***

“Who are the best selling modern authors?” asks a contemporary.  We do not like to mention names, but, as readers, we have been sold by several popular writers lately.

***

We are not surprised that many persons are becoming rather disgusted with our little amateurish attempts at Winter.  Thousands now go to Switzerland, and Sir Ernest Shackleton is going even further afield.  Meanwhile the Government does nothing to stem this emigration.

***

The boxing craze among the French continues.  M. VEDRINES, the intrepid aviator, has taken it up and been practising on M. Roux’s ears.

***

The German Crown Prince has become a member of the Danzig Cabinet Makers’ Union.  Later on he hopes to become a Chancellor-maker.

***

Another impending apology?  Headlines from The Daily Chronicle:—­

  “Pneumonia on the Rand. 
  Discovery of its cause. 
   Sir ALMROTH WRIGHT’S
    vaccine treatment.”

***

Could frugality go further?  At the golden wedding celebrations of a Southend couple, a packet of wedding cake was eaten which had been put away on their marriage day in 1863.

***

A soap combine, with a nominal capital of L35,000,000, is said to have been formed to exploit China; and the Mongols may yet cease to be a yellow race.

***

The latest tall story from America is to the effect that some burglars who broke into the Presbyterian church at Syracuse, New York, stole a parcel of sermons.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Pantomime fauna.

Extract from the note-book of the dramatic critic of “the Wampton Clarion":—­

Mr. Clarence Fink delighted the Audience with his truly life like representation of [Crossed-out:  a wolf bear lion cat monkey] an animal of the furry tribe.]

* * * * *

Young mother’s Swan-Song.

    ["It was better for a young mother to start her new
    chapter unhampered:  the less she knew the better it was for
    her.”—­Mrs. Annie Swan.]

  How do you take a baby up? 
    What does it like to eat? 
  Do you put rusks in a feeding cup? 
    Have you to mince its meat? 
  Haven’t I heard them speak of pap? 
    Isn’t there caudle too? 
  How do you keep the thing on your lap? 
    Why are its eyes askew? 
  Is it a touch of original sin
    Causes an infant to squall,
  Or trust misplaced in a safety-pin
    Lost in the depths of a shawl? 
  When do you “shorten” a growing child
    (Is it so much too long)? 
  Should legs be lopped or the scalp be filed? 
    Both in a sense seem wrong.