But' it is in the music-hall, as I have! "said, that Iam most impressed with the youthfulness of man. How delighted we are when the long man in the little boy's hat, having asked his short brother a riddle, and before he can find time to answer it, hits him over the stomach with an umbrella! How we clap our hands and shout with glee! It isn't really' his stomach; it isa bolster tied round his waist—we know that; but seeing the Jong mau whack at that bolster with an umbrella gives us almost as much joy as if the bolster were not there. laugh at the knockabout brothers,.I confess, so long as they are on the stage; but they do not convince me. Reflecting on the performance afterwards my dramatic sense revolts against the " plot." T cannot accept the theory of their being brothers. The difference in size alone is a strain upon my imagination. It is not probable that of two children of the same parents one should measure six foot six, and the other five foot four. Even lowing for a freak of nature, and accepting the fact that they might be brothers, I do not believe they would remain so iti-table. The short brother would have succeeded before now in losing the long those continual hi \d_and stomach would ened whatever affection the short brother might originally have felt towards his long relation. At least, he would insist upon the umbrella being left at home. "I will go for ® walk with you," he might say,:*I will stand stock still with you in Trafalgar} Square in the midst of the traffic, while you ask me silly riddles, but not if you persist in bringing with you that absurd umbrella, You are too handy with it. Pat it back in the rack before we start, or go out by yourself." Besides, my sense of justice is outraged. Why should the short brother be banged and thumped without reason? The Greek dramatist would have explained to us that the shorter brother had committed a crime against the gods. Aristophanes would have made the longer brother the instrament of the Furies. The riddles. he e had bearing upon the In this way spectator would enjoyed a combined with the satisfactory Nemesis is ever-present in human affairs. I present the idea, for what it may be worth, to the concoctors of knockabout turns, The family tie is always strong on the music-hall stage, Phe acrobatic troupe is always a "Family Pa, Ma, eight brothers and sisters, and the baby. A more affectionate family one rarely sees. Paaud Ma are a trifle stout, but still Baby, dear little fellow, is fall Ladies do not care to go on hall stage unless they can take their sister with them. I have seen a performance given by eleven sisters, all the same size, and apparently' all the same age. They all irad golden hair, and all wore precisely similar frocks—a charming. but décolletée arrangement claret-coloured velvet over blue silk stockings. So far as I could gather, they all had the same young man. No doubt he found it difficult amongst them to make up his mind. "Arrange it among yourselves," he no doubt had said, "it is quite immaterial to mo. You ace so much alike, it is impossible that a fellow loving one should not love the lot of you. Solong as I marry into the family I really don't care."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.