e by inoculating the thin end of the wedge; he
will do this again, he added, at his own peril. He also told Kelly the
same.

As our respected Member of Parliament is hanging tenaciously on to
life, and we could not very well invite him to create a vacancy, we
were at a loss how to mark our esteem for our popular editor in a
practical manner. Casey himself suggested a testimonial. His friends,
however, said that nothing sordid should ever enter into the feelings
with which they regarded him, and decided finally on electing him to
the second highest office a layman in our part can hope to hold. He
was elected Judge--"unanimously," as he put it, "by 29 to 3"--and the
race meeting came off last week. We hate to hold it in war-time, but
the breed of horses and bookies must be kept up. Even the bed-ridden
took a day off and trooped to it.

Picture the feelings of the crowd when Casey merged the judge into
the editor and kept declaring race after race a dead heat. They rose
at him as one man and clamoured for souvenirs. What was left of Casey
shook the dust of Ballybun off his feet, while our impulsive patriots
were smashing his office furniture.

This only proves what I have often maintained, that popularity always
makes a man unpopular in the long run. Meanwhile _The Ballybun
Binnacle_ has ceased to appear, but I see from _The Times_ there has
been a movement in Berlin in favour of letting bygones be bygones.

* * * * *

BOOKS AND BOOKS.

["The last books of the Winter season are creeping out, and
some are important and some are not."--_Daily Chronicle_.]

The last books of Winter,
Some slim and some stout,
From the hands of the printer
Are now "creeping out";
And it's helpful to learn from
A man on the spot
That some are important
And others are not.

And yet the conviction
Expressed in this guise
In the matter of fiction
I'd like to revise;
For of the romances
Unceasingly shot
From the press, most are piffle
And very few not.

From minstrelsy's _melee_,
Its foam and its surge,
A Keats or a Shelley
May haply emerge;
Or there may be a Tupper
To leaven the lot--
Some bards are immortal
And others are not.

We're certain to meet with--
The stock never fails--
Some Memoirs replete with
Fatiguing details;
But the chance isn't great of
A Lockhart and Scott,
Or a Boswell a