It was a sage of the gentler sex who, after many years of experience, remarked that "men are queer!" That they are so in a positive sense no shrewd observer of mankind would deny, but that they are so comparatively or absolutely would be a very hardy assertion. If the queen of the household is of opinion that her associate majesty is very queer because he enjoys a torrid height of the mercury in the drawing-room, he holds probably a similar view of her fondness in the dining-room for what he describes as burnt beef. A hopeless bachelor who prided himself upon what he defiantly called his freedom, used to say, with an air of commiseration and extreme caution, that he supposed his married friends were probably what they called happy. But he added that he never knew any of the happy pairs to agree upon the proper warmth of a room, or the true turn of a roast, or the just amount of fresh air. Still, he said, demurely, I do not assert that their matrimonial felicity was not great. But the axiom of the sage of the better sex, that men are queer, has been strongly confirmed by a recent decision of the authorities of the Metropolitan Opera-house in New York. That important body, producing the figures, has announced in effect that as it is clear from the accounts that the presentation of German opera is more profitable than that of Italian and French opera combined, it is evident that the public desires to hear Italian and French opera, and therefore for the present the German opera will be discontinued. This is certainly delightful proof that men are queer, and that one respected group of them by a signal display of queerness are anxious to contribute to the gayety of nations. It is a striking illustration of the superiority of man to money, and in the mad struggle for a mere material advantage, this devotion to pure art, condemning the expense, is a noble tribute to the unselfishness of human nature. Another view has been advanced which is also interesting to the student of mankind. It is put in this way, that if the cost of the Italian and French opera should be a hundred thousand dollars in a season more than that of the German, yet it will be gladly paid by those denizens of boxes who have an insatiable desire to proceed with their intellectual cultivation by audible conversation during the performance. The argument is that these devotees of the intellect hold that nothing is lost by not hearing the Italian and French music, and that the evening can be much more profitably devoted to the stimulating conversation which takes place in an opera box. Still another view is even more honorable to the boxes, while it does not depreciate the performance. This view holds that the operatic situation offers a choice of delights, an embarrassment of riches.