money it costs.” And the channels in which the “flowing tide” is set to run are cleverly prepared and delved out in the shifting sands of British innocence and credulity--two admirable traits of our national character. It is a touching thing to realise that the guileless Briton should so simply confess himself to “Pelman” as mindless and memory-less--and it is equally pathetic to discover in the “Census” of “Pelmanists” there can be counted one barmaid, one bacon-curer, and one “corporation official”! “Art and music and literature are being re-born,” says Pelman--and no doubt the Pelmanists are already in travail. It is all very clever and amusing; a little comedy in which the guileless Briton is the bear that dances to the Pelman pipings. I admire cleverness wherever I find it; it is a star in the general murk of stupidity, and I am the last person in the world to depreciate the brilliancy of its glitter. But it has interested me to study the movements of this particular scheme, and chance or fortune placed one or two threads in my hands which seemed to suggest a clue. Briefly then, I was offered Fifty Guineas to “write up” Pelmanism. The offer came through a very agreeable and enterprising journalist, employed, I presume, to secure fresh supplies for the “flowing tide,” and he added to his own personal and friendly entreaties a considerable quantity of literary matter setting forth the miraculous improvement in heretofore dull brains under the influence of Pelman or Poehlmann. I made a careful study of these documents, and the first thing that dawned on my own dim intelligence was that every would-be student of the “course” would be called upon to pay six guineas, either in one sum or by “easy instalments,” though one _can_ have a copy of the book entitled _Mind and Memory_ (which tell “all about” Pelmanism but does not instruct) _gratis_, and in that book are “particulars” showing how one can obtain the “course” at a reduced fee. Thanks to my journalist friend I had the _gratis_ book (in its forty-fourth edition, and for this reason called “The World’s Most Widely Read Book”--well! with all diffidence allow me to hint that this is incorrect, as I myself am the author of one or two books in their fifty-first editions), but the “Course” did not tempt me to disburse guineas, not even had I accepted the Fifty offered. (I may say here that I never accept “tips.”) But I could not, and cannot refrain from considering how, if the scheme works successfully, as of course it must, the British public are paying for these splendid advertisements! Paying so well that it is easy to understand how the Pelman promoters can afford to pay Fifty Guineas, more or less, to the obliging individuals who are ready and willing to praise the “system.” Canon Hannay (“George A. Birmingham”) for instance--does _he_ get Fifty Guineas? Or Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, M.P.? Or dear George R. Sims? Or Mr. Gilbert Frankau? Or