rices could be raised.

* * * * *

EPIGRAMMATIC DEFINITION OF MOST PUBLIC BANQUETS WITH POSTPRANDIAL
ORATORY.--"Stuff and Nonsense."

* * * * *

[Illustration: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.

LORD SALISBURY. "HALLO!"

M. LE PRESIDENT. "HALLO!"

LORD SALISBURY. "YOU THERE?"

M. LE PRESIDENT. "ALL THERE!"

LORD SALISBURY. "CAN YOU SUGGEST AN _ENTREE_ FOR DINNER?"

M. LE PRESIDENT. "_HOMARD AU GRATIN_,--AND, BY THE WAY, HOW ABOUT
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LOBSTER QUESTION?"

LORD SALISBURY. "NOT BY TELEPHONE, THANK YOU!!!"

[_Telephone between London and Paris opened, Monday, March 23rd._]]

* * * * *

[Illustration: SUFFERING ON THE "SILVER STREAK."

THESE GENTLEMEN (AFTER A FEW HOURS' REST) DECLARED UNANIMOUSLY IN
FAVOUR OF THE PROPOSED CHANNEL TUBULAR RAILWAY.]

* * * * *

HANDS AS THEY ARE SHOOK.

(_NEW STYLE._)

In healthier times, when friends would meet
Their friends in chamber, park, or street,
Each, as hereunder, each would greet.

Tour level hand went forth; you clasped
Your crony's; each his comrade's grasped--
If roughly, neither friend was rasped.

Such was the good old-fashioned one
Of honest British "How d'ye do?"
I think it manly still--don't you?

But _now_, when smug acquaintance hails
A set that would be "smart," but fails,
Another principle prevails.

The arm, in lifted curve displayed,
Droops limply o'er the shoulder-blade,
As needing some chirurgeon's aid:

The wrist is wrenched of JONES and BROWN,
Those ornaments of London Town;
Their listless fingers dribble down:

BROWN reaches to the knuckle-bones
Of thus-excruciated JONES;
BROWN's hand the same affliction owns.

At length his finger-tips have pressed
The fingers of his JONES distressed:
Both curvatures then sink to rest.

A sort of anguish lisped proceeds
Prom either's mouth, but neither heeds
The other's half-heroic deeds.

Exhausted, neither much can say;
Complacent, each pursues his way;
And JONES and BBOWN have lived to-day.

For both have sought by strenuous strain
To demonstrate, in face of pain,
That friends they were, and friends remain.

Ah, wonderful! Can Poets deem
Self-sacrifice a fading dream?
Are salutations what they seem?

Is BROWN some Altruist in disguise,
And JONES an Ibsenite likewise,
Tha