We have remarked elsewhere on Mr. Stead's ingenious pro- posal
to divert the Prince of Wales from his taste for baccarat by placing him at the head of a continuous series of Royal Commissions. We can imagine the dismay with which the Prince would receive this very remarkable suggestion of an effective substitute for the excitement he loves. It would be something like the dismay depicted in one of the earliest numbers of Punch, in which a Spanish sailor is represented as wading out into the sea to capture a floating bottle, and as speculating on its probable contents. " Sherry, perhaps," he says with a chuckle, " for it is the wine of his country." " Rum, I hope !" he proceeds, as he grows more sanguine. "Tracts, by Jingo ! " he almost shrieks, as he gets at the inside, and discovers the moral purpose of the philanthropist who decoyed him into that vain and fruitless adventure. The Prince of Wales would, we fear, indulge the same sense of despair on finding Royal Commissions proposed to him as substitutes for high play. If Royal Commissions had been his secret passion, we should hardly have heard of the fasci- nating leathern counters, on the sobriety of which Mr. Stead so amiably compliments him.
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