there,
Watching Narcissus with persistent stare,
And ready note-book. Nothing but a Voice?
No, but its babblings travel, and rejoice
A myriad prurient ears with noisome news,
Fit only for the shambles and the stews.
These hear, admire, and sometimes imitate!--

Narcissus is a danger to the State,
And Echo hardly less. Vain-glorious crime;
That pestilent portent of a morbid time,
Would flourish less could sense or law avail
To strangle coarse Sensation's clamorous tale,
Silence the "Noisy Nymph," for half crime's ill
Would end were babbling Echo's voice but still.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THE MISSING CIPHER."

"OH, PAPA, ONLY FIFTY POUNDS FROM SIR GORGIUS MIDAS! SUCH A
MILLIONAIRE--WHY HE _OUGHT_ TO HAVE SENT FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS AT
LEAST!"

"AH, I'M AFRAID HE FORGOT THE _OUGHT_, MY DEAR!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE NEWEST NARCISSUS; OR, THE HERO OF OUR DAYS.]

* * * * *

FETTERED.--In reply to the Unemployed Deputation which found
employment in paying a visit to the L.C.C. at Spring Gardens, Messrs.
BURNS and BEN TILLETT (Alderman) intimated that as Mr. POWER, the
U.D.'s spokesman, was not a member of the L.C.C., that body was
Power-less to assist them in their trouble. A nasty time of it had
the Labour Candidates on this occasion. Nothing like putting men of
Radical revolutionary tendencies into responsible positions.

* * * * *

A SHADY VALET.--One DONALD CROSS was a Valet in the service of an
absent master, whose best clothes and jewellery DONALD wore, while
he kept his flat well aired by giving little supper-parties to young
ladies who took him at his own valuation,--for a very superior swell.
Alas! he was but a _valet de sham_! "Cross purposes," but Magistrate
"disposes"; and the once happy Valet is in the shade for the next six
months.

* * * * *

IN FANCY DRESS.

A SKETCH AT COVENT GARDEN THEATRE.

_Before Supper the proceedings are rather decorous than
lively; the dancers in fancy dress forming a very decided
minority, and appearing uncomfortably conscious of their
costume. A Masker got up as a highly realistic Hatstand,
hobbles painfully towards a friend who is disguised as a
huge Cannon._

_The Hatstand_ (_huskily, through a fox's mask in the centre of his
case, to the Cannon