* * * * *

[Illustration:  SUCH AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE!

THE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF HAVING THE ELECTRIC LIGHT “BROUGHT TO YOUR VERY
DOOR,” WITHOUT ANY PREVIOUS NOTICE, ON THE IDENTICAL DAY, TOO, WHEN
YOU ARE GIVING A PARTY, AND YOUR FRIENDS WON’T BE ABLE TO GET WITHIN
SOME YARDS OF YOUR HOUSE.  AND THEN, SO NICE FOR LADIES IF IT RAINS!]

* * * * *

  “A Nuisance!  Nay, my children!” (’Tis Grandam Justice speaks.)
  “Town butterflies may think so, and so may country ‘beaks,’
  The Oracle in Ermine declares you shan’t resist
  The tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

  “Traffic may he obstructed, and tympanums be rent,
  The noise may torture sufferers with sickness well-nigh spent;
  But these be merely trifles.  Your anguish may assist
  The tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

  “Our self-appointed saviours must work their noble will. 
  These shouters have small faith in the voice that’s small and still
  Blown brass and beaten parchment take heaven by storm.  Then list
  To the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

  “The priests of Baal were noisy, but not so loud as BOOTH. 
  Charivari and clamour are vehicles of Truth. 
  At least that seems the notion on which these seers insist,
  With the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

  “Without such little worries the world could not get on! 
  That sweet thought tempts Dame Justice the bonnet brown to don,
  And smite the clanging sheepskin, and aid with voice and fist
  The tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

  “That sick child in her chamber may press an aching head,
  The mother, bowed and broken, bend deafened o’er her bed. 
  Regrettable, but needful, since freedom must exist
  For the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!”

  So Justice, in zeal’s bonnet, so Jurymen in haste! 
  What are the claims of comfort, health, common-sense or taste,
  Compared with those of brainless Noise, our new evangelist,
  And the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the loud Salvationist!

* * * * *

DE LA PAST DE MLLE. SAINTE-NITOUCHE.—­A demure Spinster says she is quite against the Early Closing Movement, and hopes the shops will keep open as late as possible. “‘Early closing’ means,” she explains, “‘early shopping,’ and I should blush to commence my rounds before the windows are properly ‘dressed.’”

* * * * *

WEEK BY WEEK.

The Season has now only some three weeks to run.  Already careful dowagers are having themselves packed in chintz or old newspapers, and fathers of feminine families are beginning to emerge from the lurking places in which they had sought refuge with their cheque-books.  The number of detrimentals has been calculated to amount to three times the number of first editions of the Star newspaper, plus a mean fraction of a child’s Banbury cake, multiplied by the nod of a Duchess to a leader of Society in Peckham Rye.