The Lights o’ London?  Yah!  That’s bin all boko. 
    Were London lighted, how could you and me
  Garotte a swell, or give a tight ’un toko? 
    We ain’t got arf a chance where coves can see. 
  ’Tis darkness plays our game, and we’ve ’ad plenty,
    But this means mischief, or my name ain’t BILL. 
  Wy, not one pooty little plant in twenty
    Could we pull orf if light spiled pluck and skill.

  It’s beastly, NAN, that’s wot it is.  Wy, blimy,
    Narrer ill-lighted streets is our best friends. 
  Yer dingy nooks and slums, sombre and slimy,
    Is gifts wot Prowidence most kyindly sends
  To give hus chaps a chance of perks and pickins;
    But if the Town’s chock-full of “arc” and “glow,”
  With you and me, NAN, it will play the dickens. 
    We must turn ’onest, NAN, and that’s no go!

  ’Ang Science!  Ile lamps and old Charlies—­bless ’em!—­
    Wos good for trade, our trade.  Ah! if my dad
  Could see ‘ow Larnin’, Law, and Light oppress ’em,
    Our good old cracksmen-gangs, he’d go stark mad. 
  As for the Hartful Dodger and old Fagin,
    Ah! they’re well hout of it.  Wot could they do
  With Science and her bloomin’ fireworks plaguin’
    Their hartfullest little games the whole Town through?

  Our only ’ope, my NAN, is in the Noodles,
    There’s still some left in London I’ll be bound. 
  To lurk a crib, prig wipes, sneak ladies’ poodles,
    Gits ’arder every day; we’re watched all round. 
  Many a programme wot looks vastly pooty,
    Mucked by the mugs, leads on to wus and wus. 
  But if they do light up the dim, cramped, sooty. 
    Gog-ruled old Town—­wot’s to become of hus?

* * * * *

MOST APPROPRIATE.—­The Bishop of DURHAM has appointed Mr. T. DIBDIN Chancellor of the Diocese of Durham.  He already holds the Chancellorships of Exeter and Rochester.  Three Chancellorships, all on the high sees too!  “THOMAS DIBDIN” is the right man in the right place.

* * * * *

PROVERB “UP TO DATE.”—­“Cumming events cast their shadows before.”  And let’s hope the shadows will be speedily dispelled.

* * * * *

HOW IT’S DONE.

(A HANDBOOK TO HONESTY.)

NO.  VIII.-"SOLD AGAIN!”

SCENE—­An Auction-room, breathing an air of solid, if somewhat Philistinish suburban comfort and respectability.  Amidst a labyrinthine accumulation of household furniture, a number of people are dispersed, many of them substantial-looking middle-class male and female “buyers,” with lists and lead-pencils, on the look-out for “bargains,” a sprinkling of the ancient race, and an outer fringe of casual, lounging, lookers-on.  The gentleman in the rostrum is a voluble personage, with a rapidly roving eye, of