description of pursuit....
That is the raising of tame rabbits."--_Mr. Gladstone at the Hawarden
Floral and Horticultural Society's Show._

_These were the verses the Tame Rabbit recited_:--

The Grand Old Man was on the stir;
MORANT named me to him;
He gave me a good character;
I thought his meaning dim.

He held me up; they thought it fun!
And laughed; he chid their glee.
If he should push this matter on,
What will become of Me?

He said I was a paying game,
Commending me as such.
That's the result of being tame,
And living in a hutch.

My notion is that it is vain
For you, you Grand Old Fella,
To rave of rabbits in the rain,
Beneath a big umbrella.

Don't let them know _we_ fatten best,
For this should ever be
A secret kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me!

* * * * *

[Illustration: AMONG THE BUNNIES.]

* * * * *

LITERATURE AND LOTTERY.

_(By a Patron of the Popular Press.)_

Yes, I've "a literary taste,"
And patronise a weekly journal;
'Tis what is called _Scissors and Paste_,
The paper's poor, the print's infernal.
But what of that, when, week by week,
High at the sight of it hope rises?
What in my Magazine I seek
Is just--a medium for Prizes!
I can't be bothered to read much,
I like my literature in snippets.
My hope is, with good luck, to clutch
Villas, gold watches, sable tippets.
A coupon and some weekly pence
Give me a chance of an annuity.
Oh, the excitement is intense!
I read with ardent assiduity,
_Not_ what the poor ink-spillers say
In sparkling "par," or essay solemn;
No, what I read, with triumph gay
Or hope deferred, is--the Prize Column!
On prose my time I seldom waste,
And poetry is poor and pottery.
But oh! I have an ardent taste
For Literature when linked with Lottery!

* * * * *

ROBERT'S LITTLE HOLLERDAY.

My hollerday, or sum of it, was spent in Hopen Spaces. Hif anybody as
has got two eyes in his hed, and a hart in his buzzom, wants for to
see what can be done with about 40 hakers of land--witch the most
respecfool Gardiner told me was about the size of the Queen's Park at
Kilburn--let him go there on a fine Summer's Arternoon, and see jest
about five thowsen children a playing about there, all free, and
hindependent, and ap