* * * * *

    “Classical Master for endurance of war wanted.”—­Scotsman.

Humane letters are very sustaining.

* * * * *

    “MARCHING ON!

    “The council of the Chippewa tribe of North American Indians, by
    a two to one majority, have accorded the suffrage to their
    squaws.”—­The Vote.

As SHAKSPEARE was on the point of saying, “Suffrage is the badge of all our tribe.”

* * * * *

THE SPOIL-SPORT.

["The Town Clerk of Colwyn Bay informs us that the fish caught there the other day by two youths was a dogfish and not a shark, as reported, and that its size was much overestimated.”—­Manchester Guardian.]

  O gallant youths of Colwyn Bay,
    With what unmitigated rapture
  Did I peruse but yesterday
    The story of your famous capture!

  Alone ye did it, or at least
    ’Twas next to being single-handed;
  No other helped to catch the beast,
    No strength but yours the monster landed.

  But now comes in the cold Town Clerk,
    Who has meticulously stated
  It was a dogfish—­not a shark—­
    In size much overestimated.

  So ye intrepid striplings, who
    Made all your school-fellows feel humble,
  Are mulcted of your honours due
    By an officious Cambrian Bumble.

  But, though your generous hearts be sore,
    Take comfort:  all the true patricians
  Of intellect have been at war
    With frigid, rigid statisticians.

  I too have suffered from the rule
    Of sceptics, icily pedantic,
  Who blighted, ere I went to school,
    My dreams when they were most romantic.

  For once, when swinging on a gate,
    With hands that doubtless daubed it jammily,
  I saw a lion, sure as fate,
    And fled indoors to tell the family.

  But when I told them, all agog,
    My aunt, a lean and acid spinster,
  Snapped out “the doctor’s yellow dog”;
    And nothing I could say convinced her.

  “’Twas ever thus from childhood’s hour—­”
    Since HOMER, HANNIBAL or STRONGBOW,
  Men of outstanding mental power
    Are charged with drawing of the long bow.

  Great travellers—­not your GRANTS or SPEKES—­
    Who lived with dwarfs, or tamed gorillas,
  Or scaled imaginary peaks
    Upon the backs of pink chinchillas,

  Or in some languorous lagoon
    Bestrode the awe-inspiring turtle,
  Or in the Mountains of the Moon
    Saw rocs athwart the zenith hurtle—­

  All, all have had their fame aspersed
    By rude Town Clerks or senior wranglers;
  But those who have been treated worst
    Are the heroic tribe of anglers.

* * * * *