e held in the
Show Grounds at Ballsbridge, on Thursday and Friday, 13th and 14th
March."--_Cork Examiner._

We trust the above specimen will be duly entered.

* * * * *

"After the act from _Masks and Faces_ came the letter-reading, the
murder and the sleepwalking scenes from _Macbeth_, with Miss Mary
Anderson and Mr. Lyn Harding. Tragic poetry of this intensity, of
course, knocks everything else endways."--_Times._

Or, as SHAKSPEARE himself is said to have exclaimed, as he penned the
last line of it, "That's the stuff to give 'em."

* * * * *

"There should also be mentioned the merchants' bank, Towarzystwo
Pozyczkowe Przemyslowcow Miasta Poznania."

_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society._

We have tried to mention it, but failed miserably.

* * * * *

"The Major then spoke of battles in which he had taken part. He had
been wounded in the back leg and arm."--_Evening News._

Bit of a dog, this Major.

* * * * *

"PROMOTION.-Rifleman P.R. Shand to be Sergeant Cock."--_Ceylon
Paper._

We hope Sergeant Cock was consulted about this.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "IS THAT AN OFFICIAL LETTER YOU ARE WRITING, MISS BROWN?"

"IT'S--SEMI-OFFICIAL, SIR."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SEMI-OFFICIAL?"

"WELL, SIR--IT'S TO AN OFFICER."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_(BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS.)_

Not infrequently our novelists will follow success with a boy hero by a
sequel showing the same character grown up. Mr. E.F. BENSON, however,
has reversed this process, and in a second book about _David Blaize_
introduces him grown not up, but down. So far down, indeed, as to be
able to pass through a door conveniently situated under his own pillow
and leading to a dreamland of the most varied enchantments. I know, of
course, what you are about to say; I can see your lips already forming
upon the word _Alice_. But while I admit that _David Blaize and the Blue
Door_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is frankly built after that famous plan
this means no more than that Mr. BENSON has used, so to speak, the
CARROLL formula as a medium for his agreeable fancies. These are
altogether original and filled with the proper dream-spirit of
inconsequence. Moreover the author has a pretty