siness and messages of love,
Rates of advertisements and all the winners,
Are vibrating and thrumming
Like a thousand lutes.

Is the old grey heart of the telegraph pole stirred by these messages?
I fancy not.
Yet it all seems very strange;
And even stranger still, now that I notice it,
Is the fact that the thing is after all not absolutely naked,
For a short way up it, half obliterated with age,
Discoloured and torn,
Fastened on by tintacks,
There is a paper _affiche_
Relating to swine fever.

The sun sinks lower and I pass on,
On to the fifteenth pole from Shere to Havering,
And the twentieth
From Havering to Shere;
It is even more naked and desolate than the last.
I pause (as before)....

[_Author._ We can start all over again now if you like. _Editor._ I
don't like.]

EVOE.

* * * * *

"HOPS.

CANTERBURY, Saturday.--Trade was quiet, with prices steady, as follows:
--Kent mixed fleeces, 36d; lambs' wool, 22d to 24d; downs, 41d to 42d;
and half-bred fleeces, 38d to 39d per lb."--_Financial Paper._

This may help to explain the taste of "Government ale."

* * * * *

"By systematic and scientific training is it possible to produce that
perfect type of manhood gifted with the best powers of what we are wont
to call the 'lower orders of creation'--keen sighted and swift of
motion as a bird, sharp-scented as a greyhound, faithful and acute as a
dog, and full of sentient wisdom as an elephant."--_Daily Paper._

We are doubtful about the rest, but the greyhound part should be quite
easy.

* * * * *

[Illustration: INTERNATIONAL EURYTHYMICS.

AN ALLIED _PAS DE TROIS_ AND AN "ASSOCIATED" _PAS SEUL_.]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

[Illustration: _Ko-ko_ (_Sir GORDON HEWART_). "PARDON ME, BUT THERE I AM
ADAMANT."]

_Monday, February 16th._--The great AUCKLAND still reposes a touching faith
in the Profiteering Act. In his opinion it "has had a stabilising effect on
the price of clothing;" by which he means, I suppose, that West-End tailors
long ago nailed their high prices to the mast-head.

In commending the Bill for the continuance of D.O.R.A., a _remanet_ from
last Session, the ATTORNEY-GENERAL was almost apologetic. He laid much
stress upon the "modest and attenuated form" which the measure