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April 17, 1891.] gone a step further, and the Weekly Scotsman now devotes a special column every week to the subject. We learn from this column that arrangements are being made for the establishment in Liberton, near Edinburgh, of a photographic society for amateurs. Soon, no town—one might almost write village—will be com plete without its photographic society. Certainly, there is no subject so provocative of talk as photography, and yet the Photographic Society of Great Britain complains, or did complain, that it cannot get topics and papers for discussion. Hitherto the opportunities for making cloud negatives which April usually affords have not been so frequent as the ardent amateur would like. Watching for the sun while a bitter north-east wind is blowing is not very pleasant work, though the amateur of the old school was indifferent to bodily discomfort. Carrying half a hundredweight of photographic baggage was probably good training. Whether the amateur of to-day, who likes everything ready-made for him, has the courage to risk a cold in the head in securing cloud pictures, is not quite so certain ; anyway, if he does take out his camera for this purpose, and is successful, it is to be hoped that his results, when joined to landscape nega tives, will not show the sun shining at the same time from opposite sides of the picture. It is all very well for him to improve an expanse of vacancy by putting in clouds, but, to use an expressive theatrical phrase, let him also “ jine his flats.” Mr. Robert Buchanan, in his vigorous attack on the Zola and Ibsen school, is not very complimentary to photography. He compares the “ present apotheosis " of dreary dramas to “ a series of dingy, amateur photo graphs taken in the scullery during sunless weather,” and he holds, in pursuing the comparison, that “ there is even more falsehood to nature in a bad photograph than in a wildly executed painting.” What have the believers in naturalistic, out-of-focus photography to say about this ? The death of Keeley Halswell removes from our midst a painter who, of late years, had made the upper waters of the Thames his constant study. He had his studio in his house-boat, and here he worked at those delightful sketches of river scenery which are identi fied with his name. Mr. Keeley Halswell, like Mr. Wyllie, studied river life and aspects and their constant variety in the only way possible—by living on the spot. Their successes suggest what an enormous field the Thames presents to the photographer who has the perseverance to grapple with the subject in its entirety. Plenty of photographs of the Thames exist, it is true, but if they could be all got together, the result would only be a very disjointed collection. The latest application of photography to medical science is to use it as a means of locating tumours on the brain. The theory is, that spasms are caused by affections of the nervous centres, and that the dis turbance of a centre is invariably followed by identically similar contortions of the muscles. A tumour must, of necessity, press upon a nerve centre, producing violent spasmodic attacks. While in this condition the patient is photographed, and the exact position of the tumour discovered. Experiments, says the Mining and Scien tific Press, of San Francisco, have been successfully made by an “eminent local surgeon.” We must con fess we do not follow the reasoning which attributes spasmodic attacks to tumours on the brain. Why not to a tumour on any other part of the body ? We should also like to know if one photograph will suffice, or if a series is necessary. There seems to be something wanting in the explanation of the theory. The Chicago Inland Printer gives in its March number a reproduction of a photograph entitled, “ An Old Love Maker,” which visitors to the l’all Mall Ex hibition of 1889 will possibly remember. The name of the company working the process is prominently displayed; the name of the photographer, Mr. H. P. Robinson, is omitted. The producers of other pictures given in the same number are treated with similar in difference. The only instance in which the photo grapher’s name is mentioned is that of a photograph of a bridge at Berne, Switzerland; but then the photographer is a Chicago man, which, of course, makes a difference. American notions of copyright obligations are very elastic. No fresh light upon the Pennell-Herkomer matter has been thrown by Messrs. Novello, the publishers of Mr. Herkomer’s “Idyll,” in their answer to Mr. Pennell. Messrs. Novello simply state their belief that the illustrations are all that is claimed from them. But this is precisely what Mr. Pennell wants to find out. He would like to know if the illustrations are etchings executed by Mr. Herkomer himself, or are photographic reproductions touched up with a needle, and this is what neither Mr. Herkomer nor Messrs. Novello will tell him. Possibly this withholding of information accounts for the flavour of acerbity regard ing photography which marked Mr. Pennell’s paper read at the Camera Club Conference. Missionaries, like other people, have to move with the times. When Mrs. Jellaby flourished, flannel petticoats and pocket handkerchiefs were the articles of which it was considered the dark races stood most in need. We have got past these primitive ideas. A gentleman interested in the Blantyre Mission, South Africa, is of opinion that with the close of the lantern season there should be a good many photographic slides of “no further use” to their owners. He announces accordingly in a provincial paper that he will be very glad to receive contributions of such cast-off articles for the use of missionaries 1