Various

“ Q. Do you obtain any social advantages by wearing the uniform of a Volunteer?
A. No; on the contrary, the grade of a private in the long run causes considerable expense; and the commission of an officer is inseparable from large expenditure and a loss of self-respect.
Q. Why is the holding of a commission of a Volunteer officer "inseparable from a loss of self-respect"? ”

“ The four strangers were gathered together in the all-but-deserted inn. They were forced to enter into conversation, because the solitary periodical taken in by the landlord had been read from title to imprint by everyone of them.
"A strange article," said the first, as he laid down the Lancet. "And so men disappear entirely for awhile, and then come back to their homes and profession as if nothing had happened." ”

“ Great was the bâton-wielder 'tis your fortune to succeed;
But tackle your big task, Sir, without fear!
Punch trusts the name of Gully on Fame's roll will not shine dully
At the end!
Now tune up string and bow, let the New Conductor know
That he finds in each performer a fair friend!
PARTY POLITICS. First Man (conciliatory) . You're a Tory?
Second Man (also conciliatory) . Well, no. I'm a Unionist. Yes, a Unionist. Certainly I don't approve of Home Rule——
First Man. Don't say that. I think well of Home Rule.
Second Man. Oh, do you? Well, I agree with the Liberals in some ways. ”

“ A. It is probable that it has been created by the consideration that a Volunteer officer is chaffed by his friends, sneered at by his enemies, and mulcted of much money by his comrades.
Q. Then a Volunteer officer or private usually joins the force from the most patriotic of motives? ”

“ It's reel good fun to hear the Counsellors tork about the Copperation nowadays! such a difference to what it was about a year ago! Then it was all bragging and boasting, now it's all begging your pardon, and arsking your grace, and it shant occur again! I never thort to see such a change, and it's really werry emusing. The two places where they speshally seems not at all at their ease are the Court of Common Counsel and the Manshun House; and in both of these honnerd places the few as wenters in do look uncumferal indeed! and the reel natives don't show them no pitty! ”

“ Shall make him Minister of Agriculture. Have sent ultimatums to Salisbury, Balfour, Akers-Douglas, Michael Hicks-Beach, and Chaplin, ordering them to retire from public life. Shall run the show on entirely different lines with Austen and Jesse to help me. Have heard from editor of New Review, who refuses to disclose name of author, of an attack on me. Have sent Henry James to editor with new patent rack and thumbscrews. But there, my name's easy. Never could bear malice. Always forgive everybody.... Notes from Salisbury, Balfour & Co. They refuse to retire. ”

“ Shall refuse peerage and retire to Central Australia with Jesse to found a Me-colony. Sick of the whole show.
QUEER QUERY.—Any Advance?—I see that at the Shop Assistants' Conference at Cardiff it was said that what shop-workers ought to go in for was a "Forward Policy." Surely this must be a mistake? If there is one thing that everybody objects to, it is forward young men and women behind the counter. One often hears the shop-walker say, "Will you come forward, Miss Jones, and serve this lady!" ”

“ Even a fool of a lord might know a man can't wriggle out of everything, and can't please everybody. Have written to Salisbury ordering him to throw Teynham into the Tower as soon as Unionist Government in power. ”

“ Angelina (writing in her own room) . "Dear Edwin, I call you by your christian name, for the last time. I can never be yours. I am convinced from all I have heard that marriage is a failure. Sincerely yours, Angelina."
[Scene closes in upon a flood of tears.
HEXAMETERS TO DATE; AND A PREHISTORIC PEEP. [Mr. Flinders Petrie has just excavated the city of Ombi on the Nile, and vindicated Juvenal's geographical reputation.] ”

“ Whoi denged if Oi wouldn't jump that 'ere little Place wi' a Jackass!"
Second Countryman. "Maybe yer would, ma Lad; but yer see that 'ere 'Oss don't seem to care about Jumping wi' a Jackass!"
THE JAP IN THE CHINA SHOP; OR, THE NEW "OPEN SESAME." ["China, properly opened up, would be an El Dorado for mankind.... The true conquest effected by the war is the conquest of the right to a market, and that apparently on an enormous scale."
"Daily News" on the terms of Peace between China and Japan.]
Little Jap loquitur:—
Come, wake up, old chap! ”

“ Ever so many on em belongs to the Tems Conserwancy, and so we are offen hearing of their going up the River, when there's two much water there, and hoffering to show the poor natives how to get a lot of it away, but from what I hears they don't seem for to be werry sucksessful. ”

“ A. I mean that it stands to reason that as only a small percentage of our people are trained to arms, and ninety-six per cent of our neighbours are converted into soldiers, the latter, in the case of a quarrel with us, would have the upper hand. ”

“ Buried à la trussed fowl, with heads on which wavy brown hair rose;
These were the folk who once made things pretty hot for the Pharaohs.
Dig then, Petrie, away 'mid potsherds, mummies, and cinders,
Delve on, and add fresh towns to the underground kingdom of Flinders!
The Baron de Book-Worms. OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. Hearty congratulations from the Baron and his assistants to Mr. H. W. Lucy on his delightful life of Mr. Gladstone (W. H. Allen & Co) . No one certainly has had better opportunities than Toby, M.P., for studying the great statesman in all his varying moods ”

“ Brown and me has been a having sum rare good fun lately. We has managed to see and hear a good deal about the County Counsellers, and werry emusing we finds em to be. They suttenly does manage to quarrell among each other more than I shood have thort posserbel. There's a depperty Counseller among em who will tork whenever he gets a hoppertunity, yes and keeps the pot a biling, as Brown says, for nearly arf a nour at a time, and then finds hisself beaten into a cocked at, and so has to sit down, while the others has a jolly larf. ”