To turn to less gruesome thoughts, yesterday was the last day for sending in pictures for the Royal Academy, and the opening day of the "children's Royal Academy" at the Guildhall, this exhibition being organized by the Royal Drawing Society.
How many of these young artists will ultimately make their way to Burlington House? Certainly some of them show amazing skill. They range in age from elght.to eighteen, and in the former category is a page of drawings by a boy named George Gosset of aeroplanes and an aeroplane carrier, with appropriate backgrounds, which suggest a much older draughts: man. Another remarkably good drawing, full of life and action, of a child in bathing dress, dancing and waving a towel, is by a girl of only. twelve, Margaret Littleton. And a series of drawings of dogs by a New Zo lander of fourteen, Molly MocAlister" has "won a silver ster, What 0 impresses one In these and other drawings by very young artists is the flrmaness and Gecision of their lines, and the proportions are 99 good. Most children, even those with an evident talent for drawing, seem to have so much digculty at frst in making the pencil travel in a desired direction accurate-alt the way. Not so the Guildhall artists. "Incidentally the mechanical spirit of the age is strongly displayed. Speed-boats, motor-buses, aeroplanes, battles in the alr figures again and When young grass has been up for perhaps two. weeks, it 1s often best to roll it and defer the first cutting until the plants wre about three inches tall. The new lawn should not be cropped too closely, but should be cut regularly. The grass will then be induced to spread out rather than grow tall." If cut weekly, the clippings should not be moved. They will be useful to Protect the roots against the sun well as to furnish an excellent mulch. If, however, the grass has grown tong, the clippings should be raked and will be a good mulch for use about perennials, This Unromatic Era "Sending-In" days at Burlington House have lost much of their terror and picturesqueness. 'Time was when the Gardens were thronged with artists each one bearing a hopeful canvas, which, to' sympathetic. on-lonkers might typify. the lest crust Ju the garret, the anguished hope of starving family. But now prosaic motor-vans will call for your masterpiece for a very small sum and, having loaded up with other masterpieces, dumps the lot at Burlington House with no further trouble to the artist but to sit at home and awalt the Committee's verdict, There at least the agony of suspense is the Having been brought up in a legal family, I have never forgotten (though T may not always have applied) the maxim that de minimise non curat lex, oF to paraphrase it, the majesty of the law is not to 66 Invoked about trifles. Yet it seems that it may be, Some little while ago, the manager of a lending Library in Hull was fed $6 for Tending book (hire price twopence) on Sunday. This was a atime against the Sunday Observance Act of 1677, the magistrates holding that on a Lord's Day he unlawfully exercised a certain worldly calling the same not being @ work of necessity ior charity, The culprit appealed to the High Court, where much argument took place as to whether a Librarian was or was not @ tradesman within the meaning of the Act, he upshot being that the 69 fine was confirmed. Nobody seems to have thought of arguing that to lend a book to anyone condemned to spend a Sun-@ay in Hull was a work both of necessity and charity—necessity to keep him out of the pubs. and charity to keep him from cutting tis throat. second preposterous case is that of a hairdrewer at Bury who was proceeded against two women who had come for permanent waves on a Saturday at 11 am. were allowed to remain in the shop after the one o'clock closing hour as their hair bad
~-although the shop was properly yet set—vhlch, monstrous Hence shut to other customers—the Town Clerk held to be a grave infringe ment of the Shop Act 1912 and the Bury Hairdressers' and Barbers Early Closing Order 1023.
The magistrates disagreed whereupon the Town Clerk actually appealed to the High Court, But here Lord Hewart, to whom everything savouring of buseaueracy isos @ red rag fo a bull, rose nobby to the oecasion. To the contention that the ought not to have started when he knew it could not be finished by closing time, he replied that "perhaps these goddesses had no hada permanent wave before and thought it might only take five minutes"! and anyway there was a difference between deliberately keeping a shop open for new customers and completing the service of those who had come in before closing hour.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.