Old Gent (mildly). "PRAY, ARE YOU AN ADVOCATE OF WOMAN'S RIGHTS, MA'AM?"

Lady (sharply). "MOST CERTAINLY I AM, SIR. WHY DO YOU ASK?"

Old Gent. "BECAUSE I WAS ABOUT TO OFFER YOU MY SEAT; BUT OF COURSE YOU CLAIM THE RIGHT TO STAND!"

(Reported by Our Cun Little Bird on the Bench)

A CERTAIN Lady of title having asked the Baron to describe this case of Belt v. Lawes to her, His Lordship at once replied, "This is a Lawes suit." The Duchess went into fits.

4 P.M.-Agreeable surprise. The Embassy are not at the Cannibals' Welcome after all, but at the Alexandra Hotel. Give TWADDLESTONIANA; OR, THE LAST OF THE BARON'S. interpreter in custody, and hurry off to Knightsbridge. Ask for Mr. RAVONINAHITRINIARIVO and Mr. RAMINARAKA. Hall porter can't quite catch names. Asks me to repeat them. I do several times, giving them an entirely fresh sound at every effort. Says he's quite sure they're not there. Insist they are. Puzzled. Inquires whether one of them is a short commercial gent in check, with a squint, and red whiskers? Don't fancy it can be, but reply, cautiously, "Very likely." Says, "Then he left last Tuesday week." Give it up. Go out, much depressed.

6 P.M.-Triumphed! Got 'em at last! Stood at the cabstand opposite, and watched distinguished foreigners going in and out for two hours. Spot a man in silk with a sort of pig-tail, and bowlegs and umbrella going up steps. Evidently one of the suite. Rush at him and ask him earnestly whether he is RAHIBASOU, or perhaps-RANJALUKY? Smiles blandly, and gets into the lift. Lose him. Find out he's the Llama of Thibet come to Europe with a Cook's excursion ticket. Hurry to hall to see proprietor. Run up against quiet elderly gentleman in a paletot. Evident country visitor up for a week. Apologise, and tell him I am looking for the Ambassador. Says he is Mr. RAVONINAHITRINIARIVO. Never so much surprised in my life. More later.

Ir is satisfactory to know that the QUEEN was induced to pass along the Strand on her way to open the New Law Courts, because it is only on occasions like these that the leading thoroughfare of London is properly scavengered. One day before the procession and one day afterwards, the great bog which unites Wellington Street with Waterloo Bridge was almost passable without stilts, and the Vestry have reason to be proud of a loyalty which drove them into temporary cleanliness.

AN EDITION DE LOOKS.-A Professional Beauty.

"THERE is one bust which I shall not permit in Court," whispered the Last of the Barons to Lady L..

"And that is?" inquired Her Ladyship.

"A Bust of merriment," returned the Baron, with a twinkle in his left eye, while with his right he regarded the Usher with such severity that that official nearly swooned on the spot. When Lady L. had sufficiently recovered her equanimity, her Ladyship passed the jeu de mot on to her daughters, and they in their turn to the Hon A. Y -who nearly rolled off the Bench in convulsions of laughter.

the Right Honourable C. B., "if his name is now changed to VER"I SHOULD like to ask the Witness," said the Baron, sotto voce, to HYDEN, because he appears to have been E-ver-hidin' formerly.' The Right Honourable C. B. almost swallowed his silk handkerchief, and left the Court hurriedly.

The Baron observed quietly that if some of the learned Counsel "I WISH I was being examined in French," said the Witness. were being examined in French they wouldn't obtain first-class marks. This, added the Baron, reminded him of a French story, which perhaps her Grace might recollect.... But at this point luncheon was announced, and the Court rose as one man.

part, or better half, can pass through a key-hole, but his
legs remain on the other side. This is an eccentric and
decidedly funny notion, of which, however, after once
starting it, Mr. GILBERT has made no sort of use. The
idea seems to have been too much for him, and to have
become quite unmanageable: in fact, all allusion to it
might be entirely omitted with positive advantage to the
piece. So much for his very funniest conceit. The pro-
cession of Peers in their stars, garters, and coronets is
excellent fooling which will probably tell well in America.
Mr. GEORGE GROSSMITH is capital as the Lord Chan-
cellor, and enlivens the scene whenever he appears. His
acting of the best song in the piece was inimitable; we
mean the "Said I to myself, said I"-not exactly a new
and original refrain, by the way, "Says I to myself,
says I" being among the oldest of old recollections:-
"Says I to myself as I walked by myself,
And myself says again to me;"

and in the Second Act the patter-song, descriptive of a
nightmare, seems to have been suggested by PLANCHE'S
well-known "I'm in such a flutter I scarcely can utter."
In the Second Act Mr. GROSSMITH's burlesque step-
dancing elicited as hearty an encore as was accorded to a
similar performance of his as The First Lord of the
Admiralty in Pinafore.

The words of the songs generally, as is invariably the case with Mr. GILBERT, are always good, the rhymes clever, but not absolute marvels of rhythmical ingenuity. The dialogue is not worthy of the Author of hardly ever" and the very witty "not a too French Frenchbean." The first-night audience roared with laughter at the Lord Chancellor informing Strephon that the latter must not tell him "what Nature has said, as it was not evidence," just as if they had never heard of Sam Weller being rebuked by Mr. Justice Starleigh, when the former spiced his evidence with "as the soldier said,"

"You mustn't tell us what the soldier or any other man said, Sir," interposed the Judge; "it's not evidence."

The Chorus of the Fairies and Peers in the Second Act is about the best "number" in it, and is well sung and acted; though as for the acting all round, both principals and chorus seem to have been instructed to do very much the same as they did in Patience, the attitudinising and the peculiar sing-song tone of delivering the dialogue, in fact the business of the stage generally, evincing no such originality of design, or novelty of arrangement, as to call for particular remark.

As a musical or a humorous work Iolanthe is not within a mile of Pinafore, nor a patch on Patience, nor has it even anything to equal the When Constabulary Duty's to be done," which enlivened the Second Act of the not too lively Pirates of Penzance, and after the first burst of curiosity has been exhausted, we do not fancy that the Public will take to Iolanthe as they have to Messrs. G. and S.'s.previous productions.

Old Farmer Wuzzle (reading the Bill of Fare). "DINNERS HAR LAR CART! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, POLLY?"

Miss Wuzzle (who has been to a fashionable Boarding-school to be finished, who has been taught French and how "to spank the grand pianner," and who is never at a loss). "ALLER CART, FATHER? WHY, THAT MEANS A SMALL, SIMPLE DINNER. IF YOU WANT SOMETHING HEAVY AND FIRST-RATE, YOU ORDER WHAT THEY CALL A DINNER WAGGON!"

PARLIAMENTARY NOTICE.

SESSION, 1883.-Notice is hereby given, that His Grace the Duke of MUDFORD will apply for powers in the next Session of Parliament for the improvement of Mud-Salad Market: to widen the street sometimes known as Turnip-top Hill, but more generally as Southampton Street, Strand; to take down the whole À propos of the Savoy, the Illustrated Sporting and north side of King Street (better known as Waggon Row), the north side of the Dramatic News, the week before last, gave us an Market, properly so called, comprising the huge building which has been to let amusing story, telling us how one of Mr. D'OYLY CARTE's for several years, and has never been occupied, and that sleeping beauty known young and lovely ladies having received a note, contain- as the False-Start Club; to take down the whole of the west side of Little James ing an invitation to supper, from a fascinating idiot in a Street, more generally known as Rotten-Cabbage Alley; to remove the church private box, gave it to Mr. GILBERT to read-(Why? of St. Paul's, Covent Garden (sometimes called St. Cauliflower-in-the-Mud) to Couldn't she read it herself ?),-who, so runs the some place where it is more needed; to carry with it the surrounding houses in simple tale, "happened to be in the theatre," and he King Street aforesaid, Henrietta Street (or Cabbage Grove), Bedford Street (or immediately dispatched the Acting Manager to order Potato Place); to remove the south side of Great Russell Street, the west side the effusive and very Incomplete-Letter-Writer out of of Wellington Street, the north side of Tavistock Street, and the east side the house. The Billy-Dooist very naturally refused to of the Market, forming a square, now known as Flower-pot Square; to take act on this very high-handed notice to quit; but, on its powers, if necessary, to make the Floral Hall what it never was-a Floral Hall, being represented to him that the services of Chuckers- or Market-and throw in, if necessary, the whole block, bounded on one side by out would be put into requisition, and that Someone in the "Bedford Hotel," on the other side by the old Bow Street Police-Court, authority, nay, perhaps even the Eminent Librettist and on the other side by the north side of Great Russell Street, the roadways Himself, would publicly denounce him from the pulpit of which are known as the Great Mudford Bog; to remove the block of old we mean the stage-he considerately withdrew. houses in the Market which are backed by Tavistock Street aforesaid, and The audience would have been dead against the In- flanked by Southampton Street aforesaid and a court known as Pease-Pudding complete-Billy-Dooist unless he himself had publicly Alley, to make on all these areas a new and commodious Fruit, Flower, and protested against the interpretation put on his eccentric Vegetable Market, which could be built at much less cost in an equally central conduct, and had added that "The man who would lay and more accessible position on one of the many sites opened up by the Metrohands on a woman, save in the way of keyindness, is a politan Board of Works.-ROUTINE, TAPEWORM & SONS, Solicitors to the Duke villain," when he would have taken the opportunity to of Mudford, 41, Stop-in-Bedford Row, Dec. 9, 1882.

explain that his invitation was intended to be included in the saving clause of the above accepted formula. Capital subject for a Bab Ballad,-The Siren and the EXPLANATORY.-Surprise has been expressed at the prevalence of particular Saveloy; or, All Song and No Supper. If the Billy-political opinions in certain crafts and callings. It is now stated that the Dooist would only repeat his impertinence, and then Radicalism and anti-hereditary-legislaToryness of Cobblers is a consequence of imitate Lord QUEENSBERRY by standing up in the Stalls their fondness for "Closed Uppers," whilst it may be regarded as quite natural protesting, it might be a useful advertisement to Iolanthe. for Soap-makers to thank Heaven there is a "House of Pears."

ANNALS OF A RETIRED SUBURB. MRS. BOULTBY SMITH AND HER DAUGHTERS HAVE BEEN "AT HOME" TO THEIR LONDON FRIENDS EVERY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON FOR THE LAST SEVEN YEARS. LAST WEDNESDAY SOME VISITORS ACIUALLY CAME!

A CHANGE OF ADDRESS.

Mr. Punch (saluting). A great day for you, Madam! Themis. That depends somewhat upon the sense in which the word "great" is taken, does it not?

Fleet Street now; but, per contra, SWIFT would not need himself to tongue-lash Mohocks into skulking flight, with a half-dozen of my truncheoned minor-ministers within easy hail.

Mr. Punch. As they invariably are of course, eh? Well, your bewigged "birds of a feather" will be able to "flock together' Mr. Punch. Precisely; you but anticipate me. Still, in a very now, more conveniently and more comfortably. The question sugreal and worthy sense, this is a great day-a memorable one at least.gests itself, what will Themis, well housed, be able anon to do, not for her servitors, but for her suitors? Themis (thoughtfully). Memorable, yes. Six centuries hence memory may revert to to-day, as to-day she goes back, point by point, shadow by shadow, act by act, over the intervening centuries to the hour when Justice was first installed in the Hall of Rufus at Westminster yonder.

Mr. Punch. The Mother of the Muses is doubtless mistress of the panoramic style, so popular with readers of the Penny Press. "MNEMOSYNE," as a leader-writer in the Diurnal Diffuser, might

remark

Themis. Enough! I take the hint. I have waited long enough for my new abode.

Mr. Punch. "And in its season bring the Law," says the Laureate. The Law's "season," like the British Spring, is often long delayed. The season for bringing the Law hither, however, has arrived at last; your flitting is accomplished, and-what do you think of your new home?

her who presided at this day's installation :-
Themis. May it not now be said of Themis, as it has been said of

"Her Court is pure, her reign serene"?

Mr. Punch. Pass the purity-it is not impeached. As to the serenity, ha! ha! The serene slowness of Law's paces and processes sometimes savours of what irreverent schoolboys call" serene cheek." No, no, of course you don't understand slang-this slang, at least; but "the Law's delay" is a phrase not unfamiliar to you. Lag-footed Law doth Time devour, And gobble up the State, Whilst every step demands an hour, Each hour means six-and-eight!

66

Themis. Smartness is seldom judicial.

Mr. Punch. Is that a reason why Justice should seldom be Themis. It is doubtless sufficiently spacious and majestic. When "smart"? No, THEMIS, slow Law means dear Justice, and dear the imposing pageantry of the hour is forgotten, the question as to "This is the shop for Justice," you Justice means Justice manqué. whether it is "a joy for ever" or-very much the reverse, will, I might say-if your sublimity could stoop to crude colloquialism. suppose, like most aesthetic questions, settle itself. At present, that Using, for once, if you will allow me, the language of "Shop," I which is to be the haunt of those whom popular prejudice associates congratulate you most heartily on the opening of your new establishwith leadership diabolic, scarcely seems to me to possess the splen-ment, and hope its business may be conducted on the modern prindour of the Miltonic Pandemonium. ciple of "easy terms," its maxim being the tradesman's one of

Mr. Punch. The site where the Bar was and the Griffin is, does of "moderate charges and prompt delivery." not seem fated to be the abiding place of "Things of Beauty." But the Griffin will never see what the Bar once beheld, when Barbarity was the auxiliar of Justice, and Horror the handmaid of Law. The Philistinism of hybrid pinnacles is better than the Molochism of spiked heads.

Themis. Yes. The Leviathan Doctor would hardly know his

TEETOTAL INTELLIGENCE.-It is not generally known that Dipsomaniac Institutions are so called because they there keep large tanks of cold water in which they can dip some maniacs whenever they take more than is good for them.

MR. P. (to THEMIS). "WELL, MADAM, NOW THAT YOUR NEW ESTABLISHMENT IS OPEN, I TRUST THE SYSTEM YOU MEAN TO ADOPT IS-LOW CHARGES AND NO DELAYS."