CALENDAR REFORM.

CORONATION BEARDS (NO. 2).

[To be grown out of compliment to KING GEORGE.]

grounds.

week or month, but shall be called has done. And here let us say that simply New Year's Day. Thereafter the details of the plan are open to MR. PEARCE'S Bill to reform the he divides the year into 52 perfect amendment in committee. We invite Calendar will, we hope, prove as weeks, every month having 30 days, discussion. We are always prepared effective as Mr. WILLETT's Daylight except the last month of each quarter, to receive suggestions from any part Saving Bill in providing food for which shall have 31. Our first objection of the House. agreeable discussion and conjecture. to this proposal is taken on artistic We begin boldly, then, by eliminating Not that we are disposed to admit the five days, and at once we have a worknecessity for reforming the Calendar. Thirty-one days hath September, able figure to start on. Nothing could It does perhaps look a little absurd March, June and December, be better than 360. This we divide "on paper," as they say-even a little cannot be made even to scan, and will into 12 months of 30 days each. So far-fetched-but in practice it has hardly be accepted with equanimity by far, so good. The critic has probably always seemed to us to work fairly those of us who have been brought up observed, however, that we cannot well, so long as one clings to its great on the authorised version, and have divide it into weeks of seven days. guiding principle that thirty days become attached to it through long But we have thought of that. We are hath September. It is probable that association. But let that pass. going to drop a week-day and make it the late JULIUS CESAR devoted not a Of course we see Mr. PEARCE's six. By this device we have five weeks little thought to his ingenious arrange- difficulty; that has not escaped us. in every month. Rather happy, we ment. Certainly, apart from slight We ourselves have been trying to think. The seven-day week, if you modifications, it has had a long and figure it out, and we also got up come to examine it, has been a very uninterrupted run, and if it is at last against a very awkward fact-namely, clumsy instrument. You cannot divide to be suspended, if the hereditary that 365 is divisible only by five and it in half. That in itself is an enormous principle is to be abandoned, so to 73. Clearly you can't do much with drawback. Life is full of things that speak, we are inclined to ask: " Who that without getting yourself involved fall due to be done twice a week, and is Mr. PEARCE that he should elect to in recurring decimals. But we find as the matter stands they cannot be supplant the Conqueror of Gaul? Why Mr. PEARCE's solution-of dropping done at equal intervals. To take only Mr. PEARCE? We also have our plan only one day rather timorous and one instance:-there are many of us of Calendar Reform." half-hearted. What we want is to lay who make a practice of changing our His (Mr. PEARCE's) plan, it will be the foundations of a thoroughgoing white waistcoats twice a week, and are remembered, is to eliminate a day- and comprehensive scheme, which shall guiltily conscious that those which we like that idea; it is full of pos- at least stand the wear and tear of begin their career on Thursday mornsibilities-which shall not belong to any nineteen centuries, as its predecessor ing must drag out a protracted existence

till Sunday night. One day has got to The truth is that I have just heard they enquire in a neighbourly manner go, and our proposal is that a plébiscite from my dear old friend, the Assessor after my income. In a peculiarly be taken as to which it is to be. It is of Income Tax, of whom I have lost oppressive piece of legislation, that an admirable case for the introduction sight for nearly a year. His four-page necessity of telling the truth seems to of the Referendum. For our own part letter has set me thinking, and I have me to be the harshest and most cruel we should be inclined to sacrifice just discovered that my income has on its victims, the M.P.'s. But even so Thursday—a day we have never cared absolutely gone off-tumbled to pieces. I dare say their old habits will get the for, somehow. But doubtless the The £500 a year which I mentioned to better of them, and they will describe wide-spread and bitter feeling against your father in one of those expansive their salaries, loosely, as Earned Income. Monday as the day of return to work moments which you and I have just Your confirmed Tory may have the will prove strong enough to result in been experiencing has been found to decency to put an exclamation mark its annihilation. be not a penny more (or certainly in brackets after the "Earned," but he not more than one penny more) than will do so less from motives of honesty £159 19s. 11d. a year. They tell me than in the hope of influencing the that a total exemption from income-tax political convictions of his assessor.

There still remains the question of the five extra days. No, we have not forgotten them. Here we have several suggestions to offer. Perhaps they could be slipped in with advantage, in late and backward seasons, between the 11th and 12th of August-to give the birds a chance. Or they might be handed over to the M.C.C. for the last test match, or sprinkled through the year as Bank Holidays. No doubt they would prove to be a very powerful instrument in the hands of the Government of the day, if used for Parliamentary purposes. But we think this would be a risky experiment. If the CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER got hold of them at the close of the financial year they might lead to a prodigious cooking of accounts.

THE

On the whole we are inclined to save up these five days till we have a whole month in handto be called a Leap Month. This could be allotted for any important national purpose. It would be invaluable in a year like the present to carry out a complete and protracted celebration of the Coronation, for the whole populace could go on holiday without any actual loss of time.

THE LOVE-LETTER.

"A 1OLITICAL CHAMOIS."

Lord ROSEBERY's vision of Lord HALDANE.

That, however, doesn't help my income much at the moment.

Aspodestera, is your face your whole fortune? A hint in the dear old man's letter makes me wonder, for these income-tax people do know such a lot.

66

The income of a married woman," he writes, naming no names but mentioning it too casually to be entirely without suspicion, "living with her husband, is deemed to be her husband's income." Let me say now that it is the dearest wish of my life that when you are a married woman you should live with your husband, never leaving me except when these Income Tax Forms have to be filled in. Then I think it would be a kindly act for you to go and stay with your parents, you and they fixing it between you as to whose that income is to be deemed to be for the purpose of paying tax on it.

And now I must leave you to write to my dear Assessor. He writes more at a time, if less often, than you do, but I must say that of the two I prefer the tone of your postscripts. His reads to the

We are leaving over the considera- | may be claimed on incomes not exceed- | effect that, if I am not very careful tion of Leap Year till a future occasion. ing £160, but I do not think that that how I reply to his buff-coloured can have anything to do with it. Well, notes, I may render myself liable, on well! We must face our troubles with summary conviction, to imprisonment a brave front. Either you must go out for a term not exceeding six months (A suggested new use of the Correspon- and be a governess, or I must go out dence columns of "The Times.") and be a Member of Parliament. If I MY DEAR ASPODESTERA,-It is not happen to hear of a family with a lot the usual thing, in our set at any of small children in it whose parents rate, for engaged couples to correspond through the medium of the public press. Why, I do not know; but there the fact is for you to make the most of it. I must add, however, that this paper will only cost you threepence, and if you grudge that to get a letter from your Bill your love is not the thing you profess it to be, and you don't deserve that ring. Besides, we are going to stick strictly to business this time.

with hard labour. That I am practically certain to do, and, should an officious parson have married us off before I am discovered, my idea is that desire them to learn golf and poker the weekly allowance for housekeeping patience, I will let you know. If you should be suspended for a period (not happen to hear of a constituency in exceeding six months) and the accumuneed of a new Member who will be lated sum be devoted to providing me ready to adopt any policy or opinion, with a much-needed and well-deserved and to change either at a moment's notice, you let me know.

Should I contrive to get that constituency, the State will, I suppose, know all about it, and I shall have to be accurate about the £400, when

holiday at the end of it. For I have
the dark suspicion, gathered I know
not whence, that when the kind old
fellow says "hard" he means it.
Yours, by the courtesy of the Editor
of The Times,
BILL.

Landlord. "WELL, SIR, I WERE A LION TAMER, AND I'D BE THERE NOW IF I 'ADN'T A-MARRIED.

WERE A KNIFE-THROWER IN THE SAME SHOW, AND SHE GOT TO PRACTISING HER TURN ON ME. WELL, THINKS I, LIFE AIN'T TOO LONG TO RUN NO RISKS, SO I TOOK ON A SAFE JOB AND BECOME A STEEPLEJACK."

"THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST."

was justified of his uniform, for he effects.
seemed to be on posse-duty most of

All the same, when I compare his Fanciulla with Carmen, one the time; but I would have been con- popular theme of melodrama with FROM the moment when, across the tent to forego historical accuracy for another, I ask myself whether he might footlights, a whiff of Rance's cigar was something a little less destructive of not have allowed himself to put our blown to me in the first row of the the picture. senses under a rather stronger and stalls, I knew that we were in for a Mlle. DESTINN was once more ador- more captivating spell. For, after all, melodrama as realistic as anything able. Apart from her delicious voice, BIZET gets his atmosphere, and very ever can be on the operatic stage. It with the moving appeal of its middle seldom keeps the drama halting, and brought to my quivering nostrils the notes, every detail of her action-the yet all the time is weaving about us an full local aroma of a mining camp in last thing that most prime donne worry irresistible charm. There is very little of the Golden West (period 1850). I was about-was perfect in its sympathetic this in Signor PUCCINI's new work; our prepared for a chorus of pioneers with refinement and restrained dramatic interest is always engaged, but no susrough exteriors and primitive notions force. Signor BASSI, whose memory tained demand is put upon our emotions; of summary justice; but also with was at times a little faulty, played also and such memories as remain with us warm hearts (when you got at them), with a commendable reserve. Nor are concerned rather with the novelty and with natures so sensitive that the must I pass over the fascinating figure of the scenes than with his setting of coarsest of them would break out into of the Redskin, Billy Jackrabbit, who them. Even these memories are marred manly grief and wipe his eyes by the ugly note on which the with the back of his hand on lovers persist in iterating their receiving news of the death of final addio. his grandmother far, far away if in the Leaden East. And I was never once disappointed in these admirable fellows, who did everything according to the book.

But I confess to a certain chagrin at not being allowed to set eyes on Nina. Nina was the at raction at the rival saloon. Minnie ("the Girl of the Golden West"), who ran the "Polka" saloon, and was a pattern to all barmaids, sketches her character lightly as that of "a/ designing hussy who spends her time ogling all the men."

I think it a grave cversight that she was not introduced to us in person, if only to serve as a foil to the virtues of Minnie, and to create that palpable atmosphere of jealousy without I which no melodrama can be a really perfect thing.

HAZELDEN.

A FULL HOUSE AT COVENT GARDEN.
The "full house" is not visible in the picture, because Minnie
(Mlle. DESTINN) has got it inside her stocking (three aces and
a pair). With this she beats the three kings of Jack Rance
(M. GILLY).

But to return to Rance, the
"Sheriff." In every scene, in-
cluding the noblest I have yet
enjoyed at Covent Garden-a forest of contributed little to the movement of
gigantic Californian pines-he wore, things, apart from his habit of stealing
without flinching, an evening waistcoat drinks when no one was looking, but
with a soft shirt front and black tie, was an extraordinary restful figure in
and a rusty opera hat. I don't com- the great forest scene, where, through
plain of these things in their proper all the tumultuous excursions of rough-
place. Indeed, I have often admired riders busily engaged in rounding up
them when worn by eccentric occupants Dick Johnson, he maintained a very
of the stalls at Covent Garden. But in perfect detachment, sitting in the fore-
"the forest primeval" they seemed to ground over a game of solitaire. It
betray, if I may dare say it, a lack cf was only when they began to string
harmony with their environment. Per- the greaser up to a tree that he got
sonally, I was never in a Californian put off his game and moved reluctantly
mining camp during the middle years away, with his pack of cards, to fresh
of the last century, and cannot say woods.

whether this costume was de rigueur One cannot too highly commend with the sheriffs of that era. Of course, Signor PUCCINI's obvious desire to I have heard of a sheriff's" posse," and establish the right atmosphere, to keep it may well be that this was the fatigue the dialogue flowing briskly, and to pattern for an officer in command of avoid delaying the movement of the such a body at that period. If so, he drama for the sake of purely musical

My neighbour, by the way, seemed obsessed by the idea that they were going forth to start upon a new life out in the Golden West. A pretty thought, in which one recognises an echo of many melodramas. But, as I took pains to explain to her, they were already as far West as they could go.

And this brings me to the title-La Fanciulla del Westthe worst piece of hybridism I have ever met. And why is nothing said of the metallic quality of this El Dorado? I prefer the sportsmanlike courage of the Italian gentleman who translated BRET HARTE'S The Luck of Roaring Camp and called it "La Fortuna del Campo Clamoroso." He did at least get it all in, and in one language. O. S.

A Smart Deduction. "During cleaning operations at the Ship Hotel, Weybridge, Surrey, a grandfather clock was opened for tl.e first time for many years, and found to contain the entire skeleton of a cat. It is thought that the animal must have leen shut in the clock."- Evening Standard.

"Wallasey Physician-Sir Richard Quain (1st baronet), the famous Irish physician, was born in 1876, and died in 1898. In 1882, he edited the Dictionary of Medicine. Always pleased to oblige." Wallasey & Wirral Chronicle. The notorious good nature of editors is beautifully exemplified in the case of this six-year-old prodigy.

The Limit.

"Beyond this, the Government will not recede one square inch."-Daily Chronicle. On the contrary, they intend more resolutely than ever to put one cubic foot before another and march on.