ABSCONDRELISM.--I belong to a Building Society. At present the concern is exceptionally prosperous, and I have no reason to suppose that the Directors and Manager are not scrupulously honest. Still, it is as well to be prepared for all eventualities, and, as a couple of years seems to be about the time required by the authorities before they can make up their minds to prosecute anybody, I should like to know if I could apply for a warrant against the officials of my Society _at once_, so as to have everything ready in case any of them should develop fraudulent tendencies a few years hence? Would there be any objection to this? Perhaps some legal reader would reply. Also, is it a fact that Messrs. BALBERT AND HURLFOUR have started a model Colony, on entirely new and philanthropic lines, in Mexico, and are inviting English settlers (unconnected with the "Liberator" Society) to join them there, the prospectus of the scheme being headed:--"By kind permission of the Public Prosecutor"?--PROPHYLACTIC. * * * * * HER "DAY OF REST." (_The Song of the Shop-Girl._) [Illustration: ["As one poor shop-girl said:--'After the fatigue and worry of the week, I am so thoroughly worn out, that my only thought is to rest on a Sunday; but it goes too quickly, and the other days drag on so slowly!'"--_Quoted by Sir John Lubbock in the recent Debate on Early Closing for Shops._]] Eight o'clock strikes! The short day's sped,-- My Day of Rest! That beating in my head Hammers on still, like coffin-taps. He likes, Our lynx-eyed chief, to see us brisk and trim On Monday mornings; and though brains may swim, And breasts sink sickeningly with nameless pain, _He_ cannot feel the faintness and the strain, And what are they to him? This morning's sun peeped in Invitingly, as though to win My footsteps fieldwards, just one day in seven! The thought of hedgerows was like opening heaven, And the stray sunray's gleam, Threading the dingy blind, Seemed part of a sweet dream, For in our sleep the Fates _are_ sometimes kind. "Come out!" it said, "but not with weary tread, And feet of lead, The long, mud-cumbered, cold, accustomed way, For the great Shop is shuttered close to-day, And you awhile are free!" _Free?_ With a chain of iron upon my heart, That drags me down, and makes the salt tears start! Oh, that inexorable weariness That through the enfeebled flesh lays crushing stress On the young spirit! Young? There is no youth For such as I. It dies, in very truth, At the first touch of the taskmaster's hand. A doctrine hard for you to understand, Gay sisters of the primrose path, Whose only chain is as a flowery band. The toil that outstays nature hath A palsying power, a chilling force Which freezes youth at its fresh source. Only the Comus wand Of an unhallowed Pleasure offers such Freedom, and with pollution in its touch.