SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, JR.

Ever since Frederick L. O'Brien published his first book on the geographical and natural wonders to be found south of the equator, the number of his followers has been growing by leaps and bounds. One might say that it had almost become a fad for members of the idle plutocracy to hire sea-going vessels with a length of not more than fifty feet, and spend the chillier months cruising in southern waters. Not so very long ago, for example, three wags set out from New Haven, with their tongues in their cheeks, to discover a new and more ravishing type to feminine beauty. As they have not yet returned, it is assumed that they have been successful.

The latest of these voyageurs is Captain S. C. Bullock, M. C. who recently returned to London with highly diverting accounts of barking vultures, fishes which leap out of the water on to necks of their prey, and other amazing fauna. Although treated with a most irreverent levity by the daily press, the Captain laid his papers before the Royal Geographical Society. A suspicion still lingers that that learned body is having its leg pulled.

Captain Bullock, of course, may really have made his cruise and his observations, like the savant Humboldt, in all good faith: but there is also a very even chance that he is a member of that other illustrious school so ably represented by the intrepid explorer, Captain Walter Traprock. If he is, he ought to be indicted, or something, for not only is Captain Traprock sufficient for his field, but also in recent weeks even his material has become slightly cloying.