the sense that he believed in good manners and fine physique: he set beauty above rank or riches, and was an early apostle of Eugenics. Long before the cult of athletics had begun to affect the stature and build of English girls, he devoted his pencil to glorifying the Junoesque type of English beauty. And while none of _Punch's_ artists ever paid more consistent homage to elegance and distinction of feature and figure, he could be on occasion a merciless satirist of the physical deterioration brought about by intermarriage amongst the old nobility. Thus in 1880 he showed a ridiculous little degenerate affectionately rebuking his effete parents for "interfering in his affairs," with the result that he is "under 5 feet 1 inch, can't say Boh to a goose, and justly passes for the gweatest guy in the whole county." The same spirit is shown in the fantastic contrast between the aristocracies of the past and the future. The scene is "an island in British Oceana"; the time 1989, a hundred years later than the date of the picture:-- HIS HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUKE OF GEROLSTEIN: "Ach! Miss Prown--in your lôfly bresence I forket my zixty-vour kvarterings. I lay my Ditle at your Veet. Bitte! pecome ze Crant Tochess of Gerolstein!" MISS BROWN: "Your Highness also forgets that I have sixty-four Quarterings!" HIS HIGHNESS: "Ach! How is dat, Miss Prown?" MISS BROWN: "Why, my father and mother, my four grandparents, my eight great-grandparents, my sixteen great-great-grandparents, and my thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents were all certified over six foot six inches, perfect in form and feature, and with health and minds and manners to match, or they would not have been allowed to marry. And though I'm the shortest and plainest girl in the colony, I should never be allowed to marry anyone so very much beneath myself as your Highness!" [Illustration: THE CHOICE OF A SCHOOL MRS. BERESFORD MIDAS: "I'm so glad we've put down Plantagenet's name for Eton, Beresford! Here, the newspaper says there are more Lords and Baronets there than ever!" BERESFORD MIDAS, ESQ., J.P. (_Brother and Junior Partner of Sir Gorgius_): "Ah, but only one Dook! Pity there ain't a few more Dooks, Maria!" MRS. BERESFORD MIDAS: "Perhaps there _will_ be when Plantagenet's of an age to go there." MR. BERESFORD MIDAS: "Let's 'ope so! At all events, we'll put down his name for 'Arrow as well; and whichever 'as most Dooks when the time comes, we'll choose _that_, yer know!"] [Illustration: THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST