WHAT OUR WALTZING IS COMING TO
Distinguished Foreigner: "Voulez-vous me faire l'honneur de Danser cette Valse avec moi, Meess Matilde?"
Miss Matilda (an accomplished waltzer): "Avec plaiseer, Monsieur. Quelle est voter Forme—le 'Lurch de Liverpool,' le 'Dip de Boston,' ou le 'Kick de Ratcliffe Highway'?"
(We have feebly tried to represent the "Ratcliffe Highway Kick," which at present is only danced in the very best society, and confers a great air of distinction on the performers.)
STUDIES IN EVOLUTION
This is not an example of the Struggle for Existence—it is merely "The Valse," as we have lately seen it danced at Suburban Subscription Balls, etc.
The Royal College of Music was founded in 1882. George Grove, the first director, the "dear 'G'" of countless friends in all walks of life, was an old ally, and the venture, in which the Prince of Wales took from the very outset an active and energetic part, received Punch's benediction, though an element of genial chaff is not absent in the picture of the Prince conducting his orchestra of royal and noble minstrels, with the Duke of Edinburgh as first violin. Punch showed a truer insight into the potentialities of the new institution when he suggested that it might help to solve the problem of National Opera. By its annual operatic performances so admirably directed for some thirty years by Sir Charles Stanford, and by the training of first-class instrumentalists and singers, the R.C.M. has done an amount of spade-work which has more than fulfilled Punch's prediction.