_NEWS OF THE SECOND COMPETITION

A CORRESPONDENT has suggested that many readers would be pleased if we printed a handful of entries, good, bad, and indifferent, and attached no comment to them at all : readers could then see how the general run of competitors treated the subject, could have an opportunity for satisfying their private tastes, and could sit in judgment upon the judge. His complaint against the selectors was that he considered them highbrow. It is that " indifferent " that rather terrifies us : he can have no idea of the devastating thoroughness with which entries are sometimes indifferent. But his plea for a wider and less severe selection is per- suasive. This week we are printing a few entries without any comment upon their merits. The award will be announced in next week's Spectator.

EPITAPHS UPON AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFRICANUS.

[The skull of the man-like ape discovered by Professor Dart at Taungs in South Africa.] " Here lies a man, who was an ape. Nature, grown weary of his shape, conceived and carried out the plan by which the ape is now the man."

H U3IBERT WOLFE.

" Pinions and snowy robes are not for him,

This early suppliant for Heaven's grace,

Yet in celestial halls his spirit dim Has doubtless found a humble task and place Whence he may wondering peer and see fulfilled What he had vaguely dreamed and dumbly willed."

G. T. REID.

" '.Neath earth and rocks in this wild place Lie shapely limbs and comely face Safe from annoy.

For how couldst thou in life's grim race Mind apes so fierce maintain a place, Untimely Boy ? "

" Here lies—as most Ethnologists think—

all that remains of the Missing Link

A fossilized African Anthropoid Ape, whose skull was of dolichocephalous shape,

His kinsmen noticed with terrified eyes, that he stood up straight and gazed at the skies.

Precocious Genius is ever a bore- - so they did him in at the Age of Four.

Over thy brainpan let Scientists gape ! Peace to thy spirit, poor Super-Ape ! "

G. HEATHER MASON.

" Nameless you lived and fought ; without a name You still were when you severed earthly fetters.

So DART with justice spreads abroad your name In all the pomp of five and twenty letters."

P. M. S.

" Mysteriously it stands alone, Its bones now form Contention's bone." MICHAEL MILLS.

" Here snarling died a beast, the first to find That God brute-bound was stirring in his mind.

Philosophers the wide world over brood Upon his living aims, his dying mood. Dim distant Fate his destiny still shapes, Forbear of Christendom and heir of Apes."

Do-COLAS BOOT.

Here lies our Village Idiot, dead,' they say. His fame shall come on disinterment day." E. B. S.

Coq.

" Thou strange Resembler to our Human Kind, Thou Agitator of the curious Mind ! Whose skull makes vain philosophers opine That they can read Life's Riddle, and to ban That Ancient Word, that Oracle'Divine, 'In His own Image God created Man.'"

C. ERNEST PROCTOR.

" We know thou didst uprightly walk And not indulge in idle talk : Excelling much the Chimpanzee, With brain still not too big for thee : If likeness thou didst bear to us, In what, Australopithecus ?"

Here, under a glass case, lies AUSTRALOPITHECUS AFRICA NUS.

Obscure in life, still more obscure in death, At the last, no doubt, he asked only for peace. But Fame has searched him out,

And now the faithful among his descendants

Will argue hotly above his head.

Poor TA UNGS, Whose gift was the inability to talk." G. P. N.

H. V. YORKE.