CAUGHT WITH A "CATCH."--The idiotic catch-line of a Parisian Café-Concert ditty--"_En voulez-vous des z'homards?_" has been taken up by the citizens of the gay French capital with as much avidity as characterized their seizure upon shares in the Russian loan. The Comtesse Y., in sportive mood, twitted her butler--a very ancient retainer of the family--upon his antiquated, out-of-date manners, and chaffingly suggested that he should attempt to be more _fin-de-siècle_. The veteran _maître-d'hôtel_ assured Madame la Comtesse that he would give her no further cause for complaint. Accordingly, on the same evening, while handing round wine at the dinner-party, he promptly bellowed forth "_En voulez-vous du Pommard?_" * * * * * TRIFLES LIGHT AS HAIR. However much Kentish farmers may grumble about the agricultural outlook, their strop-and-razor colleagues, the barbers of that county, should now replace any grief in which they also may be indulging in reference to _their_ industry, with great gaiety, for there is every prospect of a long and prosperous run of hirsute harvests. The High Constable has decreed that, unless his men can grow "well regulated beards or military moustaches," they are to be clean-shaven. Farewell the festive "mutton-chop" whisker and the jovial goatee! Henceforth "Bobby" will be beardless, and as he drinks the mid-day pint of that frothing beverage whose main ingredient--more or less--is malt, the upper-lip hops-tacle, upon which the foam was wont to find a brief resting-place, will be conspicuous by its absence--not lost exactly, but s(h)aved before. [Illustration] * * * * * ROUNDABOUT READINGS. President ANDREWS, of Brown University, has contributed to the _North American Review_ an article entitled "Are there Too Many of Us?" Personally, I should answer with an unhesitating yes, especially after Bank Holidays, or _fêtes_ and galas such as those with which the provinces teem. And it may be noted, by the way, as a curious fact in the natural history of amusements, that no genuine _fête_ is ever found without a gala. Conversely a gala without a _fête_ cannot be imagined. From the presence in your neighbourhood of one of the two you are at once entitled to infer the presence of the other. * * * * * I return, however, to Professor ANDREWS. He proves by a series of elaborate and convincing calculations that if the world started with a population of two, the increase in 3,000 years would have become "two quintillion human beings; viz., to every square yard 3,333-1/3 persons. Or the earth would be covered with men in columns of 833-2/3 each, standing on each others heads. If they averaged five feet tall, each column would be 4,166-2/3 feet high." * * * * *