at zero.
If thus we comport us like blind sprawling kittens,
Or pitiful partisan poodles,
'Twill prove Party makes e'en of freeminded Britons,
A race of incontinent noodles!

* * * * *

"TO TEAPOT BAY AND BACK."

LONDONERS who like but are weary of the attractions of Eastend-on-Mud,
and want a change, can scarcely do better than spend twenty-four hours
in that rising watering-place Teapot Bay. I say advisedly "rising,"
because the operation has been going on for more than forty years. In
these very pages a description of the "juvenile town," appeared nearly
half a century ago. Then it was said that the place was "so infantine
that many of the houses were not out of their scaffold-poles, whilst
others had not yet cut their windows," and the place has been growing
ever since--but very gradually. The "ground plan of the High Street" of
those days would still be useful as a guide, although it is only fair to
say that several of the fields then occupied by cabbages are now to some
extent covered with empty villas labelled "To Let." In the past the High
Street was intersected by roads described as "a street, half houses,
half potatoes," "a street apparently doing a good stroke of business,"
"a street, but no houses," "a street indigent, but houseless," "a street
which appears to have been nipped in the kitchens," "a street thickly
populated with three inhabitants," and last but not least, "a street in
such a flourishing condition that it has started a boarding-house and
seminary." The present condition of Teapot Bay is much the same--the
roads running between two lines of cellars (contributions to houses that
have yet to be built) are numerous and testify to good intentions never
fulfilled. There is the same meaningless tower with a small illuminated
clock at the top of it, and if the pier is not quite so long as it was
thirty or forty years ago, it still seems to be occupying the same site.

[Illustration: Cheap and Picturesque Roots for Tourists.]

The means of getting to Teapot Bay is by railway. Although no doubt
numbered amongst the cheap and picturesque routes for tourists, the
place is apparently considered by the authorities as more or less of a
joke. Margate, Ramsgate, Westgate and Broadstairs, are taken _au
serieux_, and have trains which keep their time; but Teapot Bay,
seemingly, is looked upon as a legitimate excuse for laughter. If two
trains are fixed to start at