erated sire,
A Soap-boiler successful in his line of business
Beyond his wildest visions,
Purchased for eighty thousand pounds sterling,
These acres, as an investment
Speculative and commercial.
Say, then, is it reasonable that I,
His hopeful heir and offspring,
Should be defrauded of what,
At present prices agricultural,
Is but a return dim and disappointing
On his original outlay.
Why call me "Brigand"? Tell me why?

MR. JOSEPH ARCH (_con fuoco_).

Your father had no right to buy,
And, as the land to HODGE is due,
We take it thus by force from you!

_A Crowd of Radical Land Reformers rush in, and seizing on the property,
hew down the timber, cut away the brushwood, and parcel it out into
small allotments._

OWNER OF THE PROPERTY (_con animo_).

And is there for no compensation room?

Mr. JOSEPH ARCH.

No! none! And now, behold the Brigand's doom!

[_Points triumphantly to the work at the back, while he waves the
draft of a new Act of Parliament over the prostrate form of the_
Owner of the Property, _as the Curtain slowly descends_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "MUFTI."

_Materfamilias (flurried)._ "OH, PLEASE, WILL MR. CHARKLE COME TO OUR
HOUSE DIRECTLY--THE SOOT IS FALLING INTO THE NURSERY, AND----"

_Mrs. Charkle._ "CERTAINLY, M'UM. LEASTWAYS MY 'USBAND _AIN'T IN BLACK_
HISSELF TO-DAY, M'UM, BUT I'LL SEND SOMEBODY AT ONCE, M'UM!"]

* * * * *

MORE ADVICE GRATIS.

VICTIM.--We should not advise you to prosecute the constable who
"pummeled you severely," and then took you up for being drunk and
disorderly, because you happened to drop your hymn-book on the pavement
on returning from Church last Sunday evening. We cannot, either,
recommend your going to the Police Station to lodge a complaint, unless
you are an expert pugilist or take the precaution to wear sheet-iron
next the skin. Perhaps the poor fellow was trying to introduce the
_massage_ treatment to your attention.

RIPARIAN OWNER.--Yes, you can, if you think it worthwhile, sue the
owners of the five houseboats which have moored themselves close to your
front-garden, and to whose proximity you fancy the two cases of typhus
and one of cholera in your family are to be attributed. You ask what the
maximum costs would be. Costs are things which have no maximum. Multiply
your yearly income by the number of boats, and you will be pretty n