which carry her on distant expeditions in strange company.  During one of these she falls in with a lay-preacher, who to a powerful and convincing style adds the fascination of having been turned from an early life of undoubted dissipation.  She sits at his feet, she flatters him as only a woman can flatter a preacher, and having eventually married him, she helps him to found a new religion during the intervals that she can spare from the foundation of a considerable family.  Warned by her own experience, she will never allow her daughters to be seen without their sewing or their knitting.  Her sons will all be forced to learn useful trades, and it is quite possible that as time passes she may irritate even her husband, by constantly holding herself up to her somewhat discontented family as a pattern of all the domestic virtues.

* * * * *

Nursery Rhyme.

(TRADE’S UNION VERSION.)

  Bah! bah!  Blackleg!  Have you any pluck? 
  Backing up the Masters when the Men have struck! 
  You’re for the Master, we’re for the Man! 
  “Picket” you, and “Boycott” you; that is BURNS’s plan!

* * * * *

The Waterloo Monument at Brussels, in the suburban cemetery of Evere. Motto:—­“For Evere and for Evere!”

* * * * *

Prize epitaph.

“A deep impression,” said the Standard, last Wednesday, “was made on the hearers” (i.e., Prince BISMARCK’S audience at Kissengen) “when, in reply to a remark by one of the guests” (remark and name of immortal guest not reported), “the Ex-Chancellor said, ’My only ambition now is a good epitaph.  I hope and beg for this.’” May it be long ere necessity imperatively demands his epitaph, good or indifferent, say all of us.  But in the meantime, and to come to business, how much will the Ex-Chancellor give?  Why not advertise, “A prize of ——­ (we leave it to the Prince to fill up the blank) will be given for the best epitaph”?  With characteristic modesty, Prince Bismarck, as reported, only asks for “a good epitaph.”  Why shouldn’t he have the best that money can buy, and brains sell?  Correspondents have already commenced:  here are a few:—­

  “Beneath this slab the bones
    of this great boss are. 
  Can Ossa speak?  And would
    they say ‘Canossa?’”

A would-be Competitor sends this,—­

  “Here lies Bismarck—­
  He made his mark.”

A Correspondent writes:—­“I haven’t an epitaph handy about Bismarck, but here’s one on a billiard-marker, buried, of course at Kew:—­

  “‘Rem acu tetigi,’ let this attest,
  Now he has gone away for his long rest.”

Yours,

Nil de MORTUIS.”

“P.S.—­I’ll think over the Bismarck one, specially if he offers a prize of anything over a sovereign, as of course it ought to be, since the Ex-Chancellor always went in for an Imperial policy, which, however, didn’t insure his life.  This is very nearly an epitaph—­praps you’ll arrange it for me.”