lied that unfortunately the decision rested with him and
not with the hon. Member.

The House then settled down to business, and gave a Third Reading to
two Bills, and a Second Reading to five others. On the Women, Young
Persons and Children (Employment) Bill Mr. BARNES took exception, not
unnaturally, to a clause permitting "the employment of women and
young persons in shifts up to ten o'clock at night," and Major BAIRD
undertook to consider the withdrawal of this equivocal piece of
draftsmanship.

* * * * *

"'The time has come,' the walrus said,
'To speak of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax,
Of cabbages and kings.'--(O. Henry)."

_Free State Paper._

Where did LEWIS CARROLL? Apparently not in the Free State.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Curate_ (_discussing the drink question_). "MIND YOU,
I'M FOND OF A GLASS OF BEER. MYSELF, BUT I CAN'T INDULGE. IT DOESN'T
AGREE WITH ME."

_Rustic_ (_sympathetically_). "DEAR, DEAR! AIN'T THERE NO CURE?"]

* * * * *

THE FUTURE OF APSLEY HOUSE.

CONFLICTING STATEMENTS.

The possibility of a super-dancing-saloon being erected on the site of
Apsley House is, we fear, likely to be relegated to the limbo of lost
opportunities.

It will be remembered that a few weeks ago London in general and the
West-End in particular was excited and delighted by the announcement
that Apsley House had been sold to an influential syndicate and
would shortly be converted into a massive and monumental block,
forty storeys high, crowned with the dancing-saloon and including
a concert-hall with the most powerful organ in the world, and
a swimming-bath with salt water conveyed by a special pipe from
Brighton.

It will also be remembered that Mr. Chumpley Swope, the chairman of
the syndicate, issued a powerful manifesto in which he explained
the purely humanitarian motives of the enterprise--to obliterate
the militaristic associations of the site; to replace an unsightly
building by a fabric which would be one of the architectural glories
of London, and simultaneously to cheer the patients in St. George's
Hospital with the sounds of harmony by night.

Unhappily the realisation of these beneficent and artistic designs
seems likely to be indefinitely postponed, to judge from the
authoritative statements made to our representative by Mr. Doremus
Pomerene, architect to the owne