["FEB. 16, 1899", "VANITY FAIR", "III", "ST. ERMIN'S HOTEL,\nWESTMINSTER.", "LUXURY AND HOME COMFORTS.\nUNEXCELLED CUISINE.", "Inclusive Terms: 9/- and 10/6 per day.", "Mudie's Library,\nLIMITED.", "SUBSCRIPTIONS for 3 Months, 6 Months, and 12 Months can be\nentered at any date.", "The Best & Most Popular Books of the Season are now in Circulation.", "Prospects of Terms free on application.", "BOOK SALE DEPARTMENT—Many Thousand Surplus Copies of Books always on sale\n(second-hand). Also a large selection of BOOKS LEATHER BINDINGS suitable for", "BIRTHDAY AND WEDDING PRESENTS.", "30 to 34, NEW OXFORD STREET, 241, Brompton Road, S.W., 48, Queen Victoria\nStreet, E.C.; LONDON; and at 10-12, Barton Arcade, Manchester.", "COX & YEMAN, BILLIARD TABLE\nMANUFACTURERS,\nExtensive Show-rooms, 184, BROMPTON RD., S.W.", "Latest Improvements in Billiard Tables.", "Lowest Cushions not affected by ANY climate change. Patent Multin-in-Parvo (Reg)\nRosettes and Bolts and Improved Automatic Invisible Pocket Plates.", "The above improvements on our new Billiard Tables, with moderate charges, are fitted to any Table at a moderate cost. Estimates on application.", "CORN EXTERMINATOR.\nNEVER FAILS.", "Ingenious instrument. Anyone can use. Highest surgical testimonials. Post free 12 stamps.\nBUNION AND CHILBLAIN OINTMENT, absolutely cures Tender Feet,\nSoft Corns, Enlarged Joints, etc., 14 stamps.", "MR. GARDNER, Chiropodist. Specialità, Halls. 85, Regent Street, W.", "BATH AND CHELTENHAM HOTEL,\nLONDON STREET, PADDINGTON.", "Recently Rebuilt and Enlarged. Two minutes' walk from Arrival Platform,\nG.W.R. Electric Light Throughout. Passenger Lift. Night Porter.", "Telephone—705 PADDINGTON.", "Telegrams—\"BATTALOUS, LONDON,\"", "Table d'Hote, from 6.0 to 8.30, 4/-", "PRESS OPINIONS.", "\"Indeed, Mr. Evans gives visitors to the house so much for so little that we anticipate that the house will very speedily become one of the most popular in the country. For our selves we can honestly say that, for its size, we know of none better in any part of the world. It is a little too large.\"—_Financial News._", "\"A really comfortable hotel near Paddington Station, and yet far enough away to escape the noise of trains, has a long felt want. So we have a wish often been expressed for an hotel close to the beautiful Kensington Gardens, with moderate charges and some of those 'home comforts' undiscoverable in the huge caravanserias that rear their ugly heads all over London. Mr. Frank Evans has supplied both wants with the new edition of the Bath and Cheltenham Hotel, London Street, Paddington. With the aid of a clever architec't, the deservedly fashionable Messrs. Warling and his own excellent taste, he has managed to produce a hostelry which cannot be better described than as 'snug'; yet which, at the same time, possesses all the advantages of a 'Grand' hotel, such as lifts, electric light, etc., and none of the disadvantages, such as the treatment of guests as mere ciphers and the never-ending rush and bustle inseparable from a 'barrack.' The Bath and Cheltenham is the hotel for families or for those single people who prefer quiet and every attention to rush hotel

112

VANITY FAIR

FEB. 16, 1899

A JUDICIAL CRUSADE.

THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE of England (who, like our Commander-in-Chief, is an Irishman) is actuated by the best of intentions; and certainly he is, as he always was, an admirable advocate. But the question rises: "Is he not going "too far—or too fast?" At Kingston on Saturday he made some remarks upon illicit practices as to secret commissions which were, in themselves, altogether wholesome. But he also promised to bring in a Bill to deal with the scandal. Is that wholesome? Might he not as well introduce a Bill to prevent *Vanity Fair* from finding fault with him? The evil is there, no doubt; and we shall be very glad to see Lord Russell's remedy for it—if that remedy be not worse than the disease. It is long since Lord Justice Fry was shocked at the corruption of modern business. It is long since he pointed out to all whom it might concern that business was nowadays "honeycombed" by corruption in the shape of commission. And it is beyond doubt that there are many who quite unblushingly confess to having secured a commission from both sides in a "deal"! But what is even a Lord Chief Justice to do? How mend the vice without spoiling business? We shall be curious to see Lord Russell's Bill on this matter.

But this is only one of the windmills that this Lord Chief Justice is tilting at. Lord Russell rarely speaks now (in public) without expressing his disgust with Hooleyism. The evils of company promotion are a scandal, and a canker, and all the rest of it. But are they? Let us consider. The Hooley case has, no doubt, "shown up" to the public matters that were before known only to the "inner circle." Has Lord Russell only just discovered this? For ourselves, we understand from a very good authority that these scandals constitute but a very small matter in the face of the volume of work done under the Joint Stock Companies Acts. According to the Lord Chief Justice, the compulsory winding-up of companies has, during the last seven years, meant an average annual loss to shareholders of nearly three millions sterling. That sounds big; but would his hearers be surprised to learn that this amount means only one halfpenny in the pound? And when we reckon in the other side—when we remember that subscribers to a new company have often doubled and trebled their capital, and more—is the grievance so very great? The Law Debenture Corporation is a Company above suspicion—sound and well managed: mostly by good lawyers; as even the Lord Chief Justice would allow. They have just held their general meeting. Mr. Stanley Boulter was in the chair. He spoke of this matter. He gave figures. To take a rough basis—the only one possible—our limited companies turn over in the aggregate thirteen thousand millions a-year. What are Lord Russell's figures to these?

That there are scandals in company promotion no one will deny. We are as ready as Lord Russell to put an end to them. But we do not want to stop a thousand pounds' worth of business to save fourpence. We will not say that fishing is an evil sport because we sometimes catch a dog-fish. We desire that business men should not be harassed to prevent the cutpurse from picking our pocket. We cannot conceive how the Lord Chief Justice proposes to remedy the existing state of things without hampering legitimate business. And, so far as we can see, all the scandals of the company-mongerer are punishable as the law now stands. If the malignants go unpunished that is not the fault of the Law (over which Lord Russell presides); it is the fault of supine shareholders. They, as it seems to us, have their remedy.

IN THE STOCKS.

LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN is a great Irishman, a great Judge, and something of a lawyer. He is very proper indignant with what the modern journalist calls "Hooleyism."

Lord Russell does not seem to have discovered the need of a Company Improving Act before the rest of us; but since Mr. Hooley made "disclosures" he has been very insistent upon it. Lord Russell addressed a Technical Guild one day last week; and, to judge from the papers, the burden of his discussion was Company Reform.

Lord Russell will beat Mr. Dick if he go on like this.

Wherever marriages are made, they seem to be broken off—well, ashore. In one Saturday paper no fewer than three marriages were announced as *not* to "take place."

Unless a marriage is certain to come off, it is better not to announce it at all; but some people are so proud of the coming event, that the very day after the proposal a proud parent sends the announcement to the papers. She may find later that according to the settlements the marriage may not be; but even then it would seem better to leave the matter alone.

And why draw attention to the child's unfortunate position?

It is said that Mr. Ambrose, Q.C., means to push on a Bill whose short title is "The Constructive Murder Abolition Bill." Mr. Pickersgill has also introduced a Bill in the matter. I am sorry for it.

These Bills are a piece of pandering to public opinion. It is meant to "remedy" the Monstrousness of the Death Sentence in cases like those of Collins, Wark, and a dozen others: because these cases have recently drawn public attention to the fact that the crime of killing a probable mother is punishable by death.

This is nonsense. That a crime should be punishable by death does not bring everyone who is guilty of that crime to the gallows; and it is just as well that the gallows should be possible to offenders of this sort: through whom women lose their lives. The very fact that this particular crime has so greatly increased is good argument against Mr. Ambrose's Bill: which is probably based upon sentimental vapourings and cheap newspaper declamation.

*The Birmingham Gazette* has discovered that Lord Salisbury "has now taken to cycling for exercise."

The "now" is good. It makes me feel quite young. It is years since *Vanity Fair* gave the news.

RECESSIONAL (?)

(Apdosors of certain recent verses by a Celebrated Writer.)

When a man gets a guinea a line,
More or less, from a versatile pen,
His admirers are apt to repine
If he give them poor stuff now and then.
Having boomed him as almost a god,
They have scarcely the patience to think
That if Homer used sometimes to nod
Surely K. may indulge in a wink.

But not too many winks, please.

Only four poor fellows of the crew of the *Arno* got ashore on Saturday night, when their ship foundered by the Nab. Thirteen—odd number—were drowned. It was known there that the ship was a wreck: and the four survivors were found—near dead, I suppose—by Southsea Castle. By whom? I am told that the poor fellows were found, quite exhausted, by—a policeman and a couple of gunners!

Where were the coastguards, and the sailors, and the beach-combers, and all our other brave fellows? For, of course, the policeman and the gunners only found the waifs by accident.

I suppose that the wreck of the *Arno* is one of the saddest of all time. The loss of life seems to have been so very unnecessary.

"Ruffer's" story about the schoolboy who was asked how lying was denounced in the Bible and replied: "A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble," has been quoted in very many papers. One of them is a paper called *The Schoolmistress*: whose Editor has edited. Here is her quotation:

*Vanity Fair* tells the story of a schoolboy who was asked by the Inspector how lying was denounced in the Bible. The answer was: "A lie is an abomination to the righteous, but a very present help in time of trouble."

How very like a schoolmistress! Was it such a lady who, for decency's sake, covered with chintz the legs of her piano?

Sir Edward Bradford is certainly to be congratulated on the present state of the Strand: which is no hardship whatever on the cabmen, though they, silly fellows, or their leaders, would pretend that it is. If it were so they ought not to be considered, seeing how much the public is benefited by the new régime; for, after all, cabs were made for the public: not the public for cabs.

Cabby is a donkey!

RASPER.

VANITY FAIR CARTOONS.—All the Cartoons that have appeared in *Vanity Fair* since its foundation in 1866 are in stock. Price Lists on application.