[Illustration:  SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES IN EARLY TIMES.

British Matron (whose husband has just had his weekly coat of woad, to visitor).

“I’M SORRY, SIR, BUT MY HUSBAND CAN’T SEE YOU TILL HE’S DRY.”]

* * * * *

    “Gas Stoker wanted for 11 million works, used to gas
    engine and exhauster; 50_s_. per week of seven 12-hour
    shifts.”—­Advt. in Daily Paper.

In the circumstances the reference to “exhauster” seems superfluous.

* * * * *

NEW AIDS TO THE ANGRY.

The readers of the Personal Column of The Times were lately refreshed by the following entry:—­

    “Would the person in the green Tyrolese hat note that though
    it may be a custom on his own course to pocket golf-balls on
    the fairway, it is not done elsewhere.”

For long the Personal Column has been a vehicle for appeal and regret, for affection and grief, in addition to its other manifold uses; but as an instrument of admonishment it is fresh.  The tragic thing is that up to the time of going to press the green Tyrolese hat has made no reply.  Either it does not read The Times or it has been rendered speechless.  We were longing for some first-class recriminations.

The new fashion is sure to spread.  For example, any morning we are liable to find this:—­

Would the lady (?) in the purple toque note that, though it may be the thing in her home to disregard the feelings of others, the abstraction of someone else’s chair at a White Sale at Blankridge’s is not the thing.

And again:—­

The female with a red parasol, who thought it her duty to struggle like a wild-cat for a place on a No. 11 bus, opposite the Stores, on Friday afternoon last at a quarter to three, may be interested in learning that the service is not run solely for her.

And a more intimate note still may be struck.  Something like this may be looked for:—­

Will Lydia Lopokova take pity on an unhappy and neglected wife, whose husband has stated that he would resume dining at home only on condition that the table was laid as it is laid in The Good-Humoured Ladies?

* * * * *

BEFORE.

  Before I was a little girl I was a little bird,
  I could not laugh, I could not dance, I could not speak a word;
  But all about the woods I went and up into the sky—­
  And isn’t it a pity I’ve forgotten how to fly?

  I often came to visit you.  I used to sit and sing
  Upon our purple lilac bush that smells so sweet in Spring;
  But when you thanked me for my song of course you never knew
  I soon should be a little girl and come to live with you.

  R. F.

* * * * *

    MORE DILLYDALLYING.