A suggestion for the holding of an Imperial-American conference to establish a standard form of English speech, and to preserve it in the best possible spelling. was made recently by Professor Ripman in a lecture he gave to the English Association at 123 Charing Cross Road. He said they might take as a basis the best stage pronunciation. There were actors who were absurd, who yonted and mouthed, but on the whole the best form of speech would probably be found in the actor. jo professor held that the dropping of "d" in handkerchief" was a distinct gain. The word was a perfectly sane one, but it was too long, of course. It was much to be desired that we
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.