For the first time since the contest was established a
Peer's heir has become-Senior Wrangler. The fortunate gentleman, who it is said owes his success entirely to severe work, is the Honourable J. W. Strutt, son of Lord Rayleigh, of Terling Hall, Essex, and a pupil of Mr. Reath, who, strange to say, has this year sent up the tea men highest on the list, a real triumph of teaching ability. It is not very easy to understand why the aristocracy should so sel- dom succeed in attaining this coveted distinction, for they fre- quently win doable firsts, a grade at least as hard to reach, and indicating much wider cultivation. The explanation, we presume, is the dislike of the class for the continuous and sustained toil necessary to high mathematical success,—a dislike manifest in other walks of life. Peers govern and fight and write and farm very successfully, and are often thorough connoisseurs in art, but no man of the order has ever risen to the first rank as sculptor, painter, architect, or composer,—a fact the more remarkable as it has not on the Continent been true.
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