NEW READING.--"A bull in a china shop" may be Latin-Americanised with a considerable amount of truth as "The '_bos_' of the show." * * * * * THE MENU À LA MODE. Come, DAMON, since again we've met We'll feast right royally to-night, The groaning table shall be set With every seasonable delight! The luscious bivalve ... I forgot, The oyster is an arch-deceiver, And makes its eater's certain lot A bad attack of typhoid fever. With soup then, be it thick or clear, The banquet fitly may commence-- Alas, on second thoughts, I fear With soup as well we must dispense. The doctors urge that, in effect. Soup simply kills the thoughtless glutton, It's full of germs. I recollect They say the same of beef and mutton. Yes, each variety of meat, As you remark, is much the same, And we're forbidden now to eat Fish, oysters, poultry, joint or game. But though a Nemesis each brings, The punishment, the doctors tell, is As nothing to the awful things Awaiting all who toy with jellies. "Cheese--that is not condemned with these?" Yet ample evidence we find To make us, DAMON, look on cheese As simply poison to mankind; While those who may desire to pass Immediately o'er Charon's ferry, Have but to take a daily glass Of claret, hock, champagne or sherry. And therefore, DAMON, you and I, Who fain would live a year at least, Reluctantly must modify The scope of our projected feast; A charcoal biscuit we will share, Water (distilled, of course,) we'll swallow, Since this appears the only fare On which destruction will not follow! * * * * * SHAKSPEARE REVISED BY AN ALDERMAN. "May I ask," said the worthy Alderman DAVIES, and he might have added, "I ask because '_DAVIES sum, non OEdipus_'"--but he didn't, and it was a chance lost, "what salary you [the witness under examination] received for this conduct of yours while secretary?" To which witness answered, "£500 a year, and a bonus of £200." Whereupon the Alderman remarked, "Then all I can say is, you could have got many honest men to do the work for much less." Quite so, Mr. Alderman, true for you; but if a man will act honestly for a sovereign, what might not the addition of ten shillings do? It ought to make him more honest comparatively, while another ten shillings would make him superlatively honest. But how if there were an obligation attached to the increase? Just a trifling deviation out of the straight course to begin with, to oblige a patron?