be combined with
admirable grace in a woman-violinist, took her place as a leader of
the quartet at the Monday "Pops," upset the tyranny of the pianoforte
and harp as the only instruments suitable for the young person, and
virtually created the professional woman-violinist. Indeed, she may
be said to have at once made the fiddle fashionable and profitable for
girls.

On its invasion of Mayfair the pencil of DU MAURIER furnishes the best
comment. Before 1869, woman-violinists were only single spies; now
they are to be reckoned in battalions. And they no longer "play the
easiest passages with the greatest difficulty," as was once said of
an incompetent male pianist, but in all departments of technique and
interpretation have fully earned Sir HENRY WOOD'S tribute to their
skill, sincerity and delicacy. When the eminent conductor goes on, in
his catalogue of their excellences, to say, "They do not drink,
and they do not smoke as much as men," he reminds Mr. Punch of two
historic sayings of a famous foreign conductor. The first was uttered
at a rehearsal of the Venusberg music from _Tannhaeuser_: "Gentlemen,
you play it as if you were teetotalers--_which you are not_." The
other was his lament over a fine but uncertain wind-instrument player:
"With ---- it is always Quench, Quench, Quench."

Mr. Punch is old-fashioned enough to hope that, whether teetotalers
or not, the ladies will leave trombones and tubas severely alone, and
confine their instrumental energies mainly to the nice conduct of the
leading strings--the aristocrats of the orchestra, the sovereigns of
the chamber concert.

* * * * *

From a butcher's advertisement:--

"SPECIAL PRE-WAR PORK, AND BEEF, SAUSAGES."--_Local Paper._

While all in favour of old-fashioned Christmas fare, here we draw the
line.

* * * * *

"Enough butter to cover 265,000,000 slices of bread was
produced in Manitoba this year. Of 8,250,000,000 pounds
produced, 4,100,000 has been exported."--_Canadian Paper._

Thirty-one pounds of butter to the slice is certainly the most
tempting inducement to Canadian immigration we have yet noticed.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE INSPIRED MUSICIAN AND THE CHRISTMAS HAM.]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_

I can't help thinking that Mr. H. G. HIBBERT ha