Our only criticism of this admirable scheme is this--that the number of amateurs who can read a modern full-score at sight is still somewhat limited. The view that "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter" might be quoted in support of "silent auditions" were it not for the unfortunate fact that KEATS, who expressed it, is now completely out of fashion with our emancipated Georgians. But the broad fact remains that the forces of reaction are by no means crushed. The Handel Festival has been revived at the Crystal Palace; and Handel-worship is anathema to the Modernist, as redolent of roast-beef, middle-class respectability and religious orthodoxy. Only recently a brilliant writer compared his oratorios to mothers'-meetings. The revival of these explosions of pietistic jumbomania is indeed a sad set-back to those ardent reformers who seek to elevate and purify public taste by the musical delineation of "the degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy." * * * * * THE INSURANCE AGENT: SHOCK TACTICS. [Illustration: "I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT INSURANCE.] [Illustration: I WON'T KEEP YOU A MOMENT] [Illustration: HAVE A CIGAR?] [Illustration: NOW WHAT PROVISION ARE YOU MAKING FOR THE FUTURE?] [Illustration: THINK OF YOUR LITTLE ONES.] [Illustration: YOU ARE A HEALTHY MAN, BUT----] [Illustration: YOU MAY FALL ILL----] [Illustration: OR THE WORST MIGHT----] [Illustration: SIGN HERE."] * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "DADDALUMS." This is a play about a Northampton shoe-manufacturer of Scottish nationality. There is, of course, nothing quite like leather, and I can well believe that the lucrative properties of the boot trade (notwithstanding its alleged association with atheistic principles) must at one time or other have attracted this prehensile race; yet I doubt if Northampton, home of the cobbling industry, ever encouraged a Scot to penetrate its preserves. Mr. LOUIS ANSPACHER, who wrote the play, may have some inside knowledge denied to me, though his name does not vividly indicate a Scots origin; but it is certain, if his _Wallace Craigie_ really came from over the border, that he was no true Scot, for his dialect showed obvious traces of Sassenach pollution.