come over on our side? You and I
together could do great things."

* * * * *

[Illustration: According to a scheme suggested by the Royal Statistical
Society everyone should be given a number and an index card at his
birth. This would help the police to trace missing persons, prevent
fraudulent marriages, etc. it would brighten the scheme if everybody was
compelled to wear his number in a conspicuous position, and if a
descriptive catalogue was issued.]

* * * * *

THE SWEET O' THE YEAR.

Get your summer smocks on, _ye_ little elves and fairies!
Put your winter ones away in burrows underground--
Thick leaves and thistledown,
Rabbit's-fur and missel-down,
Woven in your magic way which no one ever varies,
Worn in earthy hidey-holes till
Spring comes round!

Got your summer smocks on! Be clad no more in russet!
All the flow'rs are fashion-plates and fabrics for your wear--
Gold and silver gossamer,
Webs, from every blossomer,
Fragrant and so delicate (with neither seam nor gusset),
Filmily you spin them, but they will not tear!

Get your summer smocks on, for all the woodland's waking,
All the glades with green and glow salute you with a shout,
All the earth is chorussing
(Hear the Lady Flora sing!--
Her that strews the hyacinths and sets you merry-making),
Oak and ash do call you and the blackthorn's out!

Get your summer smocks on, for soon's the time of dances
Soon's the time of junketings and revellers' delights--
Dances in your pleasaunces
Where your dainty presence is
Dangerous to mortals mid the moonlight that entrances,
Dazzling to a mortal eye on hot June nights!

* * * * *

April 23, 1914.

350th Anniversary of the birth of William Makepeace
Shakespeare."--_Kostenaian._

Oliver Wendell Cromwell, the distinguished author-politician, was born
much later than the poet-novelist.

* * * * *

A HANGING GARDEN IN BABYLON.

"Are you taking me to the Flower Show this afternoon?" asked Celia at
breakfast.

"No," I said thoughtfully; "no."

"Well, that's that. What other breakfast conversation have I? Have you
been to any theatres lately?"

"Do you really want to go to the Flower Show?" I asked. "Because I don't
believe I could bear it."

"I've saved up two shi