Yours par-ticularly,

OLD PAR.

* * * * *

GOLF VICTOR!

Sir Golf and Sir Tennis are fighting like mad—­
Now Sir Tennis is blown, and Sir Golf’s right above him,
And his face has a look that is weary and sad,
As he hastily turns to the ladies, who love him,
But the racket falls from him, he totters, and swirls,
As he hears them cry, “Golf is the game for the girls!”

* * * * *

The girls crave for freedom, they cannot endure
To be cramped up at Tennis in courts that are poky,
And they’re all of them certainly, perfectly sure
That they’ll never again touch “that horrible Croquet,”
Where it’s quite on the cards that they play with Papa,
And where all that goes on is surveyed by Mamma.

To Golf on the downs for the whole of the day
Is “so awfully jolly,” they keep on asserting,
With a good-looking fellow to teach you the way,
And to fill up the time with some innocent flirting,
And it may be the maiden is wooed and is won,
Ere the whole of the round is completed and done.

  Henceforward, then, Golf is the game for the fair—­
    At home, and abroad, or in pastures Colonial,
  And the shouts of the ladies will quite fill the air
    For the Links that will turn into bonds Matrimonial,
  And for husbands our daughters in future will seek
  With the powerful aid of the putter and cleek!

* * * * *

CORRESPONDENCE SPECIAL.—­KNOODEL, of Knoodel Court, writes to us:—­“Sir,—­I have recently come across the name ‘bacteriologist.’  Is it a new name for a person who writes ill of another behind his back?  If so, the best remedy for the mischief he causes is a criminal action.” [Our advice to KNOODEL is, “Consult a Solicitor.”—­ED.]

* * * * *

“CARMEN UP TO DATE AT THE GAIETY.”—­“Approbation of Miss ALMA STANLEY is praise indeed.”  The correct quotation adapted a la fin du Siecle.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  IN OUR GARDEN.]

Tuesday Morning.—­Still in Edinburgh, but going home to-night.  Just received telegram from Member for SARK.  “Come home at once,” he says; “the Peronospora Schleideniana has got at the onions.”

Rather a shock to have news like this flashed upon one with that absence of deliberation that sometimes marks the telegraph service.  But I cannot say I am surprised.  I had, indeed, before leaving, called SARK’s attention to what I recognised as the greyish mycelial threads of the fungus spreading upon the pipes and budding seed-heads.  If SARK had steeped the seed in sulphate of copper before planting it, this wouldn’t have happened.  It’s a pity, for I rather thought we would make something towards expenses out of that onion-bed.  There’s no more profitable crop than your pickling onions if well farmed.  I know a man who made L150 an acre out of his onions.  But then he wasn’t hampered in his arrangements with a fellow like SARK.