k with
infancy."--_Timaru Herald (N.Z.)._

We are glad to have this evidence that the Huns have given up using
children to screen their advances.

* * * * *

"Plagues of rates have appeared at Pinsk, and in the British
trenches."

_Buenos Ayres Herald._

Even at home we have not entirely escaped the epidemic.

* * * * *

"Floating Baby Found Unarmed."

_Provincial Paper._

Had the Huns known of its defenceless condition they would never have
allowed it to escape.

* * * * *

"'Like a poet, a geographer is born, not mad,' once wrote Sir
Clements Markham."

_Times of India._

Some poets will be greatly relieved by this doctrine.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Oldest Inhabitant (finally)._ "I tell 'ee I bain't goin'
outside the door. Why, what'd folks think of me with no badge, nor
harmlet, nor nothin'?"]

* * * * *

LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND.

[Dr. GEORGE PERNET, in a recent treatise on "The Health of the Skin,"
discusses the continued decline in the popularity of the tall hat.]

O emblem of British decorum,
Whose vogue, for a century back,
In the Mart, in the House or the Forum
Few dared to impugn or attack;
'Tis sad, though the best of our bankers
Refuse to allow such a lapse,
That our youth irrepressibly hankers
For straws and for caps.

_Mr. Seagram_, in _Masterman Ready_,
Is pictured in many a hole,
And in postures however unsteady,
With his chimney-pot hat on his poll;
And our highly respected grand-paters,
When wielding their golf-clubs or bats,
Or proving their prowess as skaters,
Wore cylinder hats.

Worn straight by the priggish or surly
Thou didst not enthuse or beguile;
But tilted a little and curly
Of brim--how seductive thy style!
And never was pride that is proper
Sartorially better expressed
Than when an immaculate topper
Sat light on one's crest.

The cult of the bicycle, tending
To foster a laxer array,
And the motor, its influence lending,
Both seriously threatened thy sway;
But the War, most unfairly combining
The motives of comfort and thrift,
Thy glory, so sleek and so shining,
Has finally biffed.

Yet I cannot observe thy dethroning
Or watch thy effulgence