This latest move, it’s very true,
    Appears to be a rather rum thing,
  But yet for idle hands to do
    We know that Someone will find something. 
  Will fashionable hopping last? 
    Well, this it’s safe to lay your cash on,
  Before another year has passed
    There’ll be another female fashion.

* * * * *

VIVE LA RAIN DU BALLET A L’ALHAMBRA!—­“Certainly,” says MR. JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD, “Ve’ve la rain.  It comes pouring down on the stage, and the people come pouring in to see it.  I suppose,” says he, “they’ll now call me ’The Wetter’un?” The ballet is very effective, not a drop too much, and “not a drop in the business” in front of the house, though there is, as is evident, on the stage.  If Manager JOHN liked to quote SHAKSPEARE with a difference, in his advertisements, he might say, “With a hey, ho, the Wind and the Rain!  For the Rain it raineth every night!” For some time to come this show will be the raining favourite at the Alhambra.  By the way, the Sheffield Telegraph, describing the alterations and improvements in front at the Alhambra, wrote—­“The ceiling has been bevelled with porous plasters so as to hide the girders.”  We know that hand:—­it’s Our “Mrs. RAMSBOTHAM,” and she “comes from Sheffield.”  However, “porous plasters” would be another attraction at the Alhambra, or anywhere, as they certainly ought to draw.

* * * * *

LADY GAY’S SELECTIONS.

Mount Street, Grosvenor Square.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,

Unlucky Leicester was even more unlucky than usual—­and when the big race was run last Wednesday, so thick was the rain, that the horses could only be seen for the last half mile!  Of course this made all the difference to the horse I selected—­Windgall—­who finished second;—­as he only gives his best performances in public, and as he doubtless knew he couldn’t be seen, he thought it was only a private trial until he got close home, when his gallant effort was too late to be of any use!—­at least, this is how I read the result of the race, and who can know more about a horse than the racing-prophet, I should like to know?

I was told by Sir WALTER GREENINGTON, that the public “tumbled over each other” to back Breach, but I must say I didn’t notice anything of the sort, and it was not the kind of day anyone would choose for a roll on the turf, the state of which was detrimental to any kind of Breach!—­The believers in “coincidences”—­(of which I need hardly say I am one—­a coincidence being a truly feminine reason for backing a horse)—­had no option but to back the winner, Rusticus; as he drew the same berth he occupied in last year’s race, which he alsop—­(I mean also)—­won for Mr. HAMAR BASS!—­Stuart was a great eleventh hour tip—­(why eleventh hour I wonder?—­more than any other—­and who fixes the precise moment when the eleventh hour commences?)—­but history tells us the STUARTS were mostly unreliable; and though I am told he ran a “great horse”—­I thought him rather on the small side myself!