AN “EPPING FOREST” CHORUS.

“For ever and again the Corporation of London send down their proteges, the young City sportsmen who may, or may not, know how to load a gun, but who are very keen on ‘Sport.’  Then the herds are driven by beaters towards the gallant huntsmen, the forest re-echoes with the report of guns, and next day you can trace the whereabouts of the wounded bucks and deer by tracks of blood among the bushes, and by impressions on the grass where the maimed creature has fallen in its flight for life.”—­Pall Mall Gazette.

Chorus of Huntsmen.

  Oh, we like,—­we love the Merry Green Wood,
    As should Huntsmen bold of the proper sort! 
  And we would hit the stag if we possibly could,—­
    As is meet with such palpable sons of Sport. 
  Away to the forest we cheerily run,
    And wait for the beaters’ welcome cry;
  And though we are new to the use of a gun,
  What matters?  At anything we’ll let fly! 
  So Sing hey, sing ho, for the startled deer;
  We warrant we’ll hit him, if he comes near
  And we’ll send him lame and limping away,
  With a shot he’ll remember for many a day! 
  For marry come up!  But it would be absurd
  To expect a bold Sportsman to bag the whole herd! 
  So he blazes away; and he hits one or two;
  And they hobble away in some thicket to lie,
  And, after a day or two’s suffering, die;
  We don’t see precisely what more we could do,
  Than shout that “we love the Merry Green Wood!”
  And would settle the stag,—­if we possibly could!

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The following advertisement appears in the Standard:—­

    A Lady wishes to have twice from the country a SUPPLY of LIVE
    SPARROWS, for a favourite cat.—­Address, &c.

There is an uncomfortably blood-thirsty look about this “Lady’s” desire to supply her favourite cat with some downright real Sport.  For it is to be presumed that she intends her well-cared for pet literally to do the unhappy sparrows to death in the most approved fashion.  How will she manage it?  Clip their wings, and set them on the drawing-room floor; or tie strings to their legs, and let the favourite cat “go for them?” Cats must be fed.  But it is not necessary to provide them with a “Supply of Live Sparrows” twice, or even once.  We submit the subject to the notice of the S.P.C.A.

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ONE POUND NOTES.—­Probable rate that a fashionable prima donna will charge for a song in the near future.

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[Illustration:  APRIL FOOLS.]

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OUR OPENING (SUN) DAY!

Emancipated Blue-Ribboned British Workman loquitur:—­