he whole the visit to Jobson's was a failure. R. C. L.

* * * * *

THE BEST POLICY.

(_Addressed to either pioneer of journalistic insurance._)

GREAT PAPER (with the booster circulation),
I much admire your latest enterprise;
I positively cheer with acclamation
When, daily, lines like these arrest my eyes:
"ANOTHER OF OUR READERS BREAKS HIS NECK;
PHOTO OF RELATIVES RECEIVING CHEQUE."

Yes, yes, I _know_ you meet more claims and vaster
Than does your noisy rival on the press;
Methinks the Furies, plotters of disaster,
Intend your scheme to be the true success;
And, of the pair, 'tis you appear to be
The surer passport to eternity.

So, sighing not for realms that are infernal,
I'll buy the meaner sheet, the over-matched;
Or, better still, some nice old-fashioned journal
To which no startling terror is attached;
Let others read you, heroes who can brave
The instant peril of a bloody grave!

* * * * *

[Illustration: LIGHTENING THE DARKNESS.

[The LORD MAYOR has opened a fund to assist the National Institute for
the Blind in its endeavour to increase and cheapen the supply of BRAILLE
literature.]]

* * * * *

IN THE BRAVE 3D. DAYS.

In these times of change and stress I have been remembering with much
relief a curious character who haunted the British Museum Reading Room a
quarter of a century ago. He cannot be there still, for he was elderly
then: a military-looking man with a very upright, almost corsetted,
form, a reddish face and a gingery moustache that in its prime might
have graced a major. His eye however, was not martial, but blue and
mild, watery and wandering, its quest being, I fancy, a convivial
acquaintance with enough money and generosity for two instalments of
refreshment. His hair, which was scanty, was carefully brushed, and
parted at the back even to his collar, and upon it was perched at a
slight angle a tall hat ironed beyond endurance. His erect body was
encased in a tightly-buttoned frock-coat so shiny that it glistened, and
as for his boots, no really softhearted observer could bear to look
twice at them, so inadequate were they to our city of rain.

Such was this jaunty thread-bare scholar; but what was his special
branch of learning I never discovered, nor did he make the discovery
easy, for, though he