Volume 105, December 2, 1893.

_edited by Sir Francis Burnand_

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TO A LADY.

(_Whose "Fringe" has fallen off at a Ball._)

Alas! those waving curls, That parting on your brow, Had been some other girl's! "Vhere ish dot barting now?"

Like BREITMANN'S barty gone Avay in _ewigkeit_, Those curls which you put on To grace the ball to-night.

Too feeble were the pins, Too frisky were your hops; Derisive are the grins, Departing parting drops.

A parting, this, that shocks Beholders evermore; You dare not claim those locks Now lying on the floor.

I used to think them fair, I find them false instead; If thus you lose your hair, I shall not lose my head.

Nor certainly my heart-- With that I should not care So readily to part As you with purchased hair.

We kick those curls aside. Your looks and locks have fled, Then hasten home to hide Your much diminished head.

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DON PEDRO D'ALCANTARA LE COMTE D'EU is eighteen. He is pursuing his studies at a Military Academy, speaks German fairly well, and in his leisure hours is, we are informed, "studying Polish." The latter being acquired, he will become a most polish'd Prince. He is so very well off that he will not have to go to Brazil for a crown.

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PRINCE ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG.

Europe's Prince Charming, lion-like, born to dare, Betrayed by the black treacherous Northern Bear! Soldier successful vainly, patriot foiled, Wooer discomfited, and hero spoiled! Triumphant champion of Slivnitza's field, To sordid treachery yet doomed to yield; Of gallant heart and high-enduring strain, Valiant resultlessly, victor in vain! Motley career of mingled shine and shame, Material fashioned for romantic fame! An age more chivalrous you should have seen, When brutal brokers, and when bagmen keen, Shamed not the sword and blunted not the lance. Then had you been true Hero of Romance. Now, when to Mammon Mars must bow his crest, King-errantry seems a Quixotic quest, And "unfulfilled renown" finds only--early rest!

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A VALETUDINARIAN'S VISDOM.

Evening red and morning grey Makes _me_ by the fireside stay. Evening grey and morning red Finds _me_ tucked up all day in bed!

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CURIOUS BUT TRUE.--So particular are the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers to have everything in order, that they have this year elected as Prime Warden a fine SALMON (ROBERT H.).

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

"With the New Year," says a Baronite, "there is a great desire to turn over a new leaf." Such intentions are easily satisfied by the _Back-Loop Pocket Diaries_, where leaves for this purpose are plentifully supplied by JOHN WALKER & CO. Likewise DE LA RUE & CO. offer Diaries and Memorandum Books in every size and form, and this year they have a patent clip to keep the leaf down. Ought to be advertised as "clipping!"

The Baron's Baronites look into a box of Christmas books and find, first--_Westward with Columbus_. By GORDON STABLES, M.D.C.M. Graphic account. "STABLES must have been in excellent form when writing this," observes a Baronite; "evidently he was not Livery Stables."--_Wreck of the Golden Fleece._ By ROBERT LEIGHTON. A capital sea story, plenty of rocks and wrecks, hardships and plague-ships, and all sorts of wonderful adventures.--_The White Conquerors of Mexico_, by KIRK MUNROE, tells how CORTES and his Spaniards, being white, did MONTEZUMA and his Aztic natives brown.--_With the Sea Kings._ F. H. WINDER. The youthful amateur salt will find everything here to satisfy all his cravings and _See-kings_. "_Winder_ has taken great _panes_ with this," says Baronitess.

"My clients," quoth the Baron, "will do well to read BARING-GOULD'S cheap _Jack Zita_." Fascinating book by reason of its picturesque effects and its description of life in the Fens at the commencement of the present century. "I wonder," muses the Baron, "whether any of my readers, being Cantabs, will call to mind how some thirty-five years ago the names of those eminent amateur pugilists J-CK SH-FF-LD, F-RG-SS-N D-V-E, L-NN-X C-NN-NGH-M, and others were associated with life in the Fens as it existed at that time, and how these pupils of NAT LANGHAM'S now and again disputed the championship of a certain Fen Tavern, won it, and for a time held it? Some undergraduates were hand and glove with the Fenners--not the cricket-ground, so styled, but the dwellers in Fen-land; and on occasion they were hand to hand without the 'glove.'" Why this question? "Because," says the Baron, "one of the scenes so graphically described in the chapter, headed 'Burnt Hats,' might have been witnessed at the time I have referred to by any undergraduate sufficiently venturesome to accompany those fisticuffers." As for the plot, well, 'tis a good plot, and has always been a good plot, and "twill serve, 'twill serve." But it is the BARING-GOULD flavouring that makes the dish acceptable to the jaded palate of oldest novel-devourer.

BARON DE B.-W.

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GOOD LUCK TO IT!

(_To Mr. Caine and his Bill prohibiting advertisements in rural places._)

Oh, Mr. CAINE, for this relief much thanks. As most benignant benefactor ranks The man who saves our own sweet countryside-- At once our chiefest glory and our pride-- From all the many nauseating ills Which come out of advertisements of pills! Pills there must be, but when we chance to pass Through meadows and would rest our eyes on grass, Or pleasantly meander by the river, We would forget we've even got a liver. So here's success to you, Sir, in your Bill To make it wrong to advertise a pill In rural spots in which we fondly now Associate "three acres and a cow!" And when success this rural venture yields, Do for the beaches what's done for the fields!

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"INVISIBLE TROUSER STRETCHERS."--Legs.

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THE BABES ON THE TREASURY BENCH.

["The leader of the Opposition had treated them to good logic, but why administer such strong meat to the babes on the Treasury bench?"--_Mr. Courtney on the Parish Councils Bill._]

We have heard of the Babes in the Wood, And the ruffians greedy and cruel, Who (as INGOLDSBY said in gay mood) Conspired for to "give them their gruel"; But pitiful bosoms will blench At this vision of BALFOUR the sinister, To Babes on the Treasury Bench Presuming his dose to administer! They find Doctor BALFOUR, one fears, Worse than poor _Davy Copperfield's Creakle_; As awful as grim _Mrs. Squeers_ With her jorum of brimstone and treacle. Ah, COURTNEY, how _could_ you conceive A picture so Mephistophelian? Your buzzum is stone, I believe, And your heart must be truly a steely 'un! Sweet Babes! They seem likely to choke! Poor GLADDY! Poor JOHNNIE! Poor WILLY! ARTHUR'S "logic" is tougher than "toke," And much more insipid than "skilly." Strong meat? How your irony _you_ barb, Your humour's as grim as the gallows. Your dose is as drastic as rhubarb, And almost as bitter as aloes. Logic? For Babes? On that Bench? You're as hard as the Poles' "whiskered pandour." You might as well set out to drench Your own Opposition with--candour! The Treasury Babes may object To prescriptions from MILL or from WHEWELL, And logical draughts, I expect, Would very soon give _you_ your gruel. If COURTNEY could physic himself, Or BALFOUR and he dose each other, How soon both would lay on the shelf This prescription, and try quite another! No; Reason, as party-strife goes, As food is attractive to no men: And Logic's a nauseous dose, To be given--as physic--to foemen!

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"What author was it," inquired Mrs. R. of a literary friend, "who wrote the line describing going to bed as '_that last infirmity of noble minds_'?"

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"HARK! I HEAR THE SOUND OF COACHES."

["There are still five of the road-coaches running out of London."--_Daily News, Nov. 18._]

If drooping with toil, or aught else, I or You may spring up with "Excelsior!"

As up to the box-seat one climbs, "How pleasant," one murmurs, "'Old Times!'"

Times equally good, we'll engage, Have others who go with "The Age."

Though outlooks to-morrow be livid, Hold tight now a joy that is "Vivid."

"_Post equitem?_" Ah! his reliance, At least, wasn't placed on "Defiance."

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RATHER FAMILIAR!--It was announced in the _Times_ that "Canon G. F. BROWNE will lecture at St. Paul's, in January," on "_The Christian Church before the coming of Augustus_." The Canon ought to have said "_Sir_ AUGUSTUS." Of course there is only one "AUGUSTUS," _i.e._ our "DRURIOLANUS."

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UNDER THE ROSE.

(_A Story in Scenes._)