But without going into the arguable points of this latest duel of the sexes, Mr. Punch, already in the last year which completes his fourth score, may be allowed to indulge in an old man's privilege of retrospect and incidentally to congratulate the ladies on the wonderful and triumphant progress they have made in instrumental art since the roaring 'forties. For in the 'forties women, though still supreme on the lyric stage, had hardly begun to assert themselves as executants, save on the pianoforte. Punch well remembers Liszt—with the spelling of whose name he had considerable difficulty—in his meteoric pianofortitude. But the young Wilma Neruda, who visited London in 1849, escaped his benevolent notice. She was then only ten. It was not until twenty years later that, as Madame Norman-Neruda, she revisited London, proved that consummate skill could 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 Tannhäuser: "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.