g to act as an
extra draw.

[Illustration: IN "THE HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENT." BALLYHOOLEY PATHETIC.]

Anyone nowadays thirsting for notoriety jumps on to the platform as a
lecturer. He may have been "Perhaps a soldier full of 'cute ways, and
fearless like his Pa! Stake your dollar sudden and quick to boom.
Seeking a bauble reputation even at the Commons mouth." Or he may have
been an aristocratic stowaway in a troop-ship, for instance, and become
the hero in the pages of our new English-Americanised Press paying for
and publishing his startling disclosures.

The lecture is the natural sequence of the boom fever--a lecture, say,
on "Red Tape Rats." A reading-desk, a glass of water, a map, a few
amateurish snapshot slides exhibited by means of a lantern, _and_ a
great and popular chairman--then success is assured. But the crowd is
not present to be interested in rats, nor are the reporters there to
write about rats, nor is the chairman presiding so as to refer to the
stowaway's paper on rats. For the chairman has his own Red Tape Rats to
let loose with which to startle the audience and nobble the Press. The
next day the report of the lecture is not headed "The Hon. Babbling
Brook on Rats," but runs "An Admiral of the Fleet on Naval Reform," or
"A Field Marshal with a Grievance," and a list of the fashionable party
on the platform is considered of more importance than the lecturer's
remarks.

[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS AS A PICTORIAL ENTERTAINER.

_Drawn by Clement Flower. Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of
"The Graphic."_]

In more tranquil times a penny-reading style of entertainment will
suffice. A bishop or a duke may take the chair, and Charity take the
proceeds. But the chairman with a name is the thing with which to catch
the interest of the public.

What I have said about lecturing in England applies equally to America
and Australia, and I wish it to be distinctly understood that, as I am
writing these lines for the benefit of those who think of accepting the
tempting offers to go on the platform, I have no personal feeling in the
matter whatever. Both in America and in Australia I have had splendid
audiences; but in consequence of the long distances and expenses
lecturing does not pay, and the stories one reads about men returning
with thousands and thousands of pounds in their pockets are absolutely
false. Do not believe them. They are manufactured statements for booming
purposes. Dr. Conan Do