d at knowing
The play's the thing--for growing girls!

The pages of a lady's journal
I've very often read with care,
The news, the gossiping eternal,
You're always sure of getting there.
Of how you ought to bind your tresses,
The latest styles, the tint in hair,
And there I've seen the kind of dresses
It's right for growing girls to wear.

But never once the slightest mention
Of what they'd better go and see,
And yet it's clear that some attention
To such a thing there ought to be.
For sentiment and love they're frantic,
They're fond of knights and belted earls,
A play that's just the least romantic--
Yes, that's the play for growing girls.

A crowing child, who loves to prattle,
Can easily be kept at rest.
You've only got to get a rattle,
Or p'raps a dolly would be best.
A bouncing boy will blow a bubble,
And want no more the livelong day;
But if a growing girl gives trouble,
You've got to take her to the play!

* * * * *

A PIONEER IN PETTICOATS.

[An American Lady is about to explore Africa, on humane
principles.]

_Arrive in Africa_.--Convinced that real way of taming the savage
heart is by _Feminine Tact_. No need of brutal habits of male
adventurers. Two negresses, from "Ole Virginny," with me, who said
they would like to "see Africa again"; a few Arabs, to carry our
baggage. Intend to study home-life of African tribes, and to get them
to talk into my phonograph.

[Illustration]

_Month Later_.--Have had to exhibit more Feminine Tact than I
expected. Got entangled in swampy forest on Zambesi (I think), and
Arabs declined to extricate us unless their pay was doubled! Also one
of negresses--horrid woman!--has deserted me--come to place that she
pretended to recognise as her native village, and said she meant to
stay! Tact useless with females!

_On Lake Tanganyika_--or if it isn't Lake Tanganyika, it's _an
entirely new lake_,--which I have been the first to discover! Suffer a
good deal from fever and queer diet. Am studying native home-life.

_Later_.--Have left two Arabs and my remaining negress on Lake, and
gone myself to look for STANLEY's Dwarfs. Told that TIPPOO TIB is
somewhere about. Also advised to be very careful not to fall in with
the "man-eating Manyuema."

_Still Later_.--Did fall in with them! Also fell out with them.
They made all preparations for using me as a s