he news;
It came by rumour or a little bird,
Devoid of editorial views;
No leader let them know to what extent
The blame should lie upon the Government.

And yet, when no one knew in those dumb days
Exactly what was going on,
Without reporters they contrived to raise
The Pyramids and Parthenon;
CONFUCIUS preached the Truth, and so did PAUL,
Though neither of them got in print at all.

It sounds incredible that, when in Greece
The poets sang to lyre or pipe,
When HOMER (say) threw off his little piece,
Nobody put the thing in type;
Even in days less barbarously rude
VIRGIL, it seems, was never interviewed.

And how did DANTE manage to indite
His admirable tale of Hell,
Or BUONARROTI sculp his sombre "Night"
Without the kodak's magic spell--
No Press-photographer, a dream of tact,
To snap the artist in the very act?

Poor primitives, who groped amid the gloom
And perished ere the dawn of day,
Ere yet Publicity, with piercing boom,
Had shown the world a better way;
Before the age--so good for him that climbs--
Now culminating in the NORTHCLIFFE times.

O. S.

* * * * *

How to Brighten the Weather Forecasts.

"Mild and hazy conditions with increasing haze and cloudiness for
an unfavourable change in the weather of heliotrope georgette over
pale blue."--_New Zealand Paper._

We commend this to our own Meteorological Office.

* * * * *

Of the Bishop-designate of Manchester:--

"Head master of an important public school while yet in his teens
... a permanent figure in social and religious movements ... the
author of 'Men's Creatrix.'"--_Provincial Paper._

We knew Canon TEMPLE had had a remarkable career, but confess that
these details had hitherto escaped us.

* * * * *

OUR LUCKY DIPPERS.

Further and final particulars of the drawings from the Lucky Bag at
the Purple City are replete with illustrations of the extraordinary
congruity between the prizes and the age, sex and station of the
recipients.

Mrs. Sarah Boakes, who received the colossal equestrian bronze statue
of Lord THANET, weighing three hundred tons and valued at five
thousand guineas, told our representative that the idea of getting one
of the big prizes never entered into her head, and added, "I did not
sleep a wink last night; the statu