spectability, and, by a delicate suggestion of contrast, accentuates her unconventional and desperate acrobatics. You can be sure that some dear old maiden lady, in a spotless white cap, watched that cat with horror and alarm, and with a dim idea that the decent proprieties of life were outraged by an unreserved exhibition of stomachic discomfort. This is not the usual method of the men who portray the laughable side of life. They draw their embodied jest, and put behind it a background composed on the principle upon which the dear old gentleman I have spoken of constructed his tree. And it must not be supposed that Mr. Frost's backgrounds are only happy thoughts. I have seen one modest "comic" redrawn, wholly or in part, five several times, to get just the proper effect -the effect that made you remember that picture as you would have remembered it if the thing had really happened; if you had stood on the very ground and seen it all with your own eyes. When I first read Rudder Grange, I must confess that I did not quite believe it; it was not that the author's art was at fault, but that his inspiration seemed too good to be true. But since Mr. Frost illustrated that ever-delightful book, I am sure, in my inmost soul, that there once was a singularly blessed family who lived in a canal-boat, and were in all other respects as charming as Mr. Stockton would have us believe. The most casual observer must take note of Mr. Frost's success in producing atmospheric effects that are unmistakably and characteristically American, as well as of his remarkable insight into the American type of face and figure. Those who have learned to know and feel the charm of this native individuality will be glad to learn that Mr. Frost comes fairly by his sympathetic understanding of his countrymen, and the sky under which they live. On both the father's and the mother's side his ancestry is American back to 1633, or thereabouts. His father was born in Kennebunk, Maine, in the first year of this century. He made Philadelphia his home in 1830. He married Miss Sarah Ann Burdett, of Boston. John Frost received his degree of LL.D. from Harvard University, where he was graduated in 1822. His son went into the hard business of life at fifteen years of age, in an engraver's employ. For six months he ran errands, and scarcely touched a block. Then, according to his own account, he was told that he had no talent for draw ing, and very little for running errands. It was then that he became a lithographer. I wonder if his first employer ever got one of Mr. Frost's blocks to engrave? Mr. Frost has been his own drawingmaster for the most part; but he attributes his first acquirements in "solid drawing" to his evening studies in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. For about a year, from 1877 to 1878, he worked in England, but the cloudier heavens had no charm for him, and he returned to the neighborhood of Philadelphia to work at his art and play at farming. "My farm," he has explained, "is my steam-yacht." Any one who knows the expensive luxury of amateur farming will be glad that Mr. Frost is not obliged to confine himself to a steam-yacht. And here let me perform an act of formal courtesy to which I am impelled partly by a desire to ingratiate myself with a future generation. In the fall of 1883 Mr. Frost married. His wife is an artist, trained in the German school, a daughter of the late Moro Phillips, of Philadelphia. In the latter part of 1887 a son was born to them, and his parents have recorded a solemn vow that that son shall be an artist. It gives me great pleasure to introduce a second Frost to the public. Of Mr. Frost the man I do not propose to speak here, mainly because he and I share an old-fashioned idea that the man who labors for the public, whether with pen or pencil or on the boards, reserves to himself the right to shut his own house door behind him, and that it is only as an artist that the public has any privilege of intimacy with him, and this idea we share, I am glad to say, with Charles Lamb and William Makepeace Thackeray. But if you must know what mauner of man he is, I will ask you to turn to his portrait, where Mr. Alexander, taking advantage of a subtler and more generous art than is at my command, has caught the very essence and spirit of his sitter's character and individuality, as Mr. Alexander has a way of doing. If you will look at that portrait, I think you will understand why so few are jealous of Mr. Frost who might well envy him, and why so many wish him not only the success that his art and his industry must always insure to him, but all the good and all the happiness that life has in store for him who makes the best of it. TIGER-HUNTING IN MYSORE. BY R. CATON WOODVILLE. FTER Prince Albert Victor had left Mysore, during his recent visit to India, I remained in that city for about four weeks, to paint during that time a lifesize equestrian picture of H. H. the Maharajah. He had promised that I should get some tiger-shooting, and we daily expected to receive news of a "kill" somewhere in the neighborhood. By a "kill" is meant when a tiger has attacked and carried off a cow or any other animal, when the news is at once sent off to that effect for the sportsmen to come and shoot it. while, working during the hottest part of the day, with, in the evening, polo or drives, and sometimes performances of native plays in the Maharajah's native theatre, which is built in the best of Western style, with very good scenery and machinery indeed, varied now and then with an interesting nautch. The tiger is not such a very great misfortune to the neighborhood where he happens to have fixed his abode. His chase gives pleasure, excitement, and exercise to the many hard-worked officials, whose lives would be those of uninterrupted routine were it not for this recreation. It is also of great assistance to the district officials, as it makes them much better acquainted with the people under their charge, and they get to know out-ofthe-way places which, but for this sport, My time passed very pleasantly mean they would never have visited. The tiger is a very necessary evil in India, and were it not for him, deer and wild-boar would increase to such numbers that the cultivation of the land would become an immense hardship, and almost an impossibility; he keeps them within bounds, and relieves the ryots from watching their fields by night in the unhealthy localities. We are accustomed in England to hear constant war preached against this animal for its total extermination; but this ought only to be in cases of the destructive cattle-killer or man-eater, and these ought to be got rid of at any cost. The villagers are always extremely careful of their good cattle, watching them well and keeping them grazing on the border of fields where they are working, and would be very sorry if the tiger were exterminated; of course they themselves are often carried off by man-eaters. But tigers of this class are luckily very scarce. Tigers are still numerous in the state of Mysore, and panthers have often been killed in the city itself quite recently. I believe that in Mysore the largest tigers in India are to be found. Some have been killed quite lately by sportsmen measuring nearly ten feet six inches from the nose to the tip of the tail. There are two kept by the Maharajah in the courtyard of his cattle-stables that measure very little short of that. Time was going on and the picture almost completed, so that I quite despaired of having any sport. I had an off day now and then from my work to chase the black buck, of which there are many there, and capital sport they give you, too, stalking them on the plains. You have to go for them with as much if not more care than the Scotch red deer, and they are equally good venison to eat, too. shot a good many of them, and their graceful tapering heads are now adorning the walls of my studio. One day I shot a hyena, but her hide was not worth taking. I also bagged a couple of wolves in the grounds of the Upper Residency. I At last news came of a "kill" about sixteen miles from the city, and the Ma harajah made at once all arrangements for an early start on the next morning. He is one of the most liberal-minded native noblemen in India, and in every way his manners and habits are those of an exceptionally well-mannered European. This cannot always be said of the native gentlemen of India. He was educated after the late Maharajah's death, during his minority, by Colonel G. B. Malleson, C.S.I., his guardian. He is quite English in all his ways, although Hindoo by religion, and an excellent musician. At an early hour the next morning we met at the palace for an early start. The company consisted of H. H. the Maharajah, G.C.S.I.; Lord Claud Hamilton, A.D.C. to her Majesty the Queen; Surgeon Major Benson; Mr. Meiklejohn, Resident Magistrate; Mr. Vinicomb Davey, Mr. Charrington, Mr. McHutchin, and myself. We mounted the Maharajah's drag, and with a small escort of H. H.'s body-guard, were soon on the road to the jungle. It was about sixteen miles to the place of our destination, and we changed horses four times, so that the distance was covered in about an hour and a half. How pretty and yet how strange to the eyes of the European were the dark-skinned escorts in their scarlet tunics, with red and white pennants fluttering from their lances! The Maharajah was dressed in the latest of coaching coats, with a crimson and gold turban, driving his four-inhand in the English coach. Truly a mixture of East and West! We passed the race-course on our right, and on the left the flat-topped Chamundi Hill, the retreats of the European residents during the hot weather peeping out amongst the shady tops of the trees; past green and watery rice fields, villages with their happy-looking inhabitants standing in the doorways of sun-baked clay houses. But the longest road has a turning, and the end of ours came very soon, and we came to where the jungle-that is, a lighter belt of forest that we had to first penetrate joined the road, and here we mounted our ponies and rode off to the place of the "kill." Several mounted elephants, but I preferred a pony, as on him you can go where you want to and stop when you like. We passed several small villages in the jungle, simply clusters of a few huts, and always decorated with little green triumphal arches, made of palm branches and colored streamers of calico, erected in our honor. The villagers met us with joy cries, blowing enormous cholera-horns that nearly deafened us forever after. Some of the vegetation was most beautiful--groups of teak, palm-trees, and wild vines, intersected with large clumps of the feathery bamboo. The road, winding over and round small hills, gave us views of miles and miles of country covered with dense forest. At last we were met by a native magistrate of the district, who reported that the tiger was surrounded by beaters at the "kill," and only waited our pleasure to be killed himself. We had to dismount, and a walk of half a mile brought us to a small clearing, where some eighty natives were erecting mecháns, or small platforms, for us to shoot from, all chattering like monkeys, and making as much noise as possible. The Maharajah and the old hands at this business looked disgusted, and the native magistrate was secretly cursed by all. However, we made a try when the stands were ready. These had been erected in a line about fifty yards from each other, and were so low that we could easily swing ourselves to the top of them; in fact, only about six feet from the ground. They had no screens, and altogether were very shaky. After we had taken our places, the discharge of an old matchlock, the bullet of which we heard whizzing in our direction, gave the signal that the drive had commenced. most unearthly row was started; yells and hootings, blowing of cholera-horns, and beating of tomtoms were heard in every direction, and we were getting really interested and full of excitement and expectation. A solitary hare hopped past us, but of course was allowed to go unmolested. The driving seemed to be carried on, though, in a very disjointed and unorganized sort of way, and on one side the noise ceased altogether, leaving that part quite open. It proved afterwards that no tiger had been killed or hunted in that particular neighborhood for some years, and the ryots were utterly unaccustomed to their work, and numbered not one trained shikarri amongst them. The native magistrate who had organized the affair had not taken any trouble in the matter, or we had been too hasty, and ought to have waited a day or two for better arrangements to have been made. The drivers themselves appearing A showed that our tiger was non est, and we had drawn a blank! Empty-handed a return had to be made, but hope of success in a few days, when the Maharajah would have got his experienced trackers at work, kept us in good spirits. We passed the "kill" on our way back; it was a very fat cow, and the tiger had dragged her for nearly half a mile into very dense jungle. He had partly devoured her already. The villagers said he had lain by her the whole morning, and had escaped by mid-day, when the noise and chopping in erecting the mecháns had commenced. The driving had been done in a very inefficient and careless manner, the ryots huddling together in order to form a better square with their spears in the event of a charge. The Maharajah, on reaching home, at once ordered the netting to be sent to the ground to surround the tiger on his return. This "tiger-netting" is never used naturally on the grass plains of Nepaul, but only, I believe, in the state of Mysore, where it is abso |