and quite close to a man who
has just received his tailor's bill.

* * *

Baby tortoises are being sold for two-pence-halfpenny each in Kentish Town,
says a news item. One bricklayer declared that he wouldn't know what to do
for exercise without his to lead about.

* * *

An extraordinary report reaches us from a village in Essex. It appears that
in spite of the proximity of several letter-boxes, a water-pump and a
German machine-gun, a robin has deliberately built its nest in a local
hedgerow.

* * * * *

[Illustration: I.O.U.

GERMAN DELEGATE (_at Spa Conference_). "WE HAVE NO MONEY; BUT, TO PROVE
THAT WE ARE ANXIOUS TO PAY YOU BACK, LET ME PRESENT YOU WITH OUR
BERNHARDI'S NEW BOOK ON THE NEXT WAR."]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, June 28th._--Less than thirty years ago the prophets of ill
foresaw ruin for the British shipping trade if the dock labourers got their
"tanner." The "tanner" has now become a florin, and this afternoon the
Peers passed without a dissentient voice the Second Reading of a Bill to
enable Port and Harbour authorities to pay it.

They were much more critical over the Increase of Rent Bill, and at the
instance of Lord MIDLETON defeated by a two to one majority the
Government's proposal to deprive landlords of the power to evict strikers
in order to provide accommodation for men willing to work. But the
Government got a little of their own back on the clause authorising an
increase of rent on business premises by forty per cent. Lord SALISBURY
wanted seventy-five per cent. and haughtily refused Lord ASTOR'S sporting
offer of fifty, but on a division he was beaten by 25 to 23.

In the Commons Sir FREDERICK HALL complained that slate and slack were
still being supplied to London consumers under the guise and at the price
of coal. What was the Government going to do about it? Mr. BRIDGEMAN
replied that control having been removed the Government could do nothing,
and consumers must find their own remedy--a reply which drove Sir FREDERICK
into such paroxysms of indignation that the SPEAKER was obliged to
intervene.

Mr. KILEY'S gloomy vaticinations as to the disastrous effect of the Plumage
Bill on British commerce met with no encouragement from Sir ROBERT HORNE.
In his opinion, I gather, our foreign trade is quite safe, and the Bill
will not knock a feather out of it.

To Viscount CURZON'S inquiry whether th