Lady Midas. "Now FOR YOUR OPINION, DEAR!"

Ernest Raphael Sopely. "YES-YOUR CANDID OPINION, MRS. DE TOMKYNS."

Gorgius Midas, Junior. "As A FRIEND OF BOTH PARTIES, YOU KNOW-HAY, MRS. T. ?"

Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns (equal, as usual, to the occasion). "WELL-AS A MERE WORK OF ART, IT SURPASSES ANYTHING I HAVE EVER SEEN EITHER BY TITIAN, REMBRANDT, OR VELASQUEZ, AND WILL LIVE FOR EVER! BUT-AS A LIKENESS OF MY DEAREST LADY MIDAS, IT 18-YOU WILL FORGIVE ME FOR SAYING SO, MR. SOPELY?"-(the Artist bows)-"A LIBEL!"

[Exeunt all to dinner, in the best of spirits, and just as E. R. Sopely is on the point of offering to paint Mrs. P. de T. for nothing, Sir Gorgius gives him a Commission for two full-length Portraits of that admirable woman, one for her, and one for himself and "'er Ladyship."

This little man was young,

But he had a little tongue,

Which glibly and audaciously he'd wag, wag, wag.

And his followers-there were three !-
Cheered his talk with noisy glee,

And the Universe defied their mouths to gag, gag, gag.

And the Universe looked on,

Rather tickled at the fun;

Puck-Demiurgus really wasn't in it, in it, in it.

Like four Minnows amidst Tritons

Dwelt that quaint quartette of Crichtons,

And the Tritons were not troubled for a minute, minute, minute.

Then a crisis there arose,

And, as one might well suppose,

The little man that crisis rose to meet, meet, meet;

Gave his locks a defter curl,

His moustache a tighter twirl,

And pitched his vocal pipes to accents sweet, sweet, sweet.

With one hand upon his hip,

And the other with a grip

On his little-very little-sword of lath, lath, lath,

He thrasonically cried,
"Titans, I am on your side;

So you needn't fear the lions in your path, path, path.
"Though you look so tall and strong,
You're good giants quite gone wrong,
And you really, really are not a success, cess, cess.
From your simmering and surging,
I'm afraid that fear is urging

You to measures that will land you in a mess, mess, mess.
"But there, don't you be afraid!

I am coming to your aid,

If you'll only up and do the thing that's right, right, right.
Just you range yourselves behind me,
And come on! By George, you'll find me

A much more than modern Malbrook in the fight, fight, fight.

"On! There's nothing I won't dare!
Can you hear my voice up there?

I must get a pair of stilts yes, that's the plan, plan, plan!
Don't be frightened! Trust to me?
Why, I'll call up my brave Three,

And we four will fight for you-aye, like one man, man, man
Then those Titans twain looked down-
They were giants of renown-

At that perky, pigmy Paladin below, low, low,

And one of them gave a puff
Of derision. 'Twas enough.

Lo! the Lilliputian vanished with the blow, blow, blow!

THE GIANTS
GIANTS AND THE PIGMY.

THE LITTLE FOURTH PARTY. "HAVE NO FEAR, VALIANT SIRS!-BEAR IN MIND THAT YOU HAVE MY SUPPORT!!"

THE CORRUPT PRACTICES BILL.

SIR HENRY, you're hard on the British Elector;
In future a vote will be not "worth a rap;

Of bribery you 're a ferocious detector,

And publicans even must turn off the tap.
If this Bill should pass, a man's out of his senses,
Whoever a Candidate's views may promote;
Why, hang it, you won't allow pay or expenses,
So, pray, what's the use of an Englishman's Vote?

The days are all fled when the free, independent
Elector gratuitous grog could imbibe;

His law-ridden son and unhappy descendant
Will go off to prison for giving a bribe.

Time was when the Candidate's affable manners

Were nought without gold, and a vote was a boon. No more can we charge for our poles and our banners. Farewell in the future to "Men in the Moon."

No more will elections be festival seasons,

But dull as the water that lies in a ditch;
And Members won't bribe, for the best of all reasons-
Your penalties-making the poor like the rich.
Oh, England, my country! in silence and sorrow
I blush for your state, and your woes I bewail.
I'll give up my right to the franchise to-morrow,
For what's a Vote worth if it isn't for sale ?

For Value Received.

FROM The Academy we learn that Lord SUFFOLK'S famous La Vierge aux Rochers by LEONARDO, has been secured for the National Gallery for £9,000. Bravo! Exactly one thousand less than Messrs. LONGMANS are said to have paid for Endymion. What will be the value of Lord BEACONSFIELD's work when it attains the age of LEONARDO's picture? Give it up: incalculable.

Confidential Friend (to elderly and not unattractive Spinster). "So, DEAR, YOU'VE
GIVEN UP ADVOCATING WOMEN'S RIGHTS?"

Elderly Spinster. "YES, I NOW GO IN FOR WOMEN'S LEFTS."
Confidential Friend. "WOMEN'S LEFTS! WHAT'S THAT?"
Elderly Spinster. "WIDOWERS, MY DEAR!"

SCHOOL-BOARD PAPERS.-No. 3.

THE object of all education, as you are doubtless aware, is to soften your manners and suffer you not to be brutal. The kind, good, and patient ratepayer, who finds the money to refine you, is under the impression that he or his children will reap the benefit of this refinement in a decrease of criminality, or rather illegality, and its consequent expenses. Let him not live and die under a false impression. Soften your manners to the consistency of pap. Never let your angry passions rise beyond the level of genteel indignation; never let your more or less little boots, and the more or less little feet that are in them, be found jumping on a sister or a mother. Check unruly speech. Your little tongues were never formed to make disrespectful observations about each other's eyes.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

As the clause concerning flogging has virtually dropped out of the Whiteboy Act, Sir W. V. HARCOURT's new Bill, into which such a clause, must be introduced for the benefit of the dirty mischievous gamins, might be called, for all purposes of allusion and quotation, "The Blackboy Act.

and all classes; in the case of ladies you are bound to be even more careful. Let me impress upon you that a woman is never ugly, she is only homely. If she is accused of being forward, you must say she is progressive; if they go further and say she is free and easy, you must alter these words to liberal and unrestricted; and when the Poet (I think it is SHAKSPEARE) insists upon giving her the name of frailty, you must alter this offensive word to imperfection. Do all you can to so regulate your speech that no one will notice or care to remember what you say; and, above all, avoid the abusive language which I am sorry to say is creeping even into once respectable journals. I need do no more than allude to the disgraceful attacks which have been made in Punch on that great and good man the Duke of MUDFORD. When such an ornament of the vegetable kingdom is held up to unmerited ridicule, we naturally ask what next, and next?-and pause for a reply.

* And may be made again.-ED.

The Conspirators in Bombay.

WHEN the Professional Magicians employed by the Indian Conspirators failed to bring up money out of the earth by their charms -they were evidently not young lady magicians-they very wisely They would have proved themselves better conjurors had they begun recommended another way of raising money, i.e., by subscription. with this method, which the cookery books would call "another and a shorter way."

I say check unruly speech. I may go further, and say never use language that is not largely diluted with water. Never say you loathe a thing, when you have such a harmless word as dislike. Never call people vicious when you can describe them as faulty. Never accuse a man of impudence when you can say he has a little too much confidence; never say he is headstrong when you have such a word as venturesome. Remember that nothing is atrocious, it is only notorious; that no one is callous, he is only unsusceptible: Remember that no one cheats, he only beguiles; that no one is criminal, he is only illegal; that no one commits a blunder, he is only guilty of an error of judgment. Things that coarse people would call trash, you must speak of as trifles; things that coarser people would call filthy, you must speak of as dingy; things that both would call gaudy, you must speak of as glittering. Never forget that people are not fools or foolish, they are simply simple; NEW PHRASES.-"Boycotting a Landlord" is now accepted. To that they are not vulgarly fat, but pleasantly adipose; that no one describe the means used to prevent citizens from serving on a Jury, gorges, but only fills himself; that murder is softened into despatch; or to intimidate them when they had once been sworn, the phrase that lies must always be called fibs, and the man who creates lies" Em-parnelling the Jury" might be used. For a witness perjuring must be called a fibber. himself under intimidation, we might have as an expressive phrase

This is only general politeness, which you will show to all sexes "taking his Half-a-Davitt."