Then picturesque localities no longer will be crowded With puffs of panaceas for our universal ills, No longer will the atmosphere be permanently clouded By sky-signs built to promulgate a patent soap or pills. No more in train or omnibus will every inch of boarding Be covered with advertisements of variegated hue; No more in every thoroughfare will each obtrusive hoarding Blaze, hideously chromatic, with its yellow, red, and blue. One thing, perhaps, you'll tell us,--you will pardon the suggestion-- We doubt not your ability your purposes to win, But yet our curiosity would fain propound the question,-- How, excellent Society, and when, will you begin? * * * * * "THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING" may now be seen in all their glory at the Crystal Palace Show. The excellent arrangements there made for their exhibition prove that they have been designed and carried out by a clever "Head"-Gardener. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration: At Easter Time the Baron de B.-W. visits his friend _The_ Peer of Brighton.] Seeing that _A Wild Wooing_ (published by F. V. WHITE & CO.) is by FLORENCE WARDEN, authoress of _The House on the Marsh_, the Baron anticipated a real treat. But he was somewhat disappointed. The novel is in one volume, which is an attraction, and that volume is of a portable size, which is another note in its favour; also it is not illustrated, which is an undisguised blessing. The story is interesting up to a certain point, which, however, does not take you very far into the book, and, after this point, the murmurings behind walls, the moving and dragging of heavy bodies under the floors, the insecure rope-ladders, the trap-doors, cellars, underground passages, smugglers, murderers, victims, and all sorts of mixed mysteries, become tiresome. There is yet another fault, which is, that the story is not told in so convincing a style as to make the reader feel quite sure that the authoress is not "getting at him" all the time, and just trying to see what quantity of old melodramatic stuff he will patiently stand.