is in full swing. The Queen has held a Drawing Room in person at Buckingham Palace and driven out two days running amid crowds of cheering Londoners. For the Prince of Wales it has been: m exceptionally busy week, On Monday he, with the Princess and ted after luncheon in On Wednesday the Prince was visiting the scenes of his college life at Oxford and opening, new public buildings. Yesterday he was at Cheltenham receiving another address and inspecting the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars.
'THE PRINCE OF WALES'S HOSPITAL FUND, by the way, has not proved quite so successful as was hoped. The object of the Fund, it may be remembered, was to meet the annual deficit of about " hundred thousand in the London hospitals. The subscriptions of which a yearly renewal is, promised amount to only £18,400, and of course this cannot be regarded as a perma nent increase of anything like that amount, In donations unaccompanied by any promise of renewal some £77,000 has been received; and in addition nearly £20,000 has been given in the form of commuted annual sub: scriptions. The whole sum received therefore is not much more than a hundred thousand pounds, and if all but the annual subscriptions were invested the income would fall far short of £20,000. A vigorous effort is to be made to bring this fund up to something more like the amount aimed at; but in any case it will prove a valuable assistance to the hospitals.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.