The mission of art royal should, I hold, be understood to elevate, to raise the public taste, to cultivate or correct a wrong line of popular impression; that of pictures of the like of “Ecce Homo,” being to enlighten the current interest for whose delight moreover art, from a social point of view, is justified in its mission, having a yet higher motive, the kindling of rapture in the heart of the creative artist.

Pictures since earlier times have been vehicles as well as ventilators of popular belief.  It is for this cause, and in instances where it is proven, painful to touch or shake the constitutive elements of other people’s faith; an acute sense of this compunction on the whole restraining the weight of my recent remarks.  But, conjecturally speaking, in a world wherein all things are so public, it must be conceded that strong light should at stated times fuse the impinging points of understanding, that truth and common sense may scrutinise their sound bearings; moreover, also, that academic science may arraign itself with dignity.

Your correspondent’s remarks with reference to the colour of the robe are, upon the whole, useful, purple and scarlet being synonymous terms; preponderance of mention, rests though with the former.

Pictures cannot be considered too much as books; such truth, Art, by the concurrence of testimony, has manifested in its destiny from time immemorial, confirming afresh benefits on man.  Open discussion will not only add to, magnify, or deduct from their lustre, but cause their aims, in short, to redound to the public weal.  Such being so, it is rational to expect an expression of opinion thereupon.  They are not, universally, to be regarded as graven tablets, to be gazed at, nor to be received as infallible oracles of law.  They are—­at the same time, barometers, charts, and weather-glasses—­chronicles towards the fine ends of justice, peace and mercy.

Your correspondent has stated that my remarks are ambiguous.  They may have been technical and recondite, but, as such, are excusable, and, in their sphere, just.

J. Atwood.Slater.

4, Hill Side, Cotham Hill, Bristol.

SOCIAL SCIENCE.

From the Western daily Press, Aug. 1st, 1901.

Locomotive steam whistles.

To the Editor of the Western Daily Press.

Sir,—­It is essential, and, according to my instincts of decorum, necessary, to call the attention of those charged with authority in such matters, and the public generally, to the growing misuse, in the hands of engineers, of the locomotive steam whistle, the employment thereof having especially in town districts, grown to be out of all dimensions of private service, injurious to those whether officially called, or who, pending the pleasure of mercantile circumstance, are publicly obliged to pursue abstruse mental occupation, necessitating labour and much concentration of though[t].  A reasonable use of this means, or instrument, of signal and alarm, must be conceded to those in whose hands resides its use, but at the same time a firm directorship or jurisdiction ought to repress its extravagant or wanton employment.