The Queen on Monday laid the first stone of the
Hall of Arts and Sciences, a splendid arnphitheatre to be erected in South Kensington, north of the Royal Horticultural Gardens. The structure is one of the Prince Consort's ideas, and is to be used for international congresses of art and science, great concerts, and so on. It will, we doubt not, in practice be an aristocratic music- hall, and it is to be built out of the sale of boxes, 1,000/. being asked for each freehold. When finished it will be a very imposing structure, a cross between the Coliseum in Regent's Park and the Coliseum in Rome, will seat 6,000 people, and had it been erected in London would have been extremely useful. The attend- ance at the ceremony was very great, and the sun stayed out while the Queen was present, and then, weary of the exertion, went to bed again, Aso he has remained ever since.
