Professor Prawling is of opinion that it _can_, but only if and when the evils of co-partnership and co-operation have been neutralized by a diastolic synthesis. To compute exactly the extent to which these evils have been developed he has devised a syncretic abacus, in which, on the principle of the spectroscope, the aplanatic foci are arranged in fluorescent nodules each equidistant from the metacentre. With a frankness that cannot be too highly commended, Professor Prawling admits that this instrument is founded on BENTHAM'S Panopticon. But the deviations from BENTHAM and the expansions of his machine are far more remarkable than the resemblances to it. Prawling--if he will allow us the familiarity--is not a utilitarian. His aim is to re-establish our textile pre-eminence by reconciling monistic individualism with the fullest solidarity of the social complex. He is meticulously careful in stressing the point that the demarcations arrived at by the use of his abacus are not absolute, but conditioned by EINSTEIN'S theory of relativity. The ancillary industries, each moving in its orbit, whether jurassic or botulistic, must be placed on a contractual basis with liberty of preferential retaliation. Thus the whole industrial polyphony is linked up by enharmonic modulations, and thrombosis--or, at any rate, conglucination--of the central ganglia of commerce is reduced to negligible dimensions. At this juncture it is well to point out in the interests of clarity that regurgitation can only be avoided by a rigorous adhesion to the canon of CRITTENDEN--that the unit of nutrition must vary inversely with the square of dilution. It will thus be seen that by the logical application of a few simple and easily apprehended principles Professor Prawling has built up a great edifice of practical economics, which, whether we regard it in its subliminal or its pragmatic aspects, cannot fail to have influence on the dynamics of International Industrialism. One word more. The conglucination theory appeals with especial force to _Punch_, because it reminds him of the kindred and remarkable speculation on Snooling discussed by him many years ago. The new theory, like the old, deserves to be treated "in no spirit of sedentary sentimentalism, but in its largest and most oleaginous entirety. It is no plan for fixing hat-pegs in a passage, nor is it a mode of treating neuralgia with treacle." How true and appropriate this is. _Mutatis mutandis_ we may add the further statement that it is "the truest and tenderest thesis that can occupy the most calculating cosmopolite." The corporate pursuit of a granulated conglucination is perhaps the highest achievement of which the present generation is capable. * * * * * Illustration: "I TRUST YOU'LL EXCUSE ME MENTIONING IT, MY GOOD FELLOW, BUT THAT IS THE RIGHT ENTRANCE--ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ROAD." * * * * * More Impending Apologies.