* * * * * [Illustration: CLASSICAL CAB STRIKE AT ATHENS. ["Tourists and foreigners ... in Athens have been put to great inconvenience on account of the cab strike."--_Standard, March 14._]] * * * * * "THE PROPOSED COMMONS PRESERVATION BILL."--Seeing this heading to an article, an eminently well-informed Conservative politician, whose zeal was in excess of his knowledge, exclaimed, "Ah! I thought it would come to this! The Ultra-Radicals are not going straight for the abolition of the Upper House, but have decided on undermining it, by doing away with the Lower One to begin with. Fancy its being necessary for the Commons to bring in a Bill for their own self-preservation!!" * * * * * VADE MECUM FOR A CERTAIN COURT OFFICIAL. _Question._ Your duty, I believe, is to protect the public from receiving impressions--from your point of view--of a pernicious character? _Answer._ Certainly; and this I accomplish by reading and rejecting what I think the public should avoid. _Q._ How long has the office been in existence? _A._ About a century or so. _Q._ How did the public get on before your office came into existence? _A._ Fairly well, especially in the days of SHAKSPEARE. _Q._ Had the Bard of Avon to obtain a licence for the production of his plays? _A._ No; they were then practically edited by the public. _Q._ Could not the public edit plays in the reign of Queen VICTORIA with the intelligence displayed in the days of "Good Queen BESS"? _A._ It is impossible to say, as the question has not been tested by experiment. _Q._ You say that your duty is to preserve the purity of the public taste; was that also the object of the earlier of your predecessors? _A._ Seemingly not, as the office was called into existence to serve as a bar to the dissemination of opinions of an entirely political character. _Q._ But that is not now the _raison d'être_ of the appointment? _A._ Oh, no; for nowadays, thanks to the newspapers, politics enjoys free trade. _Q._ But still, the right of interference exists? _A._ Yes, but it is only used to prevent a performer from "making up" as a Cabinet Minister, to the annoyance of the right hon. gentleman favoured with the attention. _Q._ Is there any rule to guide the use of the official blue pencil? _A._ None in particular. That emblem of concrete authority may be diligently used for a decade, and then be laid aside for a quarter of a century. _Q._ Then there is no policy in the office? _A._ None to speak of. What was wrong in 1875 may be right in 1895, and may be wrong again at the commencement of the next century. _Q._ But purely such an office has not gained the entire applause of the London Press? _A._ On the contrary, the all but universal condemnation. _Q._ And yet when the office became vacant there were many journalistic applicants?