_A._ Positive ... bosh. * * * * * "THE WORLD'S FAIR."--Yes, so it is, perhaps, occasionally, to some people; but "The World's _Un_fair" to those on whom it chooses to sit in judgment. * * * * * MANNERS. [Some indignation has been expressed at the manners of many of the "well-dressed mob" at the Prince of WALES's Reception at the Imperial Institute on Wednesday night last, manners displayed in rudely "mobbing" the Royal party, and hissing, hooting, and shouting "Traitor!" at Mr. GLADSTONE, one of the Prince's guests.] EH? Indignation? Why _such_ passion waste? Gladstoneophobia has destroyed Good Taste; And rowdy rudeness does not shock, but please, "The mob of gentlemen who _hoot_ with ease. As for the ladies, bless their angry hearts! They've Primrosed into playing fish-wife parts; And now 'tis one of Patriotism's tests That you should hiss and hoot your fellow-guests. Should they dare don a rival party vesture; Billingsgate rhetoric and Borough gesture Invade the (party) precincts of Mayfair-- To express the vulgar wrath now raging there. We are Mob-ruled indeed--when Courtly Nob Apes, near his Prince, the manners of the Mob! The hoot is owlish; there are just two things That hiss--one venom-fanged, one graced with wings. Anserine or serpentine, ye well-dressed rowdies? Dainty-draped dames, or duffel-skirted dowdies, They who in rudeness thus their spite would slake, Have plainly head of goose, and heart of snake! So why indulge in indignation blind 'Gainst those who hiss or hoot--after their kind? * * * * * [Illustration: "THE MINSTREL BOY." LORD S-L-SB-RY (_sings_). "I'LL HARP WILD WAR, AYE, FROM SEA TO SEA, ERE THE LOYALISTS STOOP TO SLAVERY!"] * * * * * "O SINO SAN!" A TRUTHFUL JAPANESE IDYLL. [Illustration] O SINO SAN! O SINO SAN! Who waketh me at morn! Why is it that I feel of thee unutterable scorn? When I behold thy greasy poll and little piggy eyes, I fear that they have told of thee unwarrantable lies! They told me when I wandered forth to seek thee in Japan, That I should find a priceless girl, too beautiful for man. They told me of thy cherry cheeks, thy hair of night-dark sable, And how you squatted on the floor--the Japanese for table; They gushed about your merry ways, your manners without flaw, In thee, the girl idealised, you little fraud, we saw. But now in wind-swept bleak Japan as our sore throats we muffle, We see thy senseless pudding face and irritating shuffle; As you go slopping thro' the streets of your foul-smelling city, You're far too common to be rare, too brainless to be witty. Your senseless, everlasting grin, your squatting monkey shape, Proclaim your Ma marsupial, your ancestor an ape!