Various

“ Moral for many southern railway, tram, and omnibus companies—Go and do likewise! Moral for Glasgow citizens—Get carried over your tram-lines often enough, and you'll carry over a big dividend to decrease your next year's rates! ”

“ A Dividend Deserved.—The Glasgow Town Council has been running its own tram-cars for a year past, and has cleared more than £20,000 of profit for the citizens out of the business. There is huge rejoicing on the Clyde, and no wonder, as the result is due to sheer good management, without over-charging the public or over-driving the drivers. ”

“ Balfour glanced scathingly at those politicians of the baser sort who seek to confuse great issues by dragging to the front petty or irrelevant questions, and the breath of whose nostrils is the disturbance of the harmony which should subsist between class and class of the community. ”

“ Which, to my Baronite, suggests the difficulty that, if the minister fans the lady with his shadowy pinions "gently," he will fail to produce anything resembling a "midnight gale"; on the other hand, if he performs the part of invisible punkah so energetically as to suggest a gale, he can hardly help awakening her unless she is a very heavy sleeper indeed—and might give her a cold in the head. ”

“ Or more than mere Mare Streets will be on the move.
Big Monopolist Mammon, how calm could you rest
With your dividends high in the way you love best;
But when water runs short, and diseases increase,
The East End won't leave you and your Water at peace. ”

“ I anger myself. I cry, "Coacher, I have said you George Street." "Olraïtt, maounsiah," say he, "this is George Street." "Not here," I respond. "Is there two George Streets?" Then he swear, he laugh; he ask that he may be blown; he say more, that I comprehend not. ”

“ He was so much wilder than they, and wanted his own way too much and too often for the old and recognised leaders of their flocks. And as to the wild geese, why he soon lost sympathy with their "revolutionary programmes" and "subversive schemes," which he learned to regard indeed as a sort of wild goose chase, and deride and denounce as vehemently as he had aforetime praised them. ”

“ I was immensely struck, a few days ago, by a passage in a speech recently delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he explained his method of dispelling those passing fits of ill-temper from which, alas! not even Archbishops are wholly free. "At times," so ran the report of His Grace's words, "anger or irritation came upon him, but on the table he kept a book of pleasant poems, of which he would read a few lines, and the irritation would melt away." ”

“ I was about to add one or two of Wordsworth's sonnets, when I realised that my uncle had long since disappeared, and that I was surrounded by a jeering crowd, who evidently supposed me to be a member of the Salvation Army.
On the following morning I received a visit from Snips, my tailor. He was impolite enough to suggest a settlement of what he termed my "small account," a demand, as I politely but plainly assured him, which was altogether absurd. As he showed distinct symptoms of irritation at this juncture, I began to read him a scene from Measure for Measure. ”

“ The author writes like a classical scholar, his lines are fluent and melodious, his metre and rhyme unimpeachable, while some of the poems, such as "Zaleucus" and "A Vision," rise distinctly above the general level. In others there are passages which my Baronite—a sadly prosaic and matter-of-fact person—owns to having found slightly obscure.
For example, in the following couplet:—
"In vain the fickle demon sports
With fetid remnants of decay." ”

“ The golfer was obliged, of course, to lift the ball and place it behind, as it would have been gross cruelty to have played it from the nest. It was match play. Under the exceptional circumstances was he bound to lose the hole? The editor replies that if a player were a stickler for the law and nothing but the law, he, of course, would be entitled to enforce it against his opponent who found the ball in the nest. ”

“ But after all, poetry, as my Baronite fully recognises, is not meant to be judged by so literal a standard, and it may be cheerfully conceded that there are many people who make a less profitable use of their "Leisure Time" than Mr. ”

“ If it flies like a bird, there's no need to explain;
If not, then the ways of that golfer are dark,
Who attempts, though the effort is doomed to be vain,
To stand, taking tee on the back of a lark.
There has been some excitement at Weston-super-Mare. The "Conservative party organized a reception for the Hon. G. H. Jolliffe on his first appearance in the town since his election for the Wells division. ”

“ Further, the Committee have given effect to what they believe to be the general feeling of the citizens—viz., that the cars, which necessarily form a notable feature of the streets of the city, should not only be tasteful in design and colour, and comfortable for passengers, but also that their general appearance should not be marred or their destinations obscured by advertisements. ”

“ He soon required the students to sign an agreement to be gentlemen. A violation of the pledge resulted in the termination of their careers at Amherst." This sounds strange, for it would appear that if no pledge had been given the students might have behaved as they liked, without terminating their careers. The idea of solemnly pledging yourself to be a gentleman is quite colossal. ”

“ He flapped his wings, and arched his neck, as he cried in the fullness of his heart:—
"I never dreamed of such happiness when I was the Brummagem Ugly Duckling."
* * *
It matters not being born in a duck-yard if one is hatched from a swan's egg!
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
In Leisure Time, by W. S. Mavor (Elliot Stock) is, so my Baronite reports, a daintily-bound little volume of blameless verse, unambitious, as may be inferred from its title. ”

“ Leo Hunter. How interesting! I suppose you must have become almost savage!
Mr. W. Frequently, when I couldn't get a 'bus or a cab.
Mrs. L. H. (utterly astonished) . A 'bus or a cab! in the bush!!
Mr. W. (pleasantly) . Ah, yes; I was talking of "Shepherd's Bush." Good morning.
[Exit chuckling.
⁂ Note by the Bird in the Bush.—In future this little jest of Waggy's will be impossible, as it is proposed to re-name Shepherd's Bush, and call it Pastoral Park, or All-Askew Park, or something of the sort.]
"Sortes Shaksperianæ."—On the new Postmaster-General:—
"Friend post the Duke of Norfolk." ”