el, ditto 3
Fifty per cent. excess for ditto 1-1/2
Stolen: Three matches, one tooth-pick 0-1/4
----
Total 9-1/4

I pleaded a moral right to dispose of the balance. I suggested that
seventy-three pounds nine shillings and twopence three-farthings
(waiving the question of interest) might be sufficient to buy a third
War picture, the interior of a Government office during the tea-hour,
or something of that sort. I begged that he would lay the matter
before the Committee.

I am not very hopeful about my letter. Probably he has spent that
seventy-three pounds odd already on stationery and postage-stamps.

I think that, if it finds its way into print, I may send him half the
proceeds of this article. No harm in keeping the matter in view, at
all events.

* * * * *

MUSICAL NOTES.

(_By our Modernist Critic_).

A certain amount of dissatisfaction has been expressed with the
Negro Rhapsody by Mr. JOHN POWELL, performed by the New York Symphony
Orchestra, at their concert last week. According to the analytical
programme the composer has sought _inter alia_ to depict "the
degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy" and "the physical impulses
of the adult human animal," culminating in "a flood of primal
sensualism." Yet, if the Press is to be believed, the performance fell
lamentably short in the epileptic quality so finely displayed by many
of the coloured Jazz-band players now in London. None of the audience
had to be removed; _The Morning Post_ only speaks of the "becoming
picturesqueness of design" of the Rhapsody; while _The Times'_ critic
did not care much for it because it took too long to get to business,
and adds that he was not very sure what its business exactly was.
This, in view of the extremely explicit statement of the composer's
aim given in the programme, seems to us most unjust.

Here is a gifted composer with high and serious aims--for what could
be more instructive or spiritual than a musical rendering of "the
degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy"?--and the musical critics either
evade the issue by talking vaguely of picturesqueness or deny that he
means business. Verily the lot of the composer is hard. Quite recently
I heard of a native British symphonist who had composed a remarkable
orchestral Fantasy dealing with the psychology of members of the
N.U.R. engaged in the railway tra