inspection. It appeared that some fourteen animals, more or less, had been disqualified by the veterinary. At the annual meeting of the club this incident formed the subject of discussion. The balance of opinion given by breeders of great experience was that a mistake had been made. In some stock the changes come earlier than others, and vice versa; and it was particularly noticed that the disqualifications affected the cross-breeds more than any other class. The president assured the meeting that the matter, which had been referred to the Stock Prize Committee, would receive every attention; and Lord Feversham put the question pertinently when he said their motto must be that of the Royal Agricultural Society," Practice and Science," and if the two clashed they had better follow "practice" first. At the same time we may remark that in the spring of last year these new rules were issued by the club, and it was clearly intimated that henceforth the mouths of all animals exhibited would be relied on to determine their ages. Very positive definitions were laid down, and if intending exhibitors had read, marked, and digested them, we cannot help thinking the disqualification difficulty would not have arisen. Nobody questioned in the slightest degree the bona fides of the exhibitor when he made the entry. It is admitted that dentition is uncertain, but it was because it is an uncertain factor on determining age, the rules above mentioned were issued. The question arises, is the club to

retract them?

Of course, the chief beef-making breeds were placed first in the classes, but we were glad to see one justice had been done to "the distressful country," by admitting the Kerry for the first time among them. Old recollections made us turn to them first, and though the entries were smaller than we had expected, the two first prize-takers, Mr. M. J. Sutton's steer and Mr. Walter Gilbey's heifer, were grand animals, admirable specimens of a class that we hope to see more of in this country. The deserved good fortune of Her Majesty at Birmingham followed her to Islington, at which latter show she was stronger in Devons than at Bingley Hall. Among the Herefords there were one or two curious disagreements between Birmingham and Islington; and Lord Coventry's Brutus, winner at the former, gets only v.h.c. at the latter. The Herefords fell off in entries, but the section formed a very fine lot, we thought. Here Her Majesty is again to the fore with a beautiful heifer. The North Country breeders, as was proper, were not out of the prize list; no inore, we are bound to add, were they in the matter of disqualifications, as full half of the lot of curiously mouthed animals came from North of the Tweed. The Sussex breed stood on one side of the middle gangway, the Devons on the other, so connoisseurs could make their notes and comparisons very easily. There was nothing very remarkable among the Sussex, but that popular and picturesque gentleman the West Highlander was even better represented than he was at Bingley Hall. There were paler colours among them than we before remember, and some of the prize winners were wonderfully heavy animals for this breed. The cross-bred cattle, though in diminishing numbers, reach a high standard in quality, and it was a misfortune that probably the finest beast in the section-and, indeed, many considered him the

finest in the show-No. 221, a two-year-old seven months steer, bred by Mr. James Bruce, was disqualified for "abnormal dentition." He weighed over 18 cwt., and, of course, it was most vexatious that a beast, which might have been champion of the year, had to be put on one side. Space warns us that our other parcels must be attended to, and so, after luncheon with Mr. Leeds, without which a visit to Islington we have found to be impossible, we reluctantly leave the sheep and pigs unvisited.

"Idlesse All."

To awake in the dismal semi-darkness of a December morning, and to feel you have not got to catch the 9.45 to Hockley-in-the-Hole or Ropeington-in-the-Mud; to know that you have nothing on a coming handicap, and also to assure yourself that, with the blessing of Providence, nothing shall tempt you to have a bet (steeplechasing don't count) for the next four months-is not this happiness, dear readers? We are quite aware that winter is called the dull season; also, if we may believe many worthy people who seem to have no other occupation but betting, it is really felt to be so. The dull season! Why, it is our holiday—a holiday when we eat, drink, and are merry; see our friends, and they see us; when we can sometimes lounge at the club, accept invitations to dinner, and go to shows and little suppers without a black Monday coming between the wind and our nobility. Dull, quotha! We like that, much.

Barnum's.

We said "shows" just now. Did not December allow us to see "the greatest upon earth," the inimitable and only Barnum? When Mrs. Jarley announced herself as "the delight of the nobility and gentry," she was only a little before her age. Shows were in their infancy then, and she probably spoke in a prophetic spirit. She might have foreseen the days of Buffalo Bill and Barnumwho can say? At all events, these days have arrived, and the nobility and gentry strive for the honour of who shall welcome the showman of to-day, and bid God-speed to him of yesterday. It is a funny world, but as we are not bound to set it right, we only mention the stale fact, and proceed to give our account of Barnum. A bewildering show, and one we think meant to bewilder. The quantity given us is an attempt to conceal the quality. Not but that here and there there is something clever and novel, only the distance you may be from it, and the fact that you are absorbed by the contemplation of two sheep doing see-saw, prevents you paying the attention to the novelty it deserves. By the way, we are told by the all-knowing and popular "Shifter" that the coy shepherdess with the sheep is our old friend Zazel. As she is inseparably connected in our mind with scarlet tights, which she did not wear at Olympia, we may be pardoned for not recognising her. "The scenes in the circle," as they used to be called, are, truth to say, dispiriting. Of course there can be nothing very new in a circus; but "the greatest show on earth" ought to have what there is done well. With every wish to be pleased, we confess to being terribly bored. The memory of the French circus that was at Olympia two years ago would intrude on us. Where were the intrepid Amazons who rode as we never imagined Frenchwomen could ride? where were the jockeys? There was a lack of go in the presentments now given;

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the bare-backed jockey act was about the tamest we ever beheld; and the artist, whoever he was, could not touch Batty or Ginnett. The ladies who jumped through hoops, too-well, we do not wish to be unkind, but they were very mild; and as for the clowns-but enough. One thing there is worth seeing at Olympia, and that is Nero," one of the most effective spectacles ever produced. On such a stage as Olympia-and the stage goes nearly the whole length of the building-what might not be produced? We realised, after the second scene, in which Nero is represented returning to Rome after some great victory, what was meant by "the greatest show on earth." It was that. With the space at command, a procession had been organised which dwarfed every pantomime procession we had ever seen, which sent Buffalo Bill and the Emperor Titus at Earl's Court to very outside prices. We wondered what the thoughts of Mr. Augustus Harris were when he gazed upon it. Did he sigh for new worlds to conquer? There must have been thoughts fleeting through his mind, in which Olympia got mixed with Drury Lane, to the disadvantage of the latter. What a pantomime could be got up at Olympia! what a frontage, what a background! Who shall say it cannot be? We look to the great Augustus to take the hint.

"Nero."

But we are forgetting the procession! Chariots, laden with the Emperor's favourites, and followed by the priests of Olympian Jove and other deities; the Emperor himself, carefully selected as the possessor of a most forbidding countenance, on which the pride of unbridled power is well expressed; with a mixed multitude of soldiers, slaves, and a corps de ballet, for which latter we much fear there is no warranty-all this makes up a truly grand spectacle. The performers in it have been well drilled. They are not lifeless supers, contenting themselves with an occasional wave of the hand, after the manner of the old Adelphi guests (do our middle-aged readers remember them ?), but they are animated spectators and actors in the scene. In such a vast space as Olympia, a little dull inertness would easily pass unnoticed; but we are bound to say that, though we watched narrowly with our glasses, each Roman warrior, slave, and maiden was alive to the situation. Even an unrehearsed effect which occurred on the occasion of our visit was seized upon by the crowd; and when a runaway horse, bearing his rider at full gallop, crossed the arena, and dashed into the ranks of a peculiarly nice-looking lot of ballet-girls in the pinkest and lightest of costumes, knocking down three or four of them, the supers were equal to the occasion, and the spectators for a moment or two appeared in doubt whether to be horrified or to applaud. It was not until two or three attendants rushed to pick up the prostrate pink ones, while others succeeded in stopping the horse, that it occurred to the majority of the lookers-on that a very awkward accident might have happened. As it was, the pink young women were lifted up; and though one or two of them walked a little lame, they soon shook the lameness off, and were able to foot it with the best of them, showing that to be knocked down by a runaway horse is not so bad when you fall on sawdust. The procession was hardly stopped for more than a minute, and the gorgeous Nero and his favourite ladies looked with the most sublime

indifference on the prostrate ballet-girls, which proves what we have said that every man in the show did his duty, and acted, though in dumb show, up to his character. Nothing is more effective than the concluding display of the ballet part of the spectacle, when the whole corps advance in line-a line that occupies the whole length of the arena. We certainly think "Nero" is a thing to be seen.

A word or two of advice to Mr. Barnum and to our readers. Our word to the former is that, though we do not wish to be alarmists, we think it right to say that the way in which people are packed in their various seats points to the possibility of a terrible scene of disaster should any panic unhappily occur when Olympia is crowded. Our advice to our readers is that the best places in the hall, especially in the front rows, are in the three-shilling balcony. You there face the thing most worth seeing, the spectacle to which we have just referred; and our advice is to take places, which can be done a day or two beforehand, in the two first rows, and not to occupy the seats until the hour for the commencement of "Nero." They will see quite enough for their money, and save themselves from a considerable amount of boredom.

In these remarks we have written for veteran pleasure-seekers only! The holiday visitors, of course, will include a large proportion of sightseers of that happy class to whom nothing is hackneyed, but everything is a surprise. For these, even the long bill of fare offered at Olympia daily-indeed, twice a day-will not be deemed excessive; and it is but justice to the veteran showman from America to bear witness that he has evidently tried his utmost to remove from his exhibition everything which could give just offence to the most scrupulous parent.

"La Tosca."

Has the enterprising lessee of the Garrick done ill or well, we wonder, in giving us Sardou's terrible play in an English dress? The enthusiasm roused at the first representation would seem to say that Mr. Hare has deserved the warm approbation of London playgoers; there was not a single dissentient in an audience distinguished for rank and culture. Mrs. Grundy was silenced; and a sometimes implacable pit was either hushed into attention or roused to applause. Full of horror as is the play-a display of unbridled passions and needless agony-one of our most eminent dramatic critics had only one complaint to make in his notice of the play. This was that the adapters had not had the courage to further outrage Mrs. Grundy, and make La Tosca what she was in the original-the mistress and not the wife of Cavaradossi. Emphatically a Emphatically a "strong" play, we own it does seem a pity that Messrs. Grove and Hamilton strained at this trifling gnat with such a big camel in view. It would have made the action and motive more clear, and, if the enthusiasm of a firstnight audience can be trusted, it would not have endangered the success of the play.

For that it was a success there can be no doubt; no more than that success owed everything to Mrs. Bernard Beere and Mr. Forbes Robertson. It was said of the former, when she made such a decided hit with Fedora, that she " copied" Sarah Bernhardt. She is no copyist. She followed the great Sarah in Fedora, but she was no copyist then, as she is no copyist now. Her VOL. LIII.—No. 359.

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method is distinctly different. Sarah Bernhardt made La Tosca seductive. Mrs. Bernard Beere does not so read the character. She is a woman full of passion and energy, not a loveable woman, we think; the subtle grace of Sarah is wanting, her delicate modulations of voice we miss. Mrs. Beere is on the high note from the beginning to the end. Her fine voice stands her in good stead; her face favours the expression of the stronger passions. She astonishes her audience, and carries them away with her, without perhaps giving them time to think. Her energy is immense. We have just said that Mrs. Beere's La Tosca is not loveable, hardly a woman that would stir to such a depth the horrible sensualism of Scarpia. She does not show what Sarah Bernhardt did-sentiment, susceptibility; and in the torture scene she does not touch us as the great French actress moved her hearers. Mrs. Beere excited and startled them, but they felt more inclined to shudder than to cry. It is a play of horrors, no doubt, but, as it is acted at the Garrick, we are carried away by a fascination which the powerful acting strengthens. Mr. Hare has done something to mitigate the horrors in removing the blood-stains from the face of the victim in the torture scene, The English public are not yet educated up to the proper sanguinary pitch in which our continental neighbours delight; but it may come to us. The Scarpia of Mr. Robertson is horrible-we use the adjective in a complimentary sense-more deadly and forbidding than we could have conceived. Mr. Robertson played up to Mrs. Beere admirably. If she was on the high note from the first, so was he. new Scarpia gave us no contrast in polished brutality or cynical scorn. We had half expected from Mr. Robertson's method something different from what he has given us, but still the performance was of the highest merit, and he divided with Mrs. Bernard Beere the honours of the evening. The cast was excellent, but we have only space to mention the superb Queen of Naples of Miss Rose Leclercq. The mounting is admirable, and we have only to congratulate Mr. Hare on his courage and his success.

The

The hundredth representation of this play at the "The Middleman." Shaftesbury warns us of what an old story it is by this time, and a second hearing of it rouses, we must own, a feeling of surprise that it has run so long. That “the riding has done it," that Mr. Willard's powerful picture of the enthusiastic potter, with one idea paramount in his brain, and the love of his eldest daughter paramount in his heart, has brought its success, we think will be generally acknowledged. The character is well conceived, and in its creation Mr. Willard has been able to break the fetters of the polished burglar, and to make a very decided advance in his profession. Take out the central figure, and the play is poor-an old, old story of seduction, with a little commonplace villainy thrown in. But Cyrus Blenkarn has a marked individuality: a thorough Englishman, with the obstinate virtues of his class, never acknowledging defeat, and prepared to work for the fulfilment of his dream until death. A good deal of the "real grit" does Mr. Willard show in his representation, and the outbursts of applause from all parts of the house-but loudest from pit and gallerytestify to the hold his picture of the hero has taken on a large portion of the public. His curse on the family of the man who has