TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 8, 1905.

NOTES  OF  THE  DAY.

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HOLIDAYS AT HOME.

A certain gentleman, describing himself as a mental science expert, guarantees to show anybody how to enjoy a holiday by the sea without going there. All the subject has to do is make up his mind to dream of the sea. Let him shut his mouth, says his mentor, and breathe slowly and deeply, so that the chest expands naturally, and let him smell the ozone coming up from the sea—in his imagination. He guarantees that this treatment, if carried on conscientiously for half an hour or less, will induce a beautiful seaside dream, and make a man wake up and feel that he has had a holiday at the seaside. The advantages of this course are obvious. The great objection to holidays hitherto has been the fact that one has been obliged to go away for them. Apart from all the worry and inconvenience of travel, and the difficulty of settling down in strange surroundings, there is the expense and the leaving of one’s business in the hands of possibly incompetent substitutes. By the new system all this will be avoided. We shall drop off to sleep in London; our astral body will flit to North Wales or some similar spot, or possibly pop across to Paris or the coast of Normandy; and we shall wake up, sunburned and refreshed, to embark upon the labours of the day. Whether a man will be disappointed to wake in London after dreaming of Trouville we do not know. That may, however, be one of the drawbacks to the scheme.