Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1896-11-28 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

PHIL MAY.  As pne kicks at the groaning railway stalls already beginning to bow down under the plethora of Christman literature, one cannot help apostrophising the memory of Charles Dickens, who unwittingly has brought us tu this terrible mass. Every year the prospect becomes more alarming, and the authored bookstall clerk begins to see no way out of it but the  a ppalli n g prospect of suicide. Seri.  ously, the Christmas number business has be.  come a you trying institution, as this  year it is estimated theta* fewer thee  1,700 papers and periodicals will  publish either special issues for Yule-tide supplement.; but an the whole this year the pictures are generally pronounced as being poorer than those of 1895. The general excellence of the Penny Illustrated Paper, which is published at half the price of the others, calls for some special remark, the cover, showing an up-to-date young lady cycling for her life across a sandy desert, with savages and assegais in swift pursuit, being probably one of the most daring and effective scenes pourtrayed in this year of grace. Mr. Jno. Latey, the editor, is nothing if not original, and is in this Christmas work always seen at his best. Phil May's Annual naturally bolds its own, for the very simple reason that it Is Phil May's, and from cover to cover there is nothing but genius, at any rate in the drawings. There is no doubt that this still young man has inaugurated a school of his own, and that flattery has not turned his brain. Phil is, by the way, one of the most interviewed men in London, and the stories these interviewers put in his mouth about himself are very laughable to those who are his intimater, as in nine cases out of ten there is not a scintilla of truth in them. Here, however, is one which at any rate, if not new, has never befoie appeared about him. One foggy evening some three years or so ago Phil had been spending the evening with a few Australian friends in Victoria Street, Westminster, and as he came out into the raw night air it was easy to perceive that he had been dining or supping, or both, not wisely but too well. A hansom was called, and May with some difficulty managed to get in. "Where," asked the Australian, "is he to drive to ? " The great caricaturist scratched his head and said he didn't know. "But," said the Australian, "you live in Holland Park Road, don't vour " No-o-o " rejoined May, emphatically, "I let my studio when I went Chicago, since then never can remember where I live-. Hold bard" said he, after a pause, "tell cabby drive neareit lamp-post." 'I he Jehu, astonished at such an order, ambled to the light, and Phil, after making another endeavour to remember his temporary abode, pulled out his sketchbook, made four hasty strokes which indicated a church, a railway station with railings round, and a large public house opposite; then, tearing the page out, he handed it through the cab shutter to the cabman, sayin.K. "Know this place, Cabby ?" "Why, sir,' replied the man of the whip "it's Portland Road station, ain't it ? " " whip, said Phil, triumphantly. "Couldn't think of the name • " and he went home a happy man. Another caricaturist, and a great friend of May's, has just been giving the world a taste of his quality. In this case it is a labout of love, for it is a series of illustrations to a quaint and original book by Emily Wallace Mackay, entitled Father Bunny's Secret. It is needless to add that the artist is Wallis Mackay, and the writer his wife. She comes of a gifted family, for her brother is parry Nicholls, and she herself before now made some little stir on she stage when Miss Emily Nicholls. The book is thoroughly adapted for Christmas reading. Father Bunny is the head of a great rabbit community, and his secret is that he alone of all the rabbit world knows when it is Sunday. The story hes freshness and go about it, and is at the same time full of a gentle undercurrent of refined feeling which should make it welcome to children, and especially is it a book to 1311 recommended to schools for prizes, as it inculcates humanitarian orincinlee.  .• • (