The Editors of the _Sketch_ and _Tatler_, speaking in unison, said that not only was there too much talk about pictures, but there were far too many pictures. Artists ought not to be encouraged in the way they are. The world was never so happy as in the interval between the loss of the "Monna Lisa" and its recovery. We should apply our enthusiasm to the stage--to actors and, above all, to actresses. The Editors of _The Daily Mirror_ and _The Daily Sketch_, also speaking in unison, said they agreed to a large extent with the last speakers. It would not really matter if every painting disappeared, so long as the camera remained. One living photographer was better than a thousand dead Masters. Sir CLAUDE PHILLIPS asked how the Masters would ever have been called Masters had it not been for the critics. Painters merely painted and left it there; it was the critics who decided whether or not they should be immortal, and whether their pictures should be worth tens or thousands. Mr. MARION SPIELMANN said that no one would deny that the contemplation of pictures, even those of Saints or Holy Families, had given enormous pleasure. But why? Not because the crowds that flocked to the galleries really cared for them, but because gifted writers had for centuries been setting up hypnotic suggestions that in this way was pleasure to be obtained. He had often seen men and women standing before a canvas of REMBRANDT, hating the grubby muddle of it in their hearts, but adoring it in their heads--all because some well-known critic had told them to. Their pleasure, however, was real, and therefore it should, in a world of sadness, be encouraged, and consequently Art critics should be encouraged. Mr. ROGER FRY here rose to point out that the test of a picture is not the pleasure which it imparts, as the last speaker seemed to think, but the pain. The sooner the public got that fact into its thick head the better would it be for those artists who were not so clay-souled as to allow stuffy conventions to interfere with the development of their personality. Mr. D.W. GRIFFITH said that he had never heard so much talk about pictures, with so little reference to himself. It was he who invented "The Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance," and he was the Picture King, and as such he wished to tell them that the best Art critic in the world couldn't hold a candle to a very ordinary Press agent. (Uproar, during which the meeting broke up.) * * * * * [Illustration: _The "Nut" of the Regiment_ (_reading Army order re dress_). "BY JOVE, MAJOR, THIS IS SERIOUS! SHIRTS, COLLARS AND TIES HAVE GOT TO BE THE SAME COLOUR AS UNIFORM. IT JOLLY WELL MEANS THAT WE'LL HAVE TO GET A NEW UNIFORM EVERY TIME WE HAVE A COLLAR WASHED."] * * * * * MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS O'REILLY. THE GREAT DOG FIGHT.