Round And About.

Amongst the theatrical profession Bros . George Grossmith , Rutland Barrington , Durward Lely , and Harry Payne ( the clown ) are all successful anglers ; Mr . Gus Wheatman and Mr . J . Brockbank , the smartest cricketers ; Bro . William Terriss , the fastest swimmer ; Bro . Irving , the most

accomplished fencer ; Mr . A . J . H . Byde the best boxer ; Mr . G . R . Sims can hold the reins against all comers ; Bros . Forbes Robertson and Bernard Gould are the best painters ; Bros . Leonard Boyne , A . W . Pinero , and Henry Irving all "know" a good dog ; whilst Bro . Penley does a bit of farming . As an all-round athlete Mr . F . R . Benson takes the lead .

The Red Indians of Fennimore Cooper's day would never have believed a £ 40 carpet could be the innocent means of destroying the friendship of two such intellectual beings as Bros . W . S . Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan . A fortypound carpet ! Just think of it . Like little wanton boys ,

who not content with swimming on bladders in a sea of glory , must go and " bust" each other's float , because they think they can swim without them . And perhaps they can ; but what about that appreciative public who have encouraged in a very practical way these wanton

children until they have got independent and saucy , and gone and told mother that " Dolly " bit a bigger bit of butterscotch than he left !

Gilbert always was a crotchety man . But he was likewise a genius , and geniuses are supposed to be possessed of an ordinary amount of common sense . He is rich and lives in a beautiful house , holds the highest position in the ranks of living dramatists , and has for years lived upon

his satirical dealings with the weaknesses of eminent people , and yet a straw blown by a capricious wind across a friendship and a partnership of almost half a lifetime turns his crotchety genius into a snivelling " kid " who sacrifices the pleasure and gratification of millions of his fellow-creatures for what ? The third share of a forty-pound carpet .

To me it is lamentable . For the past three years a syndicate of country papers has favoured me with the position of dramatic critic ; and it has been my boast that , amid the drivelling nonsense the unfortunate penman has to get through in the course of a year , the one

redeeming reflection remained that there was a Savoy , a Gilbert , and a Sullivan always on tap . It is even worse than lamentable—it is almost a national calamity—that the delicious music of Sir Arthur Sullivan will no longer be wedded to the splendid lyrics of W . S . Gilbert . Fie

upon you , Sir Arthur ! Fie upon you , Mr . Gilbert Fie upon you , "Dolly" Carte , for the three knaves that you are ! Why , damn it , gentlemen ! poor as I am , I could have spared the £ ^ o to have saved your honour and that inimitable work , which you have no moral right now to rob us of .

Bro . Sir Edmund Currie—of course an authority upon the training of the masses—has hit the very centre peg of the social side , of popular education . " Now it needs to be properly understood by all men that the bestowal of instruction in book-learning and technics , vastly important as it of course is , is not , by itself , education . It is a part of education certainly , but of little use by itself as a humanising

agent . This fact is lost sight of , principally , I suppose , because an educated man acquires his social education unconsciously . Lie mingles , as a matter of course , with others of his own class , and exchanges ideas ; perhaps he travels , he dances , sees beautiful things—pictures and the

like—and hears good music , and although he may forget much of what he was made to learn at school , and may be unable to explain the use of the gerundive to save his life , he is still called , and is , an educated man . Of all these things the youth of the people gets , in most cases , nothing ,

and if he is to be educated he must be given not only his ordinary school training , but that social training which is its educational complement . Llis school teaching is a useful thing for him in a selfish view , but he needs social

training to make him tolerable to his fellow creatures . When he has received it he will adopt rational pleasures and more refined amusements , if only they are placed within his reach . He will read good novels—perhaps poetry ; he will drink less bad beer and will frequently

wash his hands ; he will join choral societies and train his voice , and the bray of his home-going concertina will no longer disturb the night ; his manners toward the opposite sex will no longer be either those of a bear or those of a sheep ; in fine , tangible results will be visible of all our

vast and expensive striving after popular education , and its effects will be seen where they will naturally be looked for —in the better behaviour and higher intelligence of what we call the working classes .

"To the old-fashioned school-book teaching in our elemen . tary schools I have lived to see added both physical training and instruction in the use of tools , and I do not despair of seeing education in its social form made a matter of more widely recognised necessity and general care than it now is . "

When the Duke of Bedford takes to anything his purse is open , but when he does not " take " it is very firmly closed . The . £ 5 , 000 he expended to popularise cremation is an instance of how mean one of the richest men in England can become . He would never expend any such

sum to benefit the living . So many people are curious enough to write me for my portrait—perhaps because I am always bothering people for

theirs that Bro . Bassano has kindly sent me a negative so that I may satisfy my many kind friends . THE DRUID .