"OH YES, SHE'S SMART, BUT SHE HASN'T AN IDEA IN HER VOCABULARY."] * * * * * THE BURNING QUESTION. Feeling that not all the representative voices have been heard with regard to the question of smoking in theatres, _Mr. Punch_ has been making further inquiries. The replies are appended:-- _General VILLA V. VILLA._ I think that smoking should be permitted everywhere. _Mr. MAX PEMBERTON._ I am totally opposed to giving theatres the same comfortable rules as the variety halls. If people may smoke at musical comedies they are in danger of avoiding revues. _Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON._ I am in favour of giving the public all they want. Let them smoke if they wish to, everywhere and everywhen. Let them also chew and take snuff: a private snuff-box should be attached to every stall. _Mr. VICTOR GRAYSON._ I would support smoking in theatres if pipes were permitted. But of course they won't be. _Mr. BERNARD SHAW (to whom no inquiry was addressed, but that did not prevent his sending a long letter on the subject, the purport of which is that there should be no smoking anywhere)._ Had I ever smoked I should not now be the first intellectual in Europe. _Sir JAMES CRICHTON-BROWNE._ No smoking in theatres for me. And if I go to the Gaiety and find that a cigar or cigarette on my right or left singes my whiskers I will have the law of Mr. GEORGE EDWARDES. "_Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch._" Let there be smoking, but let some kind of control be kept on the brands of cigars that are smoked. _Mr. LLOYD GEORGE._ I am in favour of the extension of all taxable luxuries. _Mr. EUSTACE MILES._ Most London theatres are now so grossly over-ventilated that I welcome the idea of tobacco as helping to redress the balance. _Master ANTHONY ASQUITH._ Surely if there is smoking in one house of entertainment there may be smoking in another. I am sure my poor father would agree. * * * * * THE FEDERAL SOLUTION. (_See the daily papers_ passim.) I. SIR,--At last a ray of sanity has fallen like oil on the troubled waters of the Irish controversy and has given a well-merited cold douche to the extremists on either side. It is now acknowledged that what for want of a better term I may call the Federal Solution holds the field, and any attempt to expel it will only plunge the objector still deeper in the mire and cover him with ridicule from head to foot.