Mr. Arthur Balfour is und ubtedly the other societies. man of the hour.
Mr. T. P. O'Connor, MP., one of our wittiest writers, his contributed a character sketch of him to this month's issue of the Pall Mall Magazine," and as it must be the result of personal observ on I think quotations from it wil be of-interest. Mr. Balfour, he says is at once te most transparent and the most elusive of men. He is candid in speech; the expression of his eyes, the windows of the soul, is as impid. as that of a rustic stream, and his manners are the perfection of simplicity; of po: there is not a trace in any of his words, in any of his acts, or in his demeanour. Sometimes indeed his simplicity is that of a schoolboy. When he finds himself in either' a tight Parliamentary place, or when some harmle-s personal allusions to his obstinate bachelorhood are made, he can blush like schoolboy, and tuck down his head with the delightful confusion of a schoolgirl receiving a compliment. If he be irritated, though "his serene temper is rarely irritated, he shows his irritation; if he have " personal resentment, and he has few and they are transient, he forgets prudence and plunges into danger without care as to results; if he be tired he lolls with his legs stretched along the floor in front of the Treasury Bench; in short, here, fever, isn child of nature whose emotions are' reflected on his face and in his manner as faithfully and promptly #s the hues of a changeful April sky on the surface of a luke, And therefore everybody thinks, and has always thought, that he understands Mr. Balfour. The truth is that very few people do understand him. The Mr. Balfour of the Being found to be a very diferent person public form and reputation is ¢ sustantly
from the Mr, Balfour of reality, Women and the "Order of Merit."
Some few weeks since I alluded to a report which was being circulated to the effect that the King had under consideration the institution of a new order specia for women in commemoration of His Uoronation. Mr, H. W. Paol, who. writes on the Order of Merit (also in this meath's Pall Mall Magazine), says there is no obvious reason why the order should be confined to members of one sex. But if it be invidious to suggest the names of men it is doubly invidious to suggest the names of women, There are lady novelists of every degree from whom, as from poets of the feminine gender, it would be difficult to select. But there is one Englishwoman still living, though long withdrawn from public notice, who would be universally recognised as entitled to any honour which the Crown could bestow. The conditions of the hospitals in South Africa at the beginning of the War recalled to everyone the name of Florence Night-ingle. She is not by any means the last survivor of the Crimean War, but there is no one else, living or de played so conspicuous a part in alleviating the horrors of that disastrous campaign. No one will grudge Sir Henry Keppel the recognition of his services; but they are not greater nor more heroic than' Miss Nightingale's.
A New Terror has this week been added to the London streets. We have heard much during the year of the perils of driving ina hansom, and " Cabby" has long enjoyed a reputation for too great fondness for alcohol, but our latest culprit is a man "drunk whilst in charge of a motor." Arthur Stone provided a somewhat too exciting experience for several persons who chanced to be in Regent Street last Tuesday afternoon, First he charged a hansom, which he damaged considerably. Then he was at-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.