H. J. Byron brought out a penny rival to _Punch_, to which he gave the somewhat jejune title _Comic News_. But there was nothing at all jejune about the contents. The editor seemed to have inspired his staff with his own spirit of wild and irresponsible fun. The thing was a roar from beginning to end. The title displayed a caricature of the royal arms, with the mottoes “Dieu et mon droit” and “Honi soit qui mal y pense” riotously rendered, “Do ’em and drwaw it” and “On his walks he madly puns.” It was the funniest thing ever produced, but it did not take with the many-headed. I strongly suspect that the public imagined that “H. J.” was laughing _at_ and not _with_ them. Two weekly organs of gossip, criticism, and politics which depended for acceptance chiefly on their cartoons were the _Tomahawk_ and _Will O’ the Wisp_. The former introduced to the public the bold and effective artistic work of Matt Morgan; the latter was the first to discover the abundant merits of the art of my friend John Proctor. In the literary department both papers occasionally condescended to scandal and scurrility. Morgan’s cartoon entitled “A Brown Study” was resented by all decent-minded men, and both papers failed because they entirely misunderstood the tastes of those who at that time purchased weekly journals. The cartoons in both cases were of sufficient merit to keep any properly edited paper alive. But when the cartoonists themselves were inspired by the conductors the worst happened. Both papers died the death unregretted. How the _St. Stephen’s Review_ managed to struggle through its recurring financial viscissitudes is one of the unsolved mysteries of the publishing world. It was a strong Tory weekly, price sixpence, with a coloured cartoon by Tom Merry, and the one outstanding fact to its credit is that Mr. William Alison, the editor, gave Phil May his first chance. Alison has since those days discovered his journalistic _métier_ in a field far removed from the arid area of politics, and in his new line he has achieved a large and financial success. I wrote a lot of copy for the _St. Stephen’s Review_. But I turned it up after a while, and I have no doubt someone better qualified took my place.