trout, for pundits skilled and wary,
That use upon the chalk,
Plump and recondite, dubious and chary--
On such shall turn our talk.

Then since we're of the Faithful, vowed to follow
Old Thames's placid flow,
We'll breathe of his leviathans that wallow,
In bated tones and low;

And I mayhap shall say a word in token
Of one prodigious friend
Who lurks--excuse a statement more outspoken--
'Twixt Marlow and Bourne End;

While you, Septimius, set memory roaming
To That which smashed amain
Your trace of proof, and hint how some soft gloaming
He yet shall come again.

So shall we sit this firelit hour, contriving
Blue halcyon days that hold
The lisp of streams in crisping reed-beds striving,
And meadows spun with gold.

* * * * *

"Insurance business is ransacted."

_Quarterly Post Office Guide, p. 154._

The influence of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE again.

* * * * *

INTELLECTUAL DAMAGE TO ANIMALS.

We gather from _The Daily Sketch_ that a reverend gentleman at Herne Bay
has just founded the S. P. M. C. A., or "Society for the Prevention of
Mental Cruelty to Animals," and holds, as part of his propaganda, that
the Zoo should be disbanded and abolished, and, in fact, that no wild
animals or birds should be kept anywhere in captivity at all.

The S. P. M. C. A. fills a long-felt want. Everyone with any sense of
politeness or tact must recognise that it is grossly improper to wound
the feelings of the lower orders of creation by the opprobrious use of
such epithets as ass, donkey, cat, mule, pig, goose, monkey, and so on.
Picture the mental torture and degradation undergone by the
self-respecting rodent who overhears the contemptuous exclamation,
"Rats!" Realise, if you can, the stigma attached to the hard-working
order of garden annelids when, possibly in their very presence, one
human being addresses another as a "worm"!

Then, again, take the deplorable breaches of etiquette on the part of
visitors at the Zoo. We ourselves have heard the most uncomplimentary
allusions made to the appearance of the baboons and the hippopotamus, in
the hearing of those unfortunate creatures, and quite regardless of
their _amour propre_. The callous Cockney takes care to insult his
helpless victims only when they are behind bars and cannot retaliate
effectively. One shudders to think of