A school entertainment should not be too long. If the boys must recite, let them confine themselves to less than a hundred lines. If a piece is selected for performance, a farce in a single scene is frequently more effective than a comedy in five acts. Costume plays are better than dramas of the day. A lad feels less shy if he is and it is easier to accept feeble acting if it is supposed to suggest the manners and customs of the If a play has no female characters so much the better, as, in spite of classical precedents, a lad appearing as a lady is never entirely satisfactory. And in this connection I may observe that pieces have been written with a view to excluding the softer (or should I say harder?) sex. It is better for the powers that are to secure such a play rather than to trust to their editing of with a view to the exclusion of Gertrude and Ophelia.

In conclusion, perhaps the best reason for the continuance of school representations may be found in the following dialogue, which took place between myself and my young friend only a day or so ago:-

asked the lad.

And in this assurance I found ample compensation for disturbance.

Let me hope that my readers, lured away from more serious matters by my will be able to say the like of my Sketches of London at the End of the Century.

THE END.

PRINTED BY KELLY'S DIRECTORIES LIMITED, LONDON AND KINGSTON.