* * * * * HOPE DISPELLED.--The music-hall proprietors must have been in high spirits at the commencement of the sittings of the Licensing Committee when they heard that "Mr. ROBERTS" was to be the chairman. Of course, to them there is but one "ROBERTS," which his _prénom_ is "ARTHUR"--and unfortunately there appeared as chairman "not _this_ ARTHUR, but another." * * * * * In the course of conversation, the other evening, Mrs. R. remembered that "The Margarine" is a German title. "Isn't there," she asked, "a Margarine of Hesse?" * * * * * ANTI-FATNESS.--Excellent receipt for getting thin. Back horses, and you will lose many pounds in no time. (_Advice gratis by one who has tried it._) * * * * * A PIER OF THE EMPIRE. (_By a Commoner of the Nation._) As licensing day was approaching, I thought it my duty to visit the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, so that if needs be I could appear as a witness either for the prosecution or the defence. I am happy to say that my expedition has put me in a position to join the garrison. From first to last--from item No. 1 to item No. 10--the entertainments at the Empire are excellent. And in the general praise I am able to include "Living Pictures," which are all that even an archbishop could wish that they should be. But the chief attraction of the evening is a new _ballet divertissement_ in one tableau, called _On Brighton Pier_, which has evidently been put up to teach the members of the L. C. C. how much better things are done in the Sussex watering place than in the great metropolis. According to "the Argument," when the scene opens, people are promenading in the sun, and "some gentlemen bribe the bath chairmen to give up their places in the evening so that they may flirt with the girls accompanying the invalids." But possibly as an afterthought this was thought a little too strong for the Censor of Spring Gardens. I found the "gentlemen" (most of them in high white hats), and then I discovered the bath chairmen, but there was nothing to lead me to believe that the connecting links between the two were bribery and corruption. In addition to this _plat à la Don Giovanni_ there were an _entrée_ in the shape of a gathering of schoolboys and schoolgirls, a _soufflé_ in some military plus naval drill, and a _pièce de résistance_ in a change of scene from the deck of the Pier to the depths of the sea beneath it. And here let me say that I use _résistance_ in a purely culinary sense, as nothing could have worked more smoothly than the transformation. [Illustration]