e us alternate smile and shiver.
Ah! ghosts, Ma'am, then were ghosts indeed,
Born of the brain and not the liver.
You shared our LEMON and our LEECH;
Our BROOKS for you ran bright and sunny.
May you live long, to limn and teach.
Be graphic, genial, sage, and funny!

We like you well, we owe you much,
True record, blent with critic strictures,
And culture of the artist touch
Through half a century of pictures.
We wish you many gay returns
Of this May day! You're brighter, plumper
Than then; and _Punch_, who envy spurns,
Drinks your Good Health, Ma'am, in a bumper!

* * * * *

"ORME! SWEET ORME!"--_Orme_ is still off solid food, and is kept
alive entirely by Porter. It is the opinion of the best informed
that "Porter with a head on" will pull him through. Smoking is not
permitted in the stable, but there is evidence of there being several
"strong backers" about.

* * * * *

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH CONGRATULATES MADAME ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS
ON ATTAINING HER JUBILEE, AND BEING YOUNGER THAN EVER.]

* * * * *

MEMS. OF THEATRES, &C., COMMISSION.

Mr. John Hare, Lessee of the Garrick Theatre, in his evidence before
the Theatres and Music Halls Committee, described himself, according
to the _Times_ Report, as having "been for about thirty years an
actor, and for fifteen years a manager." This gives him forty-five
years of professional life, and saying, for example, that he commenced
his career as an actor at twenty, then his own computation brings him
up to sixty-five If this be so, then Mr. JOHN HARE, with his elastic
step, his twinkling eye, his clear enunciation, and his energetic
style, is the youngest sexagenarian to be met with on or off the
stage; and it is probable that when he reaches the Gladstonian age
he will be more sprightly than even the Grand One himself.

In answer to a question put by Viscount EBRINGTON, Mr. EDWARD TERRY
gave it as his opinion that "if officers"--he was speaking of the army
not the police--"were prouder of their uniforms, and did not take
the earliest opportunity of divesting themselves of them, the uniform
would be more respected." He ought to have put it, "would be uniformly
more respected." But how about the man inside the uniform? But why
should a soldier wear his uniform when off duty any more than a
policeman when off duty, or any more