Random Readings from the Reviews. 



Peers as Town Makers. 

 In the English Illustrated for July Mr. George A. 

 Wade tells of the towns made by peers. Modern 

 Eastbourne is the creation of the Dukes of Devonshire. 

 Cromer was developed by Lord Suffield. Saltburn 

 owes its existence to the ^Iarquis of Zetland. Bexhil! 

 was made by Lord De la \\'arr. Skegness by the Earl 

 and Countt-s of Scarborough. Industrial creations are 

 Barrow-in-Furness by the Duke of Devonshire and 

 Sir John Ramsden, Seaham by the JIarquis of London- 

 derry. 



The Mule's Cure the Man's Quietus. 



Sir Gilbert Parker contributes an entertaining 

 paper to the Fortnightly Revinv for July, entitled 

 ■' Life-pieces from Arizona." Here is one piece : — 



There is a board al the head of a grave on a lonely road in 

 the Yav.ipai country'. It tells the tragedy of a man who 

 atleniplcd to cure himself of illness by an experiment with 

 medicine given to a stronger representative of the animal world. 

 It runs as follows : 



" Here lies the body of John Coyle : 

 A son of Arizona soil : 

 lie was a man of considerable vim, 

 But the mule medicine was too much for him." 

 In lii^ physical trouble, having no doctor, on the advice of a 

 friend, he resorted to mule medicine. I do not think, however, 

 that he wrote his Own epitaph ; and the humour of it, therefore, 

 was not costly to the poet who gave him his tombstone. 



■ GlARDEES " AND PROMOTION. 



It is not infrequently said that a Guardsman, or 

 '■ Guardee," as an officer of the household troops is 

 familiarly called, enjoys an advantage over his poorer 

 neighbours in the rest of the Army. If he has he 

 does not lake advantage of it. The majority of our 

 well-known Generals never served an hour in the 

 corjis d'Hite of the Army. Lord Roberts was an 

 artilleryman ; Lord Kitchener an engineer ; Lord 

 Wolseley, the late Sir William Butler^ Sir Redvers 

 Bullcr, and Sir George White were infantrymen ; Sir 

 John French, Sir Robert Baden-Powell were in the 

 cavalry, and Sir Evelyn Wood has been in both the 

 cavalry and mfantry. Lord Methuen is the best 

 known of those who were promoted from the Foot 

 Guards.—" .\n Otlicer," in the English Illustrated for 

 July. 



Ihe Pres.s and the Bar. 



To enter as a Bar student it is necessary that a man 

 should have passed the 0.\ford or Cambridge Local, 

 or some equivalent examination, though the better 

 educated the man is the better chance he has of success. 

 And by education I do not mean mere " book learning." 

 He must be a man of the world ; the more he knows 

 of all phases of life the better. The man who has 

 spent a few years in the City, say. in a busy solicitor's 

 office, or on the Stock Exchange, or in a merchant's 

 ofTice, or, better still, as a journalist, is niurh more 



fitted for the work of a barrister than the man who is 

 " called " fresh from the University. Under present- 

 day rules the man who has a profession or occupation 

 is obliged to sign an undertaking that he will renounce 

 it before taking up the life of a barrister unless he 

 happens to be a journalist, a profession upon which 

 the benchers of most of the Inns of Court look with 

 favour. Indeed, some of the most successful barristers 

 of the present day, including Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., 

 Mr. Edward Duke, K.C., and Mr. R. D. Muir, have 

 been newspaper reporters. — The English Illustrated for 

 July. 



" English as She's Spoke " at Home. 

 In the July World's Work Mr. G. D. Abraham tells 

 how an English climber, finding the son of a famous 

 Alpine guide employed as a bottle-washer in a London 

 hotel, had pity on him and took him for a climbing 

 holiday to Cumberland, and induced him to stay with 

 the landlord at Wastdale Head to learn English : — 



Those who know wh.it resemblance Ihe broadest Cumberland 

 dialect, as spoken " behind the scenes " at that place, bears to 

 our normal language, will be able to im,igine the result. Next 

 summer one oi his patrons in the Dauphine was astounded when, 

 as a result of a sudden slip on the Meije, the guide shouted in 

 great excitement, " Whar's ta gaun ? Hod teet t' raape, thou 

 chump-heed." ["Where are you going? Hold tight the rope, 

 you chump-head."] 



About Collies. 



S. L. Bensusan, in the Windsor for Julv, writes on 

 collies and their kind. He says : — 



The early history of the collie which figures so prominently 

 upon our show benches, and has been known to fetch fancy 

 prices in the past few years, is not known even to the experts of 

 the Collie Club. All sorts of stories are given .is to its origin, 

 some holding that he has been a native of these islands from 

 lime immemorial, while others believe, not without good 

 reason, that he is descended from the union of old English 

 sheep-dog and Scottish greyhound. The advocates of this 

 latter theory point out that high breeding makes the collie more 

 and more like a greyhound. The collie is seen to the greatest 

 advantage in the rougher country of .Scotland and Wales, where 

 his services as a sheep-dog are very highly valued. Long years 

 of training and selection have developed his intelligence to such 

 a marked degree that he responds to the voice of his master 

 as though the words meant as much to the dog as they do to 

 the man. 



The collie most in favour among shepherds and farmers in 

 the north country is Ihe bearded collie, which looks like a long- 

 tailed Knglish sheep-dog, and, as far .-is my experience goes, is 

 so devoleil to his duties and his rightful owner that he regards 

 the rest of humanity with suspicion. He is a rough-looking 

 fellow at best, whose shabby and shaggy appearance would 

 earn the contempt of his more pampered but less able cousins of 

 the >how bench. It is likely that the more ornamental dogs 

 will have lost most of Ihiir early instincts in the course of a few 

 generations. At Ihe sheep-dog trials, still an annual feature of 

 rural li.'e in remote corners of the country, the btarded collie 

 can hold his own against all competitors of his own family, and 

 other sheep-dogs will find him h.ud to In-at. 



The bearded collie is not much patronised by the 

 experts. 



