FINANCIAL PROBLEM (_the effect of reading the Budget Debates_).--Why is the Income-Tax so sharply felt? Because, disguise it as you may, it's a case of tin-tax! * * * LONDON KNIGHT BY KNIGHT.--The SOLICITOR-GENERAL Knighted last Wednesday at Windsor. Will BOB (the only name by which his many friends know him) henceforth be known as "the Queen's Shilling"? * * * * * RANELAGH IN RAIN. How sweet this road is, fringed by hedgerow elm, Where peeps in May the hawthorn's snowy bud, A fairy place that seems _Titania's_ realm! By Jove, what mud! How sweet this turf, as soft as finest moss! Such "_gazon anglais_" we alone can get. Oh hang it, no! I cannot walk across, It's soaking wet! How sweet that lake, where gentle eddies play! But all around seems lake, through rainfall dim. Why want a pond, when on dry (!) land to-day We almost swim? How sweet--to get a Hansom home again, And leave this aguish, rheumatic damp! I do not love thee, Ranelagh, in rain, Beneath a gamp. * * * * * WHAT'S IN A NAME INDEED? "Edward, Albert, Christian, George, Andrew, Patrick, David, Drink life's pleasures with free gorge! From its pains be savèd!" So said _Punch_ at the White Lodge, His old optics glistening, Sure such names ill-luck should dodge; Sure such names no babe e'er bore, Patron Saints! You've all the four To bless the Royal Christening! * * * * * A COMPANY THAT OUGHT TO "FLOAT."--"The Cork Company." * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P. _House of Commons, Monday, July 16._--The Blameless B. is translated into the Breathless BARTLEY. Of eleven pages of Amendments to Budget Bill standing for consideration when House met to-day, not less than three contributed by this particular B. Embodied readjusted scale of graduated taxation. Only objections to it presently stated by SQUIRE OF MALWOOD: (1) It would necessitate total reconstruction of Bill (2) resulting in loss of £643,000; (3) whole question had been thoroughly threshed out in Committee. To raise it again at eleventh hour seemed too much to ask even in connection with Budget Bill.