THE IRR. P. (_pleased, to himself_): "Come, now I'm getting accustomed to it, I can hear capitally." THE VOICES: "Then why have you----?... I will tell you all. Twenty-five years ago, when a shinder foodle in the Borjeezlers I----" A STILL SMALL VOICE (_in everybody's ear_): "TIME, PLEASE." [Sidenote: _Unconscious Crime_] In the realm of discovery the return of the Arctic Expedition of the _Alert_ and the _Discovery_ under Nares was an outstanding event of 1876 and was commemorated in two cartoons. As a mountain had been named after _Punch_ he was naturally inclined to be proud of an expedition which had given him something to be proud of. In 1880 a plan for a new Arctic Expedition in which balloons should take part attracted a good deal of notice, but _Punch_ was reluctantly sceptical of the feasibility of this "wild scheme," expounded before the Lord Mayor by a deputation mainly of sailors, but including Coxwell the famous aeronaut. In 1885 we catch the first murmurs of modern psychological jargon in a ballade on "The Unconscious Self":-- 'Tis a famous idea of Myers, The _Spectator_ attempts to explain, There's a hitch in the cerebral wires That the burden of thinking sustain; One "hemisphere" bustles amain, While the other is laid on the shelf, And what tenants these cells of the Brain? It is just the Unconscious Self! Now suppose that this essence inspires All acts that give Moralists pain, That ferocious passions it fires, Why the sinner may guiltless remain! He may forge, and may hurry to Spain With a parcel of alien pelf, But the culprit's that Side of his Brain, It is just the Unconscious Self! What a comfort to ladies and squires When their scutcheon is under a stain! They must answer whoever inquires, With apology none can disdain, "Automatic vagaries arraign, But acquit the poor innocent elf. Ananias is guiltless, and Cain, It is just the Unconscious Self!" Prince, surely the notion is plain To the critical mind of a Guelph, When we sin 'tis a kink in the brain. It is just the Unconscious Self! Write "Subconscious" for "Unconscious," and _Punch's_ lines remain an excellent exposition and criticism of the fashionable doctrine of Psycho-Analysis of to-day. [Illustration: NO MISTAKE THIS TIME LODGER: "Dear me, Mrs. Cribbles, your cat's been at this mutton again!" LANDLADY: "Oh no, Mum, it can't be the cat. My 'usband says he b'lieves it's the Collerlarda Beetle."]