was a hunting man, and that Lord Mayors of London ought as a rule to he hunting men if they would keep up the ancient traditions of their office.  Why doesn’t his sporting and equestrian Lordship revive the “Lord Mayor’s Hounds” of the time of GEORGE THE FIRST?  The meet might be in Leadenhall Market, or in a still meater place, Smithfield, and a bag fox being turned out, they might, on a good scenting day, have a fine burst of a good forty minutes, taking Houndsditch in their stride away across Goodman’s Fields then away across Bethnal Green, tally-hoing down Cambridge Road, and then with a merry burst, into Commercial Road East, gaily along Radcliff Highway, and running into sly Reynard in Limehouse Basin.  Stepney!  Yoicks!  On hunting days there would be a placard on the Mansion House door with the words, “Gone Away!” And of course there would be a list of the meets appended to all the usual notices.  Let the present Lord MAYOR start this, and his Mayoralty will indeed be a memorable one.

* * * * *

THE HYPNOTISED LOBSTER.

    [Mr. ERNEST HART said, in a recent Lecture, that snakes,
    frogs, and lobsters could be hypnotised like human beings.]

  ’Tis the voice of the Lobster, I hear him complain,
  That hypnotic suggestion is on me again;
  I was mesmerised once and behold, since that time,
  I have yielded myself to suggestions of crime: 
  I have compassed the death of an innocent “dab,”
  And attempted to poison an elderly crab.

  You’ll not wonder my tricks give my relatives shocks,
  And they’re holding a meeting just now in the rocks
  To decide whether I, who was once quite a saint,
  Should be put, as the doctors say, under restraint. 
  I intend to go there in the midst of a trance. 
  And, may I be boiled, but I’ll lead them a dance!

  It’s a terrible thing, when to virtue inclined. 
  That some vile Mesmeriser debauches your mind;
  When awake I recoil from the things that I’ve done,
  Such as scrunching the poor little mussels for fun. 
  In these fetters hypnotic a foe holds me fast,
  And you’ll find that they’ll hang me, in seaweed, at last.

* * * * *

WELCOME, LITTLE STRANGER!

[Illustration]

Last Friday there appeared a startling paragraph, announcing the first appearance of a New Island.  Appropriately, it was on the face of The Globe.  The intelligence came to us via Marseilles.  Did it come up to the surface ready furnished for occupation, as in our second National Anthem about “Britons never being slaves” Britain is described as doing?  The quotation is:—­“When Britain first at Heaven’s command, Arose from out the azure main,” (or words to that effect), She (the Island) came up with a ready-made charter, and was open to be taken furnished.  If this is the case, with the new Island, the sooner some parties “who won’t be missed” pack off, bag and baggage, and take possession of the property, the better.  It’s a chance.  “Island to Let.  Ready furnished.  Quite ready for occupation when thoroughly dry.  No Agents need apply.  Ground-Swell Landlord, Neptune, C. district.”