Various

“ Boys learning to read, and then spending their pence upon "Highwaymen" trash;
Lads knowing the pons asinorum, who can't make a door or a sash;
Louts lolloping round on the loose, spouting fragments of Socialist stuff;
Mobs of "workmen," played shuttlecock with by the ranter, the "red," and the rough;
True hands by the thousand left idle, poor mouths by the myriad unfilled,
Because Wealth's so hard upon Labour, and Labour's so often unskilled ”

“ Saturday.—Make for Tullamore, meaning to finish up with an instantaneous photograph of O'Brien. Call on Governor of Gaol and explain that I should like to take his prisoner, "clothes and all, just as he is, having a meal, if possible, so as to satisfy the outside public as to his general condition and appearance." Bids me mind my own business, and endeavours to slam the door in my face. Tell him I shall certainly photograph his attitude in the matter. Focus him. Makes a rush at me, kicks me into the street, and smashes my camera. ”

“ A better fellow, take him all round, there isn't in either House. Just the man to be Lord Rector of a Scotch University, if he cares to undertake the office. Since then, however, L-tt-n comes along, and with that stupendous ambition for personal distinction which I don't understand, not satisfied with being Ambassador to Paris, wants to be Lord Rector of Glasgow University. Of course they come to me to back him up,—a peculiarly hot corner to put a fellow in. It happens not only that I have published my opinion about R-s-b-ry, but all the world knows what I think of L-tt-n. ”

“ This Negus evidently is not so sweet as usual: a little punch-in' his head would do him some good. At all events this Negus must be stirred up and taken down pretty sharply.
THE TOWN MOUSE'S TRIALS.
[Dr. Milner Fothergill has published a pamphlet on The Effects of Town Life upon the Human Body.]
O Doctor Milner Fothergill, it's hard to hear you state,
That people who must dwell in towns will all deteriorate;
We all live at too fast a rate, and ought to be more placid,
And, like the Ichthyosaurus, we develop too much acid. ”

“ To read penny papers won't feed you, if you haven't pence in your purse.
Men can't live on cackle not nohow, the bulk of 'em that is to say;
A few gassy spouts can, of course; for they prate, don't you see, and we pay;
But that rule will not work all round, thanks be!—a skilled hand, a sharp eye
Are the artisan's proper rig-out; and as for the rest of it, why
Mr. Schoolmaster there does his best with his 'ologies, 'isms, and things,
But if a man's lot is to trudge, it is small use a-fitting him wings. ”

“ If me and my mates and the masters, the Book and the Bench, could combine
To take the job fairly in hand, I suppose we could strike out a line.
Odd luck if we couldn't, at least; but we don't pull together, you see:
Pull devil pull baker's the game,—it's a mad one, as most will agree.
The Book and the Bench! There's the nip. And a fellow will see—if he'll look—
That although the three R's are good value, a man cannot live by the Book. ”

“ I draws a whale over the thrilling contrast; there's sum things as is best left to the emadgination, speshally such things as them things. And when at length they seeks their tired homes, what has they to console 'em for their long day's pushing and scrowging? ”

“ I spent the rest of the evening in admiring a lady who claimed to be one of the strongest women, if not the very strongest woman in the world, and wondering why, before having a cannon fired off, from the support of her shoulder, she should think it necessary to wave the British flag and appear in the costume of Britannia. ”

“ I do not pretend to see further through a ladder than an ordinary passer-by; but it is clear to me that you can never have a Government rival to the regular Liberals (observe, I do not say a Conservative Government) without Gr-nd-lph. It is no secret that I have never hankered after Gr-nd-lph, neither liking him, nor believing in him. You know what Dr. J-hns-n said about C-ll-y C-bb-r. I don't exactly, but it was something to the effect that "as for Cibber, if you take away from his conversation all that he should not have said, he is a poor creature." ”

“ And the men, when not cynical churls, are too apt to be shirkers and blabs.
I don't see it's a lively look out for my mates, in the country or town,
With "Standards" and School-rates still rising, and most other things going down.
Nice thing for the nippers too, ain't it? The boys may be stuffed at both ends,
Without "technical" knowledge they're wasters; them as tells 'em this truth are their friends. ”

“ Whenever any of their men get into a tight place, or embark upon a difficult enterprise, they write to me for a character, quite regardless of my personal predilections, and even of my actual pledges. ”

“ Of course the best fun of all was to watch the poore chaps in the crowd below us a being scrowged and shoved and pushed about, while we sat in our bootiful crimson seats just like so many hemenent swells in the theatre, a looking down on the common fellers beneath 'em.
I don't think, upon the hole, if I had my choice, that I woud choose to be a Perliceman on Lord Mare's Day. Ony to think of the diffrence betwixt them and hus! They begins hurly, we begins late; they is, aperiently, on their poor feet all day long, we merely spends a hour or two in the hevening on them useful xtremes ”

“ A married man, in the absence of his wife, gets involved in a more or less innocent flirtation with some one else, and, to escape from this entanglement, on the return of his better half, has to trust to his power of invention as a substitute for a plain statement of facts. ”

“ Farm vigorously defended by infuriated natives. Propose to take an instantaneous photograph of interior of premises. Approach window with camera. Am instantly covered with boiling meal, and felled by a crowbar. Endeavour to focus my assailant. Pursues me to garden-gate. Turn on him with camera. Sends me flying over the wall. Pull myself together, and creep off, not altogether disappointed. ”

“ Whatever liquid was cooled at all had to be inserted in salt snow." What a cruel hardship for any man to bear, especially a rollicking epicure who revels in "Roederer carte blanche of Alpine coldness." ”

“ This encouraging information was received with cheers, but I could not help fancying that the audience was not subsequently quite so eager to assist by submission to the razor in contributing to the blindfolded barber's triumph. Then the mildly-spoken gentleman announced that the contest would not come off, for some reason that was not quite clear to me. Hereupon a rather aggressive person claimed to be shaved—and shaved he was, also another person of an older growth than the first applicants. ”

“ In fact this pamphlet quite enough to give a man a fright is,
With all its nasty prophecies of childish meningitis.
Town life is most unnatural; but, hang it, Doctor, you
Know somebody must live in town, and so what shall we do?
Why, just forget your catalogue of city-bred diseases,
And let each fellow eat and drink exactly what he pleases!
Mr. Champion (not one of the Seven of Christendom) writing to the Times in defence of the Socialists—and writing very effectively too—said, "Of Oldland, who has been committed for trial, I know nothing, except that he is a total abstainer." Is he? ”

“ First Shivering Creature and four others are passed into a damp close, stone-paved room, crowded with human beings, some of which are lying on a few wooden benches, the majority being huddled in heaps upon the floor. ”

“ I may as well add that to enable me to procure a fresh and constant supply of shrimps for the necessities of my establishment, I have managed to secure the services of a Retired Smuggler, who says he knows the coast, and thinks with a lawn tennis net cut up into pieces, and the assistance of one or two donkey-boys, or even patients, he can undertake to keep me supplied. ”

“ First Philosophic Philanthropist (putting down Times) . Well, I'm sure nothing could be more satisfactory, and it's all clearly set down here. Not a single soul in the Metropolis need pass the night in the streets. ”

“ Sumthink, but how much, depends upon suckemstances over which unfortnitly we haven't not no control. And I thinks that upon the hole, the libberality of mankind is not a increesing helement, more's the pitty! ”

“ And Capital wrangles with Labour, each hating the other like snakes;
And the Foreigner creeps in and up, and the Board Agent comes and he takes
Our boys, and he crams 'em with kibosh as makes 'em too big for their breeches;
But real true bread-winning knowledge—the stuff that the Bench only teaches—
They don't find set down in their books, with their 'isms and 'ometries—no ”

“ As I write I see Gl-dst-ne nodding encouragingly as I proceed. I hear the rapturous cheers of the Radicals, delighted to find me won over. I am conscious of the chilling silence on the benches immediately behind, and I am roused to more desperate declaration by the satirical cheers of my friends on the benches opposite. I recall, as it were but yesterday, the effect H-rc-rt's cheer used to have upon me—the strong temptation to turn round, publicly chuck up the whole business, and go back to the expression of my opinion on the particular topic before Gl-dst-ne took me in hand. ”

“ Still, as the M-rk-ss says, we must keep out Gl-dst-ne from Downing Street; and so we'll put in L-tt-n for Glasgow University. A hard pill to swallow, but I gulped at it, and the letter was written. But between you and me, Toby, I felt nearer being mean than I ever did in my life, and would go a long way round rather than look a Glasgow University lad in the face.
Still, it is no new experience for me to be persuaded to do things I don't like. I'm swallowing hard pills in the Conservative interest now, but many a box I've cleared out in former days to make things pleasant for Gl-dst-ne. ”