, SIR!"]

* * * * *

A SHORT SONG IN SEASON.

AIR--"_Ballyhooley._"

PHILLIPS thinks--(you're right, my boy!)
Dingy London would enjoy
More music, and proposals make (which charm me)
For a Great Municipal Band,
Which, under wise command,
Might prove a sort of music-spreading Army.
The critics all declare
English taste for music rare,
But the "Parks and Open Spaces'" sage Committee
Hold a very different view,
And, to prove their judgment true,
Want a Metropolitan Band for the Big City.

_Chorus._

London-lovers high and low,
Let us all enlist, you know,
For the County-Councillor's schemes extremely charm me.
Let us raise Twelve Hundred Pounds,
And we soon shall hear the sounds
Of the Music-lover's Metropolitan Army!

There's a moral to my song
And it wont detain ye long;
To PHILLIPS, L.C.C. send your subscription,
(North Park, Eltham, S.E.), for
That sagacious Council-lor
Is a patriot of a practical description.
When the money he has got,
(And Twelve Hundred's not a lot,)
Right soon he'll form a strong and sage Committee!
And it will not be their fault
If there's any hitch or halt
In the Metropolitan Band for our Big City.

_Chorus._

Stump up, Cockneys, high and low
We must all enlist, you know,
For the sum required is nothing to alarm ye.
So just do as you are bid,
And subscribe Twelve Hundred "quid"
For the Music-lover's Metropolitan Army!

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_Joints in our Social Armour_, by a Mr. JAMES RUNCIMAN, has an amusing
"Dedication to W. S. and G. N. S." "Gentlemen," writes this seemingly
new member of the brotherhood of letters, "this little book contains
many things which have already pleased you, and all that may be good
in them has really come from you." After this frank confession, one
naturally desires to have the "good things" of "W. S. and G. N. S."
first-hand, instead of what presumably must be a _rechauffe_. As the
"good things," however, have to be picked out of a volume of 342 pages
of wearisome reading about "The Ethics of the Drink Question," "The
Social Influence of the 'Bar'" (Public-house, _bien entendu_), "Genius
and Respectability," &c., &c., it is not an easy task to find them.
For the rest, to the intelligent reader, the joints of Messrs. W. S.,
G. N. S., and JAM