With a real educational interest. Education
without effort. Containing 25 animals, all
perfectly drawn."--_Advt. in Glasgow Paper._
Not at all a bad description.
* * * * *
"The Oxford University forwards created a very favourable
impression against Major Stanley's XV. at Oxford yesterday, and
were not to blame for the defeat of the University by 2 placed
girls...."--_Daily Paper._
Here's to the maidens of STANLEY'S XV.!
* * * * *
[Illustration: =THE HANDY LITTLE CAR.=]
* * * * *
THE PLACE OF THE TROMBONE IN THE BAND.
When I speak of the place of the trombone in the band I am not
referring to his site or locality. That is for the conductor to
settle. My purpose is to give an intelligent reply to the oft-quoted
query, "Why the trombone?"
Everybody knows that it is not in the band for musical purposes. It
is not a musical instrument. The man who could extract music from a
trombone could get grapes out of a coal-mine.
No, its _raison d'être_ is mostly critical and punitive. It is there
to see that the orchestra does its job and to put the fear of a
hectic hereafter into the man who is out of step with his
fellow-conspirators.
The uninformed have a vague idea that the conductor should do that
with his little stick. But I put it to you, what use would a little
stick be against a man like the big drum? A meat-axe would have some
point, but the difficulties of conducting with a meat-axe will be
obvious to even the least musical.
When the French horn, in the throes of a liver attack, sees
supplementary spots on the score and plays them with abandon, or when
the clarionet (or clarinet), having inadvertently sucked down a fly
which in an adventurous mood has strolled into one of those little
holes in the instrument, coughs himself half out of his evening
clothes, does the conductor forsake his air of austerity and
use language unbefitting a solemn occasion? Does he pick up his
music-stand and hurl it at the offender? He does not. It would be a
breach of etiquette.
He simply signals to the trombone, who promptly turns the exit part
of his instrument on the culprit and gives a bray that makes the
unfortunate man's shirt-front crumple up like a concertina. That is
discipline.
Then again the trombone is employed as a sort of brake when in a
moment of excitement the rest of the orchestra has a tendency to
overdo things.
For example, all will remember the throbbing moment at the end of the
drama, where the hero and heroine, murmuring "At last!" fall into each
other's arms and move slowly off the stage whilst the band starts
up MENDELSSOHN'S or GLÜCKSTEIN'S "Wedding March." The effect on an
orchestra is immediate and immense. Somewhere behind each of these
stiff shirt-fronts beats a heart that thrills at every suggestion of
romance. It is well known that, when at intervals during a performance
they retire through the man-hole under the stage, it is to imbibe
another chapter of ETHEL M. DELL or of "Harried Hannah, the Bloomsbury
Bride." And so the lingering embrace of the lovers sets them tingling
and they tackle the "Wedding March" at the double. The clarionet
(or clarinet) wipes the tears from his eyes and puts a sob in his
rendering; the cornet unswallows his mouthpiece and, getting his
under-jaw well jutted out, decides to put a jerk in it; the piccolo
pickles with furious enthusiasm; the 'cello puts his instrument in
top-gear with his left hand and saws away violently with the other;
the triangle, who has fallen perhaps into a Euclidian dream, sits
up and gets a move on; the stevedore--no, no, that is the next
chapter--the oboe, the French horn, the kettledrum, the euphonium, the
proscenium, the timbrel, the hautboy, the sackbut-and-ashes--all get a
grip of the ground with both feet and let her go.
They try to depict golden lands of radiant sunshine, where beautiful
couples stroll hand-in-hand for ever and the voice of the turtle
replaces that of the raucous vendor of the racing edition.
If they were allowed to have their way the effect on the unmarried
portion of the audience would be to send them rushing out of the
theatres and dragging registrars out of a sick-bed in order to perform
the marriage ceremony there and then.
But the trombone introduces the hard practical note, the necessary
corrective. His monotonous grunt is used to remind the audience of
marriage as it is lived in real life, of the girl at breakfast in
unmarcelled hair, of the man dropping cigarette-ash on the best
carpet, of double income-tax, of her family, of his, of her bills for
frocks, of his wandering off to golf or the club, and a host of other
incidentals.
A reaction takes place among the audience. Men who had been a moment
before estimating the price of a diamond-ring turn their thoughts to
two-stroke motor-bicycles, and girls decide that love in a cottage is
an overrated pastime--especially when you can't get the cottage--and
decide to wait a few years till a house or two has been built.
That is the chief function of the trombone--to pursue those who are
wandering in the clouds and bring them to earth with a crash.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Press Photographer_ (_to perfect stranger while
arranging group on departure of popular personage_). "HOLD YOUR HAT UP
AND CHEER."]
* * * * *
=The Triumphs of Art.=
"WOMAN SCULPTOR IN THE KREMLIN.
BOLSHEVIST BUSTS."
_"Times" headlines._
* * * * *
"Rhodes bowled Ryder for a duck, and off his very next ball he got
Moyes smartly stumped by Dolphin at point."
_Irish Paper._