BEST MILD BIRD'S EAR; LITTLE GENTLEWOMANLY BIRD AT- AT STRATHMOORSIDE.-That one or two grouse got away even when his lordship was shooting. AT HURST PARK.-That not even the pretty musical comedy actress could find a winner in every race. A MUSICAL-OLYMPIC APPEAL. tives. The amount, he admits, is conand preparation of British representaTHE recurrence in the year 1914 of siderable, but it will be a magnificent OR, WHAT WAS OVERHEARD BY THE the great International Pan-Orphic investment and will be repaid a hundredCompetitive Festival to be held at fold in national prestige and security. Vienna brings home to all patriotic The scheme involves the appointment British musicians the peremptory need of 1,000 "talent-searchers to scour of securing adequate representation of every corner of Great Britain, Ireland, their country at this great tournament the Isle of Man and the Scilly Isles. of song and sound. The situation is Suitable competitors, when thus sebest understood by the following state- cured, will be sent to specially equipped ment of the results of the last comtraining colleges, where their preparation petition at San Marino in 1910:will be systematically carried on under Highest note (solo). . . . . America. the supervision of the best experts. Highest note (chorus) Finland. Thus, for example, candidates for the Loudest note (solo). Patagonia. heavy-weight Wagnerian prima donna Loudest note (chorus) Corea. prize will be segregated in Dietetic Deepest note (solo). Sanatoria, where they will be subjected Deepest note (chorus) . Russia. to a process of intensive nutrition by Longest sustained note. . . Germany. which a stone weight can be put on in Three-legged singing-race. Turkey. a fortnight. Most powerful steam organ Belgium. Largest larynx Tibet. Longest hair (pianists). Hungary. Largest butterfly tie. . . . Venezuela. Best advertised donna .. Heaviest Brünnhilde. Russia. prima America. Another of these colleges will be exclusively devoted to the cultivation AT ST. PETER'S, EATON SQUARE.That the bride was very charming. AT YATTENDON.-That the Laureate may or may not be preparing a wedding ode. IN PARIS. That the little Comtesse's blind chauffeur has at last been discharged. IN THE SAME. That the street named after the late KING EDWARD is progressing. AT FORT WILLIAM.-That "'tis IN LONDON GENERALLY.-That the paviors are taking advantage of London's emptiness. of luxuriant chevelures by a process of better to have loved and lost than never constant immersion in hot baths of to have loved at all." petroleum. Another and a very costly IN ST. JAMES'S PARK.-That the Germany.department of the process of prepara-workmen are doing overtime on BuckMost realistic Carmen Roumania. tion is the equipment of poor singers ingham Palace and that the scene is Highest paid tenor. . Italy. with costumes, jewels, pet dogs and all one of great activity. Longest round of applause Croatia. the other indispensable paraphernalia Best organised claque... Argentine. of prima donnahood. A special school Largest wardrobe (ladies). Russia. of journalism, again, will have to be Most epileptic conductor.. Morocco. maintained for the instruction of comGreatest number of presents petitors for the Musical Criticism prizes in the whole vocabulary of eulogy and obloquy. There will also have to be High Note, Low Note, Deep Note and Long Note Gymnasia. There must be an Academy for the promotion of Epileptic Conductors. And, as the Marquis of Mull eloquently remarks, all this will cost money. from Crowned Heads.. Italy. Greatest number of floral tributes . . . Australia. Most eulogistic criticism. . America. Most savage ditto. Servia. It is, as the Marquis of Mull observes in his impassioned appeal to the public in last Saturday's Daily Terror, one long tale of British disgrace and The Marquis of Mull concludes his decrepitude. That we are a musical stirring appeal with a request that all nation cannot be denied. Our ballad subscriptions may be sent to him at concerts, our street organs, our devo- the Fitz Hotel. The list has been tion to the banjo, the concertina and headed by £5,000 from the proprietors the penny whistle proclaim it on every of The Hairdressers' Gazette, £2,000 side. We have pledged ourselves to compete at Vienna, and yet with only a brief year in which to prepare our selves nothing has been done to select or train representatives. To expose ourselves to a repetition of the defeat which we underwent in 1910 is not only humiliating but dangerous. It advertises our weakness and lends impetus to the Chauvinistic policy of from the Marquis himself, £1,000 from AT ALDERSHOT.-That he was the youngest subaltern who ever failed to grow a moustache. AT MARGATE.-That a certain young lady who lost a spade on the sands the other day is in danger of not getting it back. IN THE STRAITS OF DOVER.-That the fish are talking of little else but the Channel tunnel and what it will cost them. IN BERLIN. That questions of foreign policy are not unlikely to be requiring attention before long. IN VENICE. That the bathers at the Lido include more than one member of the Italian nobility. AT BILCHESTER.-That the Earl and Countess received many congratulations on the occasion of their golden wedding. IN ROYAL CIRCLES.-That the past season has been a strenuous one and a little rest is not being resented. AT HOMBURG.—That certain visitors this year are more than usually in need From "Naval Appointments" in Thunderer, as First Lord." AT THE SAME.-That "he may have the other Powers. In short, by neglect- And so poor WINSTON's brief reign is looked at her, but that was all.” ended? IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE. That the Houses of Parliament are quieter than "Some amusement was afforded by a typical they have been for months. Frenchman with well-waxed moustache who The Marquis accordingly appeals to cried again and again, in true French the nation to raise a sum of £500,000 style: Encore, encore, madame!'" to enable the Executive Committee to Yorkshire Evening News. "Many of the low-lying parts of the river are already under water."-Times of India. Batsman (indignant at being given out on a confident appeal for a catch by the wicket-keeper, Brown). "WHAT ON EARTH MADE YOU GIVE ME OUT?" Honest and Painstaking Umpire. "WELL, SIR, IT WERE LIKE THIS: MUSTER BROWN 'E THOUGHT 'TWAS HOUT, AND I KNAWED AS 'OW 'E KNAWED MORE'N I KNAWED, SO I SAYS, • HOUT. 46 which is this: that no Musca domestica with the view of broadening out my "A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION." yet born can assimilate coherent and pupil's imitative ability. In one inDEAR SIR, Before making a few veracious ideas such as are put forward stance only did I achieve any real remarks upon your interesting series in this Diary; and, further, that, were measure of success. Occasionally, entitled, "Pages from the Diary of a any fly possessed of this capacity, he after clapping my hands and chuckling Fly," I should like to explain my would find the difficulty of transferring for some minutes, I had the satisfaction motives in writing to you at all. They those ideas to paper, if not utterly of seeing him simulate the emotion of are twofold. In the first place, as a insurmountable, at least far greater glee by rubbing his front legs together. naturalist of, I hope, some distinction, than you evidently suppose. But that was all. Often, in trying to I want to discuss the matter scienti- One moment, Sir! Tush," I hear make him rear on his hind legs, I not fically. And, as the victim of certain you say, "there it is in black and white. only became stiff from my own exertions, misguided people who, under the im- We have the fly's word for it. And, but experienced considerable hoarseness pression that I was a confirmed dip- moreover, how can any naturalist, from incessant reiteration of the word teramaniac, caused me, some years ago, however eminent, make such a compre- "up." His intellect, if any, seemed to be placed in a home for the mentally hensive negation concerning the think- quite impenetrable. For hours I was unsound, I wish to prove my complete ing capacity of an insect? in the habit of reading to him select and unquestionable sanity by a course Every word that I have written, Sir, passages from Baedeker, Horace and of didactic reasoning the infallibility I can thoroughly substantiate. Let me Bradshaw without response. Only a of which you will be bound to recognise. give a brief outline of my own humble week ago I subjected my theory to an Assuming, as I do, that your alleged researches. Though in the main of exhaustive test. Having obtained contributor hails from the Calypterate antivivisectionist principles, I have another excellent specimen, I regaled Muscide family, we are reduced to a made various experiments upon the him with the first reminiscences of choice of two species, viz., the Blow-fly brain of the Musca domestica, in every your small contributor. If you will or Bluebottle," and the Musca domes-case unsuccessfully. Being forced to believe me, Sir, his eyes showed no tica or common "house - fly." My the reluctant conclusion that nothing flicker of interest. But not content with knowledge of the whole order Diptera, new was to be gleaned from within, I this as a convincing proof of defective to say nothing of certain details in the set to work on the inductive plan. receptivity, I established what was narrative under discussion, leads me to Having obtained a healthy specimen, almost a foregone conclusion-that he suppose that the writer belongs to the one entirely free from empusa and not was entirely unable to produce decipherlatter of the two sub-families. Very long emerged from the pupa state, I able hieroglyphics. I went to the trouble Jack (whose twin has been isolated owing to measles). "WHEN'S TEDDY COMING BACK TO SLEEP, BEE?" Jack (promptly). "RATHER! ONLY THIS MORNING I TURNED OVER TO BIFF HIM IN THE EYE AND HE WASN'T THERE!" of the Diptera family, is some spurious | Bunting protested against their being production of the genus Homo. Yours in sympathy, ROCKS AHEAD. deprived of a privilege which had been theirs as babies since the days when their poets had first sung. They would remember that imperishable line "When the wind blows the cradle will rock." experience of the ways of the world, to an old infant, with eighteen months' advise them, they would solemnly register a determination never to go to bye-bye without a good rocking. silver pen made for him, one-eighth of an inch long. It was relatively easy to procure the pen: but to make him hold it was a very different matter. OCTAVIUS GRUBBE (ex) F.R.S. First I placed it between the adhesive P.S.-During a further perusal of pads of his front feet whilst he was your current issue, I have just noticed rubbing them together. The only result the words "By our Charivariety Artiste." He was a Pro-cradler, as he had always was that he immediately desisted from This, of course, proves that you your-been. Perhaps he was not so young as his occupation, and the instrument fell self were not the victim of an imposture, he once was, but, if they would allow with a tiny clatter on to the sheet of and stultifies the main purpose of this foolscap I had provided for him. Next letter, which I nevertheless forward to I tried the lobes of his proboscis, but you for the sake of its scientific interest. these seemed sadly lacking in tenacity. Not to be beaten too easily, however, I dispensed with the manufactured article and dipped the lobes themselves in a bottle of ink. This turned out to be an unfortunate move, for, instead of making any attempt to transfer his thoughts to paper, he contented himself with sucking up the fluid with evident fluential infant circles owing to the CRADLE DOESN'T RULE THE WORLD.— relish, thereby inflicting upon himself threat of the elders to withdraw cradles, an attack of what I took to be acute and a force of 4,000 fathers had to be indigestion. At any rate the malady called out during the small hours to has incapacitated him from experimental quell threatened insurrections. work for several days. Although I intend men were not able to return to bed going into the matter more thoroughly before daybreak. It is clear that the when my patient has recovered, I think paternal authorities are uneasy and I have said enough to convince you dread an outburst at any moment. that this so-called Diary, far from being. At a meeting of infants held in Little [The City of London Public Health Departstated that the custom of rocking babies in ment have issued a circular in which it is cradles is a wrong one and should be abolished.] UNREST continues to prevail in in The Procession of Babies made its evening. Banners were carried bearing way through the principal streets last such inscriptions as "THE HAND THAT DOESN'T ROCK THE YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS." 66 ROCK US IN THE CRADLE OF Later. At a meeting of Parents called specially last evening it was agreed to urge the Public Health Department to withdraw their circular. It is confidently expected that tho |