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The Daily News, in its report of the opening of the Food and Cookery Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, remarks:—­

    “It will not be the least attractive feature of the exhibition that
    samples may be tasted at nearly all the stalls.  The exhibition includes
    samples of gas and asbestos stoves and kitchen ranges.”

We have brought this announcement under the notice of a friend who knows what’s what when he’s out to luncheon, and are disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm.  He says he doesn’t care about taking his gas that way, and as for asbestos stoves he knows nothing more indigestible, unless it be a kitchen range.

* * * * *

BALDER THE FAIR.

(A Head-Piece.)

    [Eminent Physiologists assert that the most intellectual types of the
    future will be completely bald.]

  Do’st imagine all Poets by locks hyacinthine
    Distinguished from Lawyers, Physicians, and Aldermen,
  By capillary cataracts, thick as are thin thine?—­
    Bald, sooth to say, few undeniably balder men
      Can be found, for the comfort of heads without hair,
      Than that exquisite troubadour, BALDER the Fair.

  Yes, the times are gone by when a SWINBURNE or BYRON
    Were loved for their love-locks and famed for their frizziness,
  When Olympian craniums, worthy of MYRON
    Or ANGELO, bowed to the hair-dresser’s business,
      When Macassar’s luxuriant essences fed
      At once metrical foot and symmetrical head.

  DULCINEA, who dotes on that pure, polished surface
    (Like ivory turned to the billiard-room’s spherosid),
  BALDER’S occiput glassing bewitchingly her face,
    The face of his Dear, by herself in her hero eyed—­
        DULCINEA would deem it profanity, were
        It in nature to beg for a tress of his hair!

  So take warning, ye Minstrels whose locks are a feature,
    Be bald, e’en as bald as your verse peradventure is;
  To be bald is the crown of the civilised creature,
    And barbers are relics of barbarous centuries: 
        Still, howe’er you may strive, you will never compare,
        For perfection of baldness, with BALDER the Fair.

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[Illustration]

* * * * *

A WARNING.—­After the recent gale, the papers reported “WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF HOARDINGS.”  Very hard that hoardings couldn’t be saved.  Still, after all, the fact must be taken as a providential warning to Misers.

* * * * *

FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A REFLECTIVE GOURMET.—­“The only thing your friend has a right to saddle you with is ... fine five-year old mutton.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THINGS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY.