Lord Buckhurat has withdrawn his Bill against young acrobats after
a short debate on Tuesday, in which the inherent absurdities of the measure came out very strongly. Lord Salisbury, for example, showed that the definitions would include a jockey or a sailor, and Lord Shaftesbury avowed that he did not want to protect children from performing, so much as " to get rid of acrobatic" performances altogether. That is an intelligible .object, but one which will not be secured by giving foreigners a monopoly of the trade. Lord Shaftesbury read a letter from a young acrobat, which seemed to him conclusive, but which is, in our judgment, fatal to the Bill. The boy, a lad of seventeen, writes to say that his father used to twist his limbs and back till he "suffered dreadful, and was often ill with the pain." The result of that discipline, however, so far from being injurious, is that " no other chap in the world is so supple, or can tumble and twist hisself like me." In other words, Lord Shaftesbury wants to pre- vent a most successful method of physical education. Lord .Shaftesbury promises a Bill next year prohibiting training even at home and without exhibitions, but probably will discover in the autumn that no such Bill could be drawn without prohibiting gymnastics altogether,—that is, without direct injury to the health of the people.
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