on the hip!”
  This will not do, if we’re to win. 
    Of course, dear Lord, ’twas but a slip,
  But then you do make such a lot;
    Explaining them away gets wearying. 
  You seem as though—­of course, ’tis rot!—­
    Our Free Trade system you were querying. 
  That cock won’t fight; Protection’s dead,
    Don’t trot its ghost out.  Just ask GOSCHEN! 
  That Silver Conference, too! His head
    Must have gone woolly, I’ve a notion. 
  Fire us with militant suggestions;
    Your loyal followers they embolden,
  But upon Economic Questions
    Remember Silence is so golden!

* * * * *

REPORTED DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BROAD GAUGE.—­It has been “converted,” and in this sense our old friend, The Broad Gauge, with its easy-going ways, is defunct for ever.  Is the conversion for the better?  From “broad” to “narrow” is not, ordinarily speaking, beneficial to the individual or to society.  And as applied to lines that fall in such pleasant places as do those of the Great Western, will the change to “narrow” result in the same breadth of view which the passengers have hitherto enjoyed?  Will the ideas of the management and direction of the G.W.R. change from “broad” to “narrow”?  We see it mentioned that the “cross sleepers” have been disturbed and re-laid (enough to make them crosser than ever; the ceremony should have been accompanied by a band playing selections from “The Sleeper Awakened"), and that “an inner row of chairs” is already fixed.  But chairs are not so comfortable for sleepers as the good old-fashioned broad-gauge-G.-W.-R. first-class seat, in which, after you had lunched, you could repose from Swindon to Exeter.  However, we all know the safety of choosing the “narrow” in preference to the “broad” way in life, and so, no doubt, the spiritually-minded Directors of the G.W.R. have acted with the best intentions and upon the most unanimous resolutions.  Yet “intentions” or “resolutions” are more compatible with the “broad” than the “narrow” way.

* * * * *

LORD BRAMWELL.

BORN 1808.  DIED 1892.

  Alas!  The Busy “B” is dead,
    No more we’ll hear him buzz a-wing,
  Nor picture with a smiling dread
    The pungent terrors of his sting. 
  As Io’s gadfly was this “B”
    To Sentiment and to Pretence. 
  Oh, Property!  Ah, Liberty! 
    Fallen in your supreme defence! 
  Gone is the friend that in a phrase
    The “Common Sense” of things could settle,
  That with a stroke could slay a craze,
    And folly lash with flail of nettle. 
  Who now will thunder in the Times
    Against the Socialistic Rad’s tone? 
  Who’ll flout the cant and check the crimes
    Of him, the all-surviving GLADSTONE?

* * * * *

Military Tournament at Islington successful as ever.  All the glory of war, as Mr. JORROCKS observed in his lecture, with one-half per cent. of its danger.  Under command of Major TULLY.  For seats, apply per Tully-phone.