_Benevolent Lady_ (_who has with infinite trouble organised a Country Excursion for some overworked London Dressmakers_). "THEN MIND YOU'RE AT THE STATION AT NINE TO-MORROW, ELIZA. I DO HOPE IT WON'T RAIN!" "_RINE_, MISS! I 'OWP NOT, TO BE SURE! THE COUNTRY'S BAD ENOUGH WHEN IT'S _FOINE_, YN'T IT, MISS?"] * * * * * A SMOKING CHRISTIAN CONCERT.--In these smoking hot July days a Smoking Mission seems a good notion. Yet the Baccy-nalian missionaries may probably have to say, "We have pipe'd unto you, and you have not responded," except as long as the supply held out. Will there be distributed tracts entitled _A Bird's Eye View of Heaven_, _A Short Cut to Truth_, _Returns to Virtue_, _What is Life?_--_A Mixture!_ * * * * * PROVERB À PROPOS OF LATEST NEW WALTZ, "KING GRETCHEN."--"It's the last STRAUSS that breaks the record." * * * * * BAWBEES ACROSS THE BORDER.--The _Dundee Advertiser_ has recently published a table showing the distribution of Ministerial salaries amongst Peers, Liberal Unionists, and Scotchmen. According to our canny contemporary, "Scotland fares badly in the new Administration." The reason for this lament is found in the fact that the share of Caledonia--"the spoil is taken chiefly by the Clan Balfour," remarks the _D. A._--amounts only to £12,425. And yet this sum represents the "banging" of a good many "saxpences." North Britain is unreasonable! * * * * * WASTING HER SWEETNESS. (_An Electioneering Study._) ARGUMENT.--Mrs. HORACE HONEYBALL, wife of the Liberal Candidate for a Metropolitan Working-class Constituency, has undertaken in her husband's interests a house-to-house canvass in Bodgers' Buildings.