place for such a representation. The public, therefore, is asked to look upon the piece as a series of illustrations to the book, and the stage effects as a series of tableaux, carefully and reverently devised with an instructive intent.

TO BE KNOWN.

With reference to our paragraph about the telephone, we have been asked the pertinent question, "How is a person at one end to make it known at the other that he wishes to communicate?" We do not at all see that the use of an electric bell would, as has been said, 66 cause so great an addition to the cost of establishing and maintaining a telephonic apparatus that it must be dismissed as inadmissible," but a cheaper and simpler method that will answer fairly well is the following. Surround the opposite free end of the magnet by another coil of wire, which must be inserted in the circuit. Set up a tuning fork (ut 4 has been found to answer best in practice) on a resonance case, easily made out of a small box, just opposite this pole. Make a similar arrangement at the other end, the two forks being exactly in unison. On striking either with a fiddle-bow the other will respond with sufficient loudness to be heard all over the room in which it is placed.

We understand that a French firm have succeeded in making a pianoforte capable of producing continuous notes by the rapid repetition of the usual hammerstroke. The apparatus is brought into action when required by a pedal. pedal. This is equivalent to the invention of a new instrument, giving effects unattainable before.

M. Planté describes a new method of engraving on glass by electricity. A thin film of concentrated solution of nitrate of potash is spread over the glass. Any source of electricity of sufficient quantity and tension can be used. Of two platinum terminals, one is immersed in the solution, and the other, held in an insulating sheath, engraves the glass as it is drawn over it.

TO BE READ.

The House of Ravensburg. By the Hon. Roden Noel. (Daldy.) A dramatic poem. The scene is laid partly in England, principally in Switzerland, when the latter was struggling for its freedom. It possesses consider

able merit and power as a poem.

Latter Day Lyrics. Selected and arranged with notes by W. Davenport Adams. (Chatto.) These poems seem, on the whole, very fairly selected from the entire field they are intended to represent. Why insert a few American pieces? It were better to have left them out altogether, failing space for an adequate selection. An appended essay by Mr. Austin Dobson on certain French forms of verse is worth reading.

The Voyage in the Sunbeam: our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months. By Mrs. Brassey. (Longmans.) Does not profess to tell anything new. It is just a

pleasant, readable sketch of what must have been a delightful voyage.

China a History of the Laws, Manners, and Customs of the People. By John Henry Gray, LL.D., Archdeacon of Hong-Kong. Edited by William Gow Gregor. 2 vols. (Macmillan.) A thoroughly interesting account of the Chinese by one who has lived among them for more than a quarter of a century.

BY OUR DISCONTENTED FRIENDS.

HIS is a growl for noise. Not that we lack hideous and horrible sounds in this metropolis. But why is the only noiseless vehicle (save only the ubiquitous bicycle) the fire-engine ? I speak feelingly, having been nearly run over twice within a week by my local extinguisher-once at night and once in a fog. I would willingly deny myself multitudinous ear-harrowers I could name, in order that they might be devoted to warning me of this danger.-TowN TRAVELLER.

MORE than a quarter of a century ago England mourned the loss of her greatest military hero of the present century, and determined to erect a monument that should be worthy of him in our metropolitan cathedral. The design selected, as being intrinsically one of the best, and the most suitable of all for the exact position in which it was to be placed, was from the hands of a man little known to the general public, but whose high talents fully justified the choice. The lower part of the monument, approached by steps, supported a recumbent figure of the deceased. From around this figure rose pillars supporting a very massive attic, and this in its turn was surmounted by an equestrian statue of the soldier. From various causes, which concern us not now, this memorial has only just been completed, some three years after the death of the sculptor. The steps, the prone figure, the pillars, the attic are there-the equestrian bronze is missing. The model was, to our personal knowledge, in his studio years ago, and was sold last summer, we know not to whom. A beautiful work of art, the author's masterpiece, is spoilt by a ponderous attic, out of all character as a mere canopy, supporting-nothing!-A FRIEND OF THE SCULPTOR.

THE ARTICLES

ON

WILLIAM CAXTON,

Mercer and Courtier, Author and Printer,

BY

ARTHUR N. BUTT, F.R.Hist. S.,

Associate of the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution,

Which appeared in the JANUARY and APRIL Numbers of

Things in General,

Have been re-published in a separate form, with all the fac-simile illustrations.

PRICE ONE SHILLING.