melodies, which he punctuates with snorts on
the trombone. If he knew that I went to early morning service all would be
at an end between us. Finally, Anthony wants me to remain as I was and
really am. So you see that I have to lead not a dual but a triple life, and
am only spared the necessity of making it quadruple by the fact that my
husband is fortunately dead. As Pamela gracefully remarked the other day,
"It was a good thing for poor father that he went West to sing bass in the
heavenly choir before we grew up." In conclusion I ought to admit that my
future is not without prospects of alleviation. Pamela has just announced
her engagement to an archdeacon of pronounced Evangelical views; Gerald is
meditating a prolonged tour in New Guinea with a Bolshevist mission;
Anthony contemplates neither matrimony nor expatriation.

I am, Sir, Yours respectfully,

A MIDDLE-AGED MOTHER.

THE CRY OF THE CHILD AUTHOR.

SIR,--As a novelist and dramatist whose work has met with high encomiums
from Mr. J.L. GARVIN, Mr. C.K. SHORTER, Mr. JAMES DOUGLAS and Lord HOWARD
DE WALDEN, I wish to impress upon you and your readers the hardships and
restrictions which the tyranny of parental control still imposes on
juvenile genius. Though I recently celebrated my seventh birthday, my
father and mother have firmly refused to provide me with either a latch-key
or a motor-bicycle. Owing to the lack of proper accommodation in my nursery
my literary labours are carried on under the greatest difficulties and
hampered by constant interruptions from my nurse, a vulgar woman with a
limited vocabulary and no aspirates. I say nothing, though I might say
much, of the jealousy of adult authors, the pusillanimity of unenterprising
publishers, the senile indifference of Parliament. But I warn them that,
unless the just claims of youth to economic and intellectual independence
are speedily acknowledged, the children of England will enforce them by
direct action of the most ruthless kind. The brain that rules the cradle
rocks the world.

Yours indignantly,

PANSY BASHFORD.

A DOGGEREL SUMMARY.

SIR,--I have followed the _Youth_ v. _Age_ controversy with interest and
venture to sum up its progress so far in ten of the worst lines in the
world:--

There was an old don so engrossed
In maintaining his rule of the roast
That he made quite a scene
When addressed as "Old bean,"
And wrote to complain in _The Post_.

Whereupon the dis