Dear Mr. Editor,--Do not let the above heading alarm you. I have no desire to convert the columns of your valuable journal into a kind of photographic _Bell's Life_ or _Sporting Chronicle_. Although the great University boat race has just been decided for the eighth consecutive time in favour of Oxford, it is not of that aquatic struggle that I am going to write, but of another matter in which the Cantabs seem to be behind the Oxonians in the race of life, or the pursuit of novelties. Not only are the Cantabs short in their stroke with the oars, and unable to obtain the first place in the contests on the Thames, they are also slow in giving their orders for a certain article of commerce which is of very great importance to professional photographers, especially those in the neighbourhood of the University of Cambridge. It is a remarkable fact, that while Oxford has gone in with a rush for those very charming portraits technically named "cabinets," Cambridge holds aloof. How is this, I wonder. There are as good photographers in Cambridge--Mr. Mayland, to wit, whose work is all of the first class--as in Oxford; the sun shines as brightly in the region of the Cam as he does in that of the Isis. Have the Cantabs made up their minds not to be _cabinet_ men in opposition to Oxford? or is the fact due to the lukewarmness of the Cambridge photographers themselves? It seems somewhat strange that two places likely to be so similar in tastes and a refined appreciation of the beautiful should so differ in this respect. Are the men of the two great seats of learning in this country opposed in matters of photographic proportion as they are in other matters of minor importance--as in the proper pronunciation of either and neither, for instance? Not having graduated at either, I do not know which is correct, neither do I care; but I am concerned in this question of photography. While at Oxford the cabinet picture has taken deep root, and has grown into a strong and vigorous article of demand, it is a well-known fact that at Cambridge it is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and languishes on in a state trembling between life and death. Whether the producers or consumers are to blame for this langour in the demand for an article that is certainly worth being cultivated, is more than I can say. I know that the discrepancy exists, and the rest I leave to those most immediately interested. It cannot, however, be supposed that a demand for any particular size or style can spring up spontaneously; that must be created by the producer, by popularising the style in some attractive and judicious manner, and the cabinet size is well deserving of a very strenuous effort being made in its favour.