We doubt whether the Municipaf Council will see its way to accept the Shriners' offer of a couple of camels as an addition to the local Zoo, although it is not every day that camels come this way, and there are two good reasons for acquiring them. One is that they must be considered a local curiosity, the other that camels are re~ quired at annual] festivals of the Shrine and accordingly a supply ought to be kept on hand, notwithstanding that the camel is one of the most pernicious and bad-tempered creatures in existence-at least the Arab variety is—and can at times "be one of the fiercest, When visiting the Pyramids at Cairo the correct thing to.do is to perform the first half of the journey by tram or motor car, and conclude it by camel. The first half is the more enjoyable. The odds are that on ascending the hump the camel looks round at the person thus ignoring his superciliousness and yells at hinx. The average stride of the camel is unpleasant: when it trots it looks more unpleasant still; and it is a proof of the undaunted spirit of the British race that men in the Yeomanry were at times persuaded. to transfer to the Camel Corps. during the War. No doubt they would to-day make leading Shriners. One great argument for the acquisition of the camels might be their commercial value: if they are kept on the premises there will be no shortage of camel-hair brushes for the art -sections of the B. W. A. or the A. W. C., while their abstemious habits in regard to drinking should provide an inexhaustible text for the locat temperance organizations.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.