And, on my replying that it was not customary in Europe to accept the hospitality of a Prince one evening, and attack his arms and insignia the next morning, that proud tall-talking son of the Stars and Stripes “cut” me from henceforth, for which I have ever since been thankful. From such men as these,--and there are, we know, Englishmen who are to the full as ill-mannered as any ill-mannered American,--and from such women as have in the past struggled and fought against each other to obtain the Prince of Wales’s kindly courtesies, merely to gain personal advantage out of them, and who may be trusted to pursue the same old campaign with regard to the King, may, and probably _will_ come many vexations and difficulties, not directly from the actually offending persons, but from the pernicious influences such mischief-makers exercise on the weak minds of those who listen to their unwarranted and unwarrantable accounts of the doings of Royalty. Such irresponsible sources are the fountain-heads of all the foolish and erroneous statements which often appear in the press, and though Fleet Street knows “how things get into the papers,” the provinces are ignorant of Fleet Street mysteries, and provincial people have the unfortunate habit of accepting everything they see in the often brilliantly imaginative columns of the cheap London press as truer than Gospel. And though the cheap London press is a very useful institution, there are times when its zeal outruns its discretion. We have had several notable examples of this lately, and the shocking scene described by the _Times_ Special Correspondent, as occurring outside the gates of Osborne House on the night of our great Queen’s death, was a disgrace to the very name of journalism.