"I regret" (says this truly Christian cleric) "having been unable to respond in the way you desired to your appeal respecting the persecution of Christians in Armenia. My not doing so was owing to the circumstance that at the present time a remonstrance from our nation can have no moral weight whatever. We have now in office a Government which is exercising all its ingenuity in plans for the persecution and plunder of Christians here, and so long as we tolerate the continuance of such a Government in office the Turk would be justified in telling us to reform this scandal before we presume to remonstrate with him." * * * * * In other words, the Vicar of Walford-on-Wye disapproves of the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill, and refuses on that account to join in a protest against the torture and murder of his Armenian fellow-creatures. The logic of the Vicar is as convincing as his Christian sympathy is admirable. Let him be known henceforth as the Vicar of Reason Wye. * * * * * What on earth is a "Rational Sick and Burial Association?" They possess one at Acton Turville; and, only the other day, it held great junketings. I may possibly have been rationally sick, but I have certainly never yet been rationally, or even irrationally, buried, nor, I take it, have the very vigorous members of the Association. However, they had a procession, which started from the club-room, headed by the Malmesbury band, and then walked to Badminton, calling at the Duke of BEAUFORT'S, where they were all treated with refreshments. Imagine his sporting Grace's feelings at being called upon to treat with refreshments a procession of the rationally sick and buried. They then dined. The _menu_ is not given, but no doubt included bread made from mummy-wheat, Dead-sea fruit, and copious libations of bier (spelling again!). * * * * * Close to Bristol, too, there is a place rejoicing in the name of Fishponds, where, at the Full Moon Hotel, the Loyal Pride of Fishponds Lodge of the Bristol Equalised District of the Order of Druids meets for its various celebrations. The members sometimes "perambulate the village, headed by the band of the Mangotsfield detachment of the Bristol Rifles." * * * * *