How can one forget, for instance, the Famille Bouvier who used to appear regularly at the fetes in the streets of Paris in the summer season, living all of them in a roving gipsy wagon as is the custom of these fete people. What a charming moment it was always to see the simple but well built Mlle. Jeanne of twenty-two pick up her stalwart and beautifully proportioned brother of nineteen, a strong, broad-shouldered, manly chap, and balance him on one hand upright in the air. It was a classic moment in the art of the acrobat, interesting to watch the father of them all training the fragile bodies of the younger boys and girls to the systematic movement of the business while the mother sat in the doorway of the caravan nursing the youngest at the breast, no doubt the perfect future acrobat. And how charming it was to look in at the doors of these little houses on wheels and note the excellent domestic order of them, most always with a canary or a linnet at the curtained window and at least one cat or dog or maybe both. This type is the progenitor of our stage acrobat, it is the primitive stage of these old-time troubadours, and it is still prevalent in times of peace in France. The strong man gotten in tawdry pink tights and much worn black velvet with his very elaborate and drawn out speeches, in delicate French, concerning the marvels of his art and the long wait for the stipulated number of _dix centimes_ pieces before his marvellous demonstration could begin. This is, so to say, the vagabond element of our type of entertainment, the wandering minstrel who keeps generation after generation to the art of his forefathers, this fine old art of the pavement and the open country road. But we look for our artist in vain these days, those groups whose one art is the exquisite rhythmical display of the human body, concerted muscular melody. We cannot find him on the street in the shade of a stately chestnut tree as once in Paris we found him at least twice a year, and we seek him in vain in our modern music hall. Is our acrobatic artist really gone to his esthetic death; has he given his place permanently to the ever present singing lady who is always telling you who her modiste is, sings a sentimental song or two and then disappears; to the sleek little gentleman who dances off a moment or two to the tune of his doll-like partner whose voice is usually littler than his own? Perhaps our acrobat is still the delight of those more characteristic audiences of the road whose taste is less fickle, less blase. This is so much the case with the arts in America--the fashions change with the season's end and there is never enough of novelty; dancing is already dying out, skating will not prevail for long among the idle; what shall we predict for our variety which is in its last stages of boredom for us?