KING HERBERT CAMPBELL THE FIRST, and HARRY PAYNE, the Clown, were sitting together, quaffing, after hours, and when work was done, just as in the good old times was the wont of The King and the Cobbler, or The King and the Miller.  To them entered a Constable, intent on duty, and no respecter of persons.  Often had he seen the Clown maltreat a policeman on the stage, nay, had seen him unstuff him, cut his head off and blow him limb from limb from a gun, and then put him together again; the only mistake being that the unfortunate official’s head was turned the wrong way.  So this Constable, too, looking backwards, as had done the poor pantomimic policeman, remembered all the slights, insults, and injuries, publicly inflicted on his cloth for many years, and now rejoiced—­Ha! ha!—­at last at having the Clown, the original JOEY, nay, the last of the JOEYS, in his grasp.

Poor KING HERBERT the Merry Monarch the Constable pitied, but still “constabulary duty must be done,” as he had heard sung; and remembering that my Lord Chief Justice, in days gone by, had sent off the Heir Apparent to prison, so now he the Constable, in the name of the Law, would hale KING HERBERT before the Magistrate.  So King and Clown were had up accordingly.  Did the Clown whimper, and cry, “Oh, please, Sir, it wasn’t me, Sir; it was t’other boy, Sir!” and did the good King prepare to meet his fate like a man? and was he ready to put his head cheerfully on the wig-block and declare with his latest breath (up to 12.55 P.M.) that in his closing hours he died for the benefit of the Public?  We know not—­except that both delinquents were let off—­like squibs—­and Mine Host, the Boniface, had to pay all the fines.  He at all events had a Fine old time of it! Sic transit!  So fitly ends the long run of a good Pantomime. Finis coronat opus!

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The Volunteer Review at Dover.

General Idea of Officers in Command.—­To make as few mistakes as possible in handling some thousands of imperfectly-drilled and entirely undisciplined bodies of men.

The same of the Rank and File.—­To spend an annual holiday in marching and counter-marching, and then, after thirty miles of moving over a heavy country, to return to London dead beat.

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EFFECTIVELY SETTLING IT.—­A “par” in the Daily Telegraph last Friday informed us that “The Bishop of EXETER administered, yesterday, the rite of confirmation to thirty-eight patients of the Western Counties’ Idiot Asylum at Starcross.  This is the first time such a rite has been conferred upon inmates of this institution.”  Very hard on these inmates, as, previous to the ceremony there might have been some hope of their recovery; but now they have become “confirmed idiots.”

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ODE TO A GIRAFFE.

(On hearing that the Solitary Specimen at the Zoo had just died.)