THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNWRITTEN. Proud Father (reading his Son's School Report). "MANNERS VULGAR-VERY VULGAR. BUT PERHAPS THIS IS HEREDITARY!"

the right to direct, and, in some respects, even to mould their policy. all a little lively owing to revolt on Conservative side. RICHARD A very curious phenomenon, very curious indeed. If you were not TEMPLE led it in speech of unwonted eloquence. Quite overflowing so evidently in a hurry, I should like to dilate upon it." wealth of imagery: described School Board as the ogre that eats up A good deal in what the Professor says; CHAMBERLAIN, as a rule, everything; that enough by way of description; but TEMPLE rising most considerate in his attitude. to fresh heights, went on to characterise it as the thin edge of the At much pains to preserve an wedge.

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SONGS OF THE UNSENTIMENTALIST.
THE GREENGROCER'S REBUKE.

WE gave a little dinner; and I own,

Led by a wish with style to stamp the fête,
Palmed off, as though a butler of our own,

A skilled Greengrocer we had in "to wait."-
thought he seemed to sway beneath

the fish

appearance suitable to a Gentle- Capital speech of quite another kind from JENNINGS. As the man who sits on the Opposition Member for Sark says, JENNINGS when he has anything to say to Benches, and is supposed to know the House of Commons talks, doesn't speechify; style excellent, and no more of the secret councils and so is the matter. House would like to hear a little oftener from intentions of the Ministry than JENNINGS; due to it from Stockport who has also sent us GEDGE. anyone else in same quarter of Business done.-Education Bill through Committee. House. Made a slip in earlier stages of Education Bill; talked about Our Bill," and disclosed familiarity with its details remarkable since, at the time he spoke, it was not printed. Doesn't blunder twice along same road. Pretty to see him yesterday inviting LORDADVOCATE across the table to explain details of measure, he asked leave to introduce, dealing with I state of things in Highlands and Islands of Scotland. CHAMBERLAIN being much interested in question, having marked it for his own, might be supposed to have been consulted by LORD-ADVOCATE before Bill was drafted. All a mistake. JOSEPH knew no more I about it than an ordinary Member of Opposition, and would be much obliged if LORD-ADVOCATE would briefly sketch his Bill. To-night, on Committee on Education Bill, MUNDELLA moved Amendment extending beyond fourteen years limit of age at which fee grants would be made. DYKE obdurate. JOKIM wrung his hands, and protested thing couldn't be done. Hour after hour Debate went forward, Ministers refusing to budge; JOSEPH chanced to look in after dinner; thinks it would be well to accept Amendment; says so in brief incisive speech, a very model of debate, and OLD MORALITY straightway capitulates. Remarkable state of things; as a study more interesting even than mathematics.

"The pure dry light of Mathematics."

Business done.-Education Bill in Committee.

Thursday.-Land Purchase Bill came on in Lords for Committee stage. House unusually crowded; quite animated in appearance; when at length it gets into Committee LORD CHANCELLOR leaves Woolsack and, still wearing wig and gown, lends new air of grace and dignity to Ministerial Bench. Sits between MARKISS and ASHBOURNE. Wonder what the MARKISS thinks of him? For a cheerful, social, soothing hour, imagine nothing more 'supreme than the confidences of the MARKISS in respect to some half-dozen other of his colleagues. Before Committee is reached, The MCCULLUM MORE comes to front, and modestly engrosses attention. Other Peers prepared, once in while, to buckle down to hard night's work, fighting over Clauses of Bill in Committee. That sort of obscure labour might suit them, but not the thing to attract the MCCULLUM MORE. Had already enjoyed himself on Second Reading, delivering one of those orations which, as COLCHESTER says, may be magnificent but are not debate. That should have satisfied vanity of ordinary man; but the MCCULLUM MORE not an ordinary man. There were several things he forgot to say in the speech. Others had occurred to him since. He might, without stopping progress of business, work them off in Committee; but in Committee he must needs stand on level with ordinary Peers anxious to get on with business, and his observations would probably not be reported. Thing to do was to move Instruction to Committee. This would bring him on first thing in a full House, before Peers had wearied themselves with application to real business. So gave notice of Instruction. Doesn't matter in what terms; sufficient that he was able to deliver his speech. MARKISS a little sarcastic in begging him not to press Instruction. Nobody showed inclination to debate it, but it had served its turn. Having delivered his speech, The MCCULLUM MORE stalked off home, leaving to others the drudgery of Committee work. Business done.-Land Bill through Committee in Lords.

Lord Colchester.

Friday Night.-Education Bill through Committee. Last scene of

And stagger with a half familiar
smile,

When, lo! he fell, remarking blandly,
Thish

All comes of tryin' to do the thing
thundered,
in shtyle!

66

Leave the room!"
He saw my fix,
And but retorted, "'Ere, you ain't
a Duke!

I'm not a-goin' without my three-
and-six!"

Thus came on me that Green-
grocer's Rebuke!

That

In,

banquet was our last. No more
we dined,"

now and then, perchance a
friend might drop.

It is our boast that he will ever find
At least the welcome of a homely
chop.

Some day, perhaps, when I have
made my pile,

And can from ostentatious show
refrain,

Without the Greengrocer to purchase
"style,'

I possibly once more may enter-
tain!

And so,-I know not how it came about,
But if by chance, it is a happy fluke
That I at length without the slightest doubt

Have lived to bless that Greengrocer's Rebuke!

QUELCHING QUELCH.-Mr. QUELCH, before the Labour Commission, is said to have expressed his opinion that "the liberty to combine should not involve the liberty not to combine." Doesn't Mr. QUELCH see, that without "liberty not to combine" there cannot be any "liberty to combine." For if a man is not at liberty to abstain from combination, it is obvious that he is compelled to combine; and compulsion is hardly liberty. Freedom lies in choice, and Mr. QUELCH would leave the workman none.

A MASK ON A MASK.

[A face-mask, the latest addition to the toilet, worn during the hours of
sleep, is designed to remove wrinkles.]

WEAR masks at night? Nay, when I saw your face,
Old but unwrinkled, topped with sunny ringlets,
Dear Lady OLDGARDE, while you made the pace,
And flitted like a fairy borne on winglets
From boy to boy, and flirted here and there
With that unchanging smile of rouged enamel,

I thought, "Since you are rich beyond compare,
And since the needle's eye doth bar the camel,
'Tis right perhaps that wealth should purchase youth,
And peaceful age become a ceaseless playtime;
Still, if you'd wear two masks to hide the truth,
Oh, wear this last one always in the daytime.

NOTICE.-Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule

Al ha no Acention.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. II.-TO SOCIAL AMBITION.

DEAR SIR, OR MADAM,

་་

I HAD not intended to annoy you with another letter. But since I addressed you last week I have received one or two communications-not from you, bien entendu, for you are too wary to disput the accuracy of what I have written; but from concrete human beings, who pretend to speak on your behalf, and deny that I have "proved my case. ." I might answer by saying that I never set out to prove a case-that I wished merely to enjoy a friendly chat with you, and to appeal to your clemency on behalf of the large class whom I ventured to represent by the DABCHICKS. But," says one of my detractors, in a letter now lying before me, "you have only given one instance. You have talked grandly about Queens, and Dukes, and actresses, and, in the end, you have put us off with a wretched story about the parvenu DABCHICK. For my part, I refuse to admit your authority until you prove, in greater detail, that you really know something of the subject on which you presumed to write." Sir," I reply, you are brusque, and somewhat offensive in the style you use towards me. For my part I do not admit that you are entitled to an answer from me, and I have felt disposed to pass you by in silence. But since there may be other weak vessels of your sort, I will do violence to myself, and pen another letter." And thus, my dear SOCIAL AMBITION, I once more take the liberty of addressing you, not without an inward tremor lest you should pounce upon me unawares, and cause me to expiate my rashness by driving me from the calm seclusion in which I spend my days, to

66

mingle with the feverish throng who wrangle JP. for place and precedence, myself the most feverish wrangler of them all. But, on the principle that we are both, in some sort, hawks, I think I may trust you to spare my

eyes, while I remind you of one or two incidents in which you bore a part.

upon him:

Clubs remark openly upon his ridiculous desire to pose as an earth-
shaking personage, and when he goes home he has to listen to a
series of bitter home-truths from the acrid ELVIRA. Would it not, I
ask, have been better for Sir GERVASE BLENKINSOP, K.C.M.G., to
have continued his ancient and aimless existence, than to have had a
fallacious greatness dangled before his eyes to the end of his
disappointed, but aspiring life?
One more instance, and I have done. Do you remember TOMMY
TIPSTAFF at Trinity? I do. He was, of
course, a foolish youth, but he might have
had a pleasant life in the fat living for
which his family intended him. In his
second year at the University, he met Sir
JAMES SPOOF, an undergraduate Baronet, of
great wealth, and dissolute habits. Poor
TOMMY was dazzled by his new friend's
specious glare and glitter, and his slapdash
manner of scattering his money. They
became inseparable. The same dealer sup-
plied them with immense cigars, they went
to race meetings, and tried to break the
ring. When Sir JAMES wished to gamble,
TOMMY was always ready to keep the bank.
And all the time poor Mrs. TIPSTAFF, in her
country home, was overjoyed at her darling's
success in what she told me once was the
most brilliant and remarkable set at Cam-
bridge.

Where is TOMMY now? The other day a ragged man shambled up to me, with a request that I should buy a box of lights from him. There was a familiar something about him. Could it be ТOMMY? The question was indirectly answered, for, before I could extract a penny, or say a word, he looked hard at me, turned his head away, and made off as fast as his rickety legs would carry him. Most men must have had a similar experience, but few know, as I do, that you, my dear SOCIAL AMBITION, urged the wretched TOMMY to his destruction.

On the whole, I dislike you. Those who obey you become the meanest of God's creatures.

Pardon my candour, and believe me,
DIOGENES ROBINSON.

Yours, without respect,

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

LORD COLERIDGE's summing up to the Jury in the action taken by excellent common sense, a quality much needed in the case. Mr. JONES, Jones (author of burlesques) v. Roberts (player of the same) was

66

And first BLENKINSOP knocks at the door of my memory. I bid him enter, and I see a tall slim youth, not ill-favoured, wearing well-cut clothes, and carrying a most beautiful, gold-topped Malacca cane delicately in his hand. He is smoking a cigar, and complains to me that his life is a succession of aimless days, and that he cannot find any employment to turn not our ENERY HAUTHOR, whose contempt for Burlesque generally is his hand to. That very night, I remember, he dined with me. We as well known as he can make it,-wrote to Mr. ARTHUR ROBERTS, went to the play together, and afterwards looked in at Lady formerly of the Music Halls and now of the legitimate Stage, styling ALICIA PARBOIL's dance. Dear Lady ALICIA, how plump she was, and him "Governor," and professed that he would "fit him to a T. how good-natured, and how well she married her fiddle-headed daugh- Poeta nascitur non ters. Her husband too, that clumsy, heavy-witted oaf, how cunningly true to what would probably be his comic version of the Latin fit," and the born burlesque-versifier was and how successfully withal she schemed for his advancement. Quid plura? you knew her well, she was devoted to you. I only speak proverb. But the inimitable ARTHUR, who does so much for himself of her to remind you that it was in her hospitable rooms that on the stage, hardly required any extraneous help, and at last GERVASE BLENKINSOP met you-and his fate. He had danced rejected the result of poor JONES's three months' hard labour at the for the second time that evening with ELVIRA PARBOIL, and, having Joe-Millery mill. This, however, was no joke to JONES, who straightreturned that blushing virgin to her accustomed corner, was just way decided that this time he would give the inimitable ARTHUR about to depart when the ample form of Lady ALICIA bore down something quite new in the way of a jest; and so, dropping the dialogue, Oh, Mr. BLENKINSOP," her Ladyship began, "I really law. Whatever Mr. ROBERTS may have thought of the words, he he came to the action," which, in this instance, was an action-atcannot allow you to go before I introduce you to Mr. WILBRAHAM. will hardly have considered the result of this case as I hear," she continued, "he has just lost his Private Secretary, and from his own private and peculiar point of view. But all Dramatic good business" who knows but that" Here she paused, and archly tapping her Authors,-with the solitary exception of Mr. YARDLEY, formerly protégé's cheek with her fan, she bore him off to introduce him to the famous in the field, but now better known in "The Lane," at pantoCabinet Minister. I watched the ceremony. Something whispered mime time, than to any Court where he has a legal right to appear in to me that BLENKINSOP was lost. Must I go through the whole wig and gown,-from the smallest, who write to please a "Governor," painful story? He became Private Secretary to his new Right up to the biggest, who write to please themselves, should rejoice at Honourable friend, and from that moment he was a changed man. the decision in the case of Jones v. Roberts. His cheery good-nature vanished. Instead of it he cultivated an air of pompous importance. One by one he weeded out his useless friends, and attached to himself dull but potentially useful big wigs who possessed titles and influence. At one of our last speaking interviews (we only nod distantly now when we meet), he hinted that in the next distribution of honours his name might be expected. It appeared, but, alas for gratitude, be had to satisfy himself with a paltry K.C.M.G., which his wife (I forgot to say that he married ELVIRA) despises. He is now a disappointed man whom his friends, if he had any, would pity. He is getting on in life; the affectations he so laboriously cultivated no longer amuse. The witlings of his

66

AN OMISSION AT THE GUILDHALL LUNCHEON.-On the occasion of the Civic Banquet to the German EMPEROR, an Alderman, distinguished for his courtesy to strangers, and his appreciation of good dishes, especially of anything at all spicy, wished to know why, as a compliment to their Imperial guest, they had omitted "pickelhaubes" from the bill of fare? He had understood, from well-informed friends, that the EMPEROR seldom went anywhere without some pickelhaubes," whatever they might be, as he himself, the worthy Alderman, had never had the opportunity of tasting one.

THE RED QUEEN AND THE WHITE; OR, ALICE IN THUNDERLAND.