Mathematics to me are a terrible trial,
    They plague me in age as they floored me in youth,
  Or I might, when observing the hour on my dial,
    Allow for the error and guess at the truth. 
  Then why do I keep it?  Because it’s a mascot,
    And none of its vices can alter the fact
  That the very first day that I wore it, at Ascot,
        Three winners I happily backed.

* * * * *

“The annual meeting of the Court of Governors of the University of Birmingham was held yesterday at the University, Edmund Street.  The Pro-Vice-Chancellor said the University had done its share in the present awful state of Europe.”—­Birmingham Daily Post.

We are sorry to hear this.

* * * * *

“The Government have apparently taken infinite pains to so ’cut their coast according to their cloth’ as to provide for the least possible inconvenience and suffering to the people of these islands.”—­Cork Constitution.

Thanks to this wise provision there is still just enough coast to go round.

* * * * *

From the report of a schoolmasters’ conference:—­

“That we should spread our education wider, and not allow a boy to spend too much time on specialising is a good idea, but it is rather difficult to carry out in practice.  It means switching the boy’s mind from one subject to another.  The whole day is spent in this way—­switching from one subject to another, and therefore it is very difficult.”—­United Empire.

And it sounds painful too.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Jock. “AND ME GIVIN’ YON MAN AT THE STATION TWA BAWBEES TAE MIND MA GREATCOAT!”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)

It is strange to find the inexhaustible Mr. W.E.  NORRIS turning towards the supernatural.  Yet there is at least more than a flavouring of this in the composition of Brown Amber (HUTCHINSON), which partly concerns a remarkable bead, having the property of bringing good or evil luck to its various owners.  As (after the manner of such things in stories) the charm was for ever being lost, and as the kind of fortune it conferred went in alternations, possession of it was rather in the nature of a gamble.  All I have to observe about it is that such hazards consort somewhat better with the world of HANS ANDERSEN or the Arabian Nights than with those quiet and well-bred inhabitants of South-Western London whom one has learnt to associate with the name of NORRIS.  Thus, in considering the nice problem of whether Clement Drake (as typical a Norrisian as ever buttoned spats) would or would not escape the entanglements of Mrs. D’Esterre, it simply irritated