oft
Are saints austere, or sympathisers soft,
Truth's types and Virtue's models!"

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

PREPARING TO MEET AN EPIDEMIC.--If you sit all day in your great coat,
muffled up to the eyes in a woollen comforter and with your feet in
constantly replenished mustard and hot water, as you propose, you will
certainly be prepared, when it makes its appearance, to encounter the
attack of the Russian Epidemic Influenza, that you so much dread. Your
idea of taking a dose of some advertised Patent Medicine every other
hour, as a preventive, is by no means a bad one, and your resolution to
shut yourself up in your house, see no friends, open no letters, read no
newspapers, and live entirely on tinned meats for three months, might
possibly secure you from the chances of an attack; but on the whole we
should rather advise you to carry out your plan of leaving the country
altogether and seeking a temporary asylum in South Central Africa until
you are assured that the contagion has blown over, as the preferable
one. Anyhow you might try it. Meanwhile, certainly drench your clothes
with disinfectants, fill your hat with cotton wool steeped in spirits of
camphor, and if you meet any friends in the street, prevent them
addressing you, by keeping them at arm's-length with your walking-stick,
or, better still, if you have it with you, your opened umbrella. They
may or they may not understand your motive, and when they do, though
they may not respect you for your conduct, it is just possible that they
may not seriously resent it. Your precautionary measures, if
scrupulously carried out, should certainly ensure your safety. Put them
in hand at once, and be sure you let us hear from you next Spring
informing us, on the whole, how you have got on.

* * * * *

WHAT POCKET-BOOKS TO GET.--Mark us; WARD'S.

* * * * *

[Illustration: HUNTING HINTS.----HOW TO KEEP THE THING GOING DURING A
SNOW.]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE

THE BARON'S Booking-Office is still decked about with holly,
For the Season that at any rate's conventionally "jolly,"
Is by no means wholly over, and the very hard-worked Baron
Feels rather like a sort of tired-out literary Charon,
With an over-laden ferry-boat, and passengers too numerous.
For seasonable "noveltie