Various

“ By the player at labour but seldom found,
Or the amateur—though gifted.
Who has not seen a street-child run
To turn an organ-handle—for fun—
With gay, erratic vigour?
But the grinder who turns at it day by day
Finds Ah che la morte no pleasant play,—
He works at it—-"like a nigger."
So "well-to-do women who crowd the ranks"
Of Labour are playing but childish pranks;
They are butterfly despoilers
Of the honeyed hives of the working bees;
They lower the wage and lessen the ease
Of the true fate-destined toilers. [A]
"Work for mere love!" ”

“ But alas, the curse of civilisation cannot be got rid of; one has to think of cartridges, cartridge-bags, caps, boots, gaiters, stockings, and heaven knows what besides. And in the end the odds are quite ten to one that you forget your cartridge-magazine, or that your beautiful new pair of patent hammerless ejector guns get left under the seat of the railway-carriage and become for a day or two the sport of station-masters and porters on the Great Eastern Railway.
"Shooting the outsides" is a sport by itself. Your one desire is to keep the birds off the land of your neighbours ”

“ The partridge is the cunningest.
So much for the partridge. Before many weeks are over it is quite possible that I may have to promote the pheasant to the top rank of cunning. And this I know full well about my friend the pheasant, that, although he is a large bird and seems to fly slowly, he is a very hard bird to hit, as he ought to be hit. And most of us find it much easier to hit the immeasurable space by which every bird on the wing is surrounded. ”

“ Your best covey gets up and pops comfortably into a lovely root-field a couple of hundred yards away, but you cannot go after it, for the field belongs to another property, and the derisive birds can chirp and run at their ease, while you tramp on, shotless, under a broiling sun. However, the outsides have to be made good, and now and then a slice of luck rewards you. For instance, if a neighbouring vicar has given notice that after a certain date he means to shoot over his own glebe, your delight is all the keener when you all but annihilate a large covey of birds whose home is on the glebe. ”

“ ROUNDABOUT READINGS. Relieved for a space by my own decree from the mere labour of searching for topics in the newspaper press of the United Kingdom, I have been seeking recreation in the pursuit, how often unavailing, of the partridge. "Come down on Thursday next," wrote my friend, Hartey, "for four or five days. We are going to shoot our outsides." ”

“ He says he hopes I shall spend a great deal of time in the still-room, to which I heartily assent, though neither of us know exactly what a still-room is, but it sounds quiet. Women, Arthur thinks, should preserve fruits, and a lady-like demeanour, and do plain needle-work, or perhaps "tatting." Art embroidery he looks on with doubt, and I believe he considers it fast. ”

“ Gil Blas-é.—Charles Lamb declared the human species to be divided into two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend, of which he considered the former to be infinitely superior to the latter, and consequently designated them the "Great Race." Now, undoubtedly the great race in Paris at present is the female race, the race of lady bicyclists who, not content with borrowing men's hearts, have appropriated the masculine garment as well. ”

“ It is rather a charming quality in a man to whom one is engaged—don't you think so? Such a love as ours cannot fail to have an ennobling effect: as Arthur says, it seems to lift us above all thoughts of this world. ”

“ PLAYING AT WORK. A New Morality.
["The working woman of to-day, be she journalist, teacher, or what not, is suffering terribly from fierce competition, and this is largely due to the fact that women who are merely working for pleasure enter the labour market."—"An Old-Fashioned Woman" in the "Daily Chronicle."] ”

“ They do suit us exactly: not down to the ground, as they are first floor. A room with balcony, in the shade all day, facing north, commanding a lovely sea view. What more could mortal require?
* * *
The air of Cromer, where there is "nothing between you and the North Pole"—so any malicious reports to the contrary may be safely disregarded—is most exhilarating. But the dust O! The dust! On with the water-carts, and down with sandy dust! It is all sand—everywhere. As to situation the Semi-Grand has a decided, and sea-sided, advantage over the other hotels. ”

“ She has the faculty of appreciation for scenes in town and country, at home and abroad. She "sails away in a galliant ship" like Roy Neil's bride into Icebergian regions, where "we pray under our breaths for illuminating sunshine and the ice bink is given us in half-miraculous substitution." "Half-miraculous" is good. Half a miracle better than no miracle at all.
Then on another occasion writes Aureole:—
"We find our way into a gleamy wood, and I gather some crimson berries, oozing from a cool green bank like drops of blood, while unfamiliar blossoms flourish in gay clusters at my feet." ”

“ Whom deft flower-mounting once fed and clad
Shall find redress a rarity.
Don't play at Reform, it you love your neighbour!
But well-to-do women, your "playing at Labour"
Works worse than playing at Charity!
Work? ”

“ How is that, when they are driven to the guns, they always select a novice and unanimously fly over his head? There is an unerring instinct about them. Your novice may disguise himself in all the sport-stained paraphernalia of a veteran shooter. ”

“ We have been told of a village, "in the Ausonian hills," peopled by retired organ-grinders who, having amassed a fortune—resulting from bribes, given by the despairing citizen, as an inducement to the torturer to remove himself "to the next street"—repair thither to enjoy an otium cum dignitate, untroubled by any qualm of conscience for the suffering inflicted by them upon patient Britons. ”

“ It is, therefore, the more surprising that Yorkshiremen have not taken adequate means for the protection of "a massive piece of millstone grit which, from time immemorial, has stood on a rising ground overlooking the Aire Valley." Reclining in the shade of this historic stone—named after him—"bold Robin Hood would, with his Maid Marian, sup and bowse from horn and can," using it as a kind of half-way house, so to speak, on his journeys to York. But oh, shade of Friar Tuck, thou genial exemplar (dare we hint it?) of what is known as the "sporting" parson—a type, alas! ”

“ With the arrangements of the salle à manger as worked at the Semi-Grand under the superintendence of a distinguished and invaluable foreigner garçon en chef, very little fault can be found. The experiments of the youthful and less-experienced subordinates who are probably there to learn English, are interesting from a certain point of view, which is attained when, under the guardianship of their chief, or one of his trusty lieutenants, you have had everything you require. ”

“ To the bicycle and cigarette, for women, he has an equally strong objection, and I think he often pretends not to see a joke because he has a nervous suspicion of its being what he would call the New Humour. ”

“ Pancras to Cromer) to within ten minutes, we drove up to the door of the Semi-Grand in our one-horse fly. Not a soul about. Surely the hotel is open? Yes, the driver knew that much, "because he had taken some people away from there in the morning." These might have been the last roses of summer, the last visitors at the hotel for the season! We waited; no signs of life. "Should he (the driver) ring?" Certainly: a most happy thought. He descendeth; he ringeth. We wait. ”

“ Then he starts: while there is life there is hope! he answers the summons! And so forth. Then imagine the Apothecary with the money after Romeo's departure!! As the scene is closing the Apothecary should be seen bucking himself up, and preparing to go out to make a night of it at the nearest restaurant. Should Mr. Forbes-Robertson be making any alterations he is welcome to these suggestions.
Mrs. Pat Juliet Campbell making herself into a Japanese Puzzle as she takes a Father's Curse. ”

“ Murphy, Cork, be used in the workhouse instead of Guinness's." His argument was that "it would help a local manufacture," and that "the doctors all approved of Murphy's." The chairman suggested that they might "be doing an injustice to the patients by taking in Murphy's stout." Why not put the question to the patients? It is they who will have to "take in Murphy's stout," not the guardians, and they are not likely to "do themselves the injustice" of refusing it if drinkable. Murphy's stout is evidently a light brew, as it was "carried by one." ”

“ I says, being roughed up a bit by 'er stuckuppy manner,
"It wouldn't 'a' bit you, or burnt you, if you 'adn't opened it, I'll bet a quid to a tanner."
Whereon she flounced off without paying no fare. "Humph!" snorts the old gent, and forks over a shilling.
Talk about 'onesty! Give the respectables charnce of a safe bite, and ain't they just willing?
'Onesty's scarcer than millions, I reckon. You just leave a purse or a pencil-case 'andy
For fares to lay 'old on, and see if there's much of a choice 'twixt poor Cabby and polished-up dandy. ”

“ He is evidently engaged in practising the pastime above referred to. On the right is a curious triangular object, in which we can scarcely be wrong in seeing a primitive tent or pavilion, an adjunct of great importance to the players in times of hunger. ”

“ Fares when they want you to pull up 'ave got little thought for your eyes and they don't stick at trifles.
But this was a rayther unusual prodder! "'Old 'ard, Miss," I says. "Wot's this 'ere little caper?"
"Oh, Cabby!" she squeals, "put me down! ”