Take ships, for instance. You will note
That, lacking stuff on which to float,
They could not get about;
Dreadnought and liner, smack and yawl,
And other types that you'll recall--
They simply could not sail at all
If Ocean once gave out.

And see the trouble which it saves
To islands; but for all those waves
That made us what we are--
But for their help so kindly lent,
Teutons could march right through to Kent
And never need to circumvent
A single British tar.

Take fish, again. I have in mind
No better field that they could find
For exercise and sport;
How would the whale, I want to know,
The blubbery whale contrive to blow;
Where would your playful kipper go
If the supply ran short?

And hence we rank the Ocean high;
But there are privy reasons why
Its praise is on my lip:
I deem it, when my heart is set
On walking into something wet,
The nicest medium I have met
In which to take a dip.

Ah, speed the hour already fixed
When, mid the bathers (freely mixed),
In a polite costume
I mean to plunge beneath the spray
And, washing from a soul at play
The City's stain--three times a day--
Restore its vernal bloom.

Rocked like a babe upon the brine
It is my dream to float supine
And to the vast inane
Banish awhile from off my chest
The cares that hold it now obsessed,
And even take a clean-cut rest
From Ulster-on-the-brain.

O. S.

* * * * *

The Best Holiday Insurance.

_Mr. Punch_ ventures to hint to the gentlest among his readers that,
while there are excellent methods of insuring against the disturbance
of their holidays by accident or bad weather, the best way for them to
insure happiness is to offer a share of it to those who cannot afford
a holiday of their own. The very easy sum of TEN SHILLINGS means a
Fortnight among green fields or by the sea for one poor child, if
the gift is sent--and now is the moment--to the Earl of ARRAN, Hon.
Treasurer of the Children's Country Holiday Fund, 18, Buckingham
Street, Strand, W.C.

* * * * *

THE CRISIS.

["Lord Macaulay's prose seems to be finding favour again."
_Oshkosh Sentinel._]

The place, too, was well fitted for such a gathering. Memories of
departed monarchs spoke from the rich hangings o