Commercial prosperity continues to attend the cheery coster as he hawks his wares about the Liverpudlian streets, and the situation is getting hawkward for the local tradesman, who declares that the itinerant vendor's opposition draws away customers from his shop. So momentous, indeed, to the welfare of the Lancastrian port has this Cockney Crusade become, that the magnates of the City Corporation assembled in Committee to discuss means for "making the coster go back to London." Among other weighty reasons for the expulsion of the intruder, it was stated that "a gentleman trod upon a banana peel the other day, and fell." Whether the peel was deposited by an offending coster, or by one of the many bare-footed but picturesque and ingenuous youths of the town, history does not relate. However, the great gravity of the crisis may be understood when, towards the end of the debate on the question, we are told that the chairman observed that, "if this thing was allowed to go on, perhaps a certain alderman and himself would start a barrow with a picture on it, and go about selling fine arts." Chorus of aldermen:-- Round the town! Up and down! Anything to earn an honest brown: Civic costers enterprising, Up-to-date and early-rising, Why we'll hawk our blooming pictures round the town! * * * * * BRAEMAR Castle is to be restored. "The alterations on the building are to be mostly internal," says the _Daily Free Press_, "and the external appearance will remain as at present, so that on rounding Creag Choinnich"--a good coigne of vantage this, by the way--"the traveller will have no difficulty in recognising the castle." Good. Beau BRUMMELL once snubbed a sovereign, but we should hate to run the risk of cutting a castle. The same authority further informs us that the edifice in question "stands on a grassy mound between the Deeside road and the river Dee, and _as it is not surrounded by trees_ it forms a rather conspicuous object in the landscape." Dee-side-dly this smacks more of Erin than of Caledonia, and calls to mind PAT O'FEEGAN'S remark--"Shure, me bhoy, an' I wasn't in the room at all, at all. I was hidin' behind the fire-shcreen!" * * * * * LITERARY PROVERB.--Too many characters spoil the novel. * * * * * [Illustration: REVENGE IS SWEET. _Beach Musician_ (_to constant Non-Subscriber_). "'SURE WE SHOULD BE MOST 'APPY TO PUT ANY GENTLEMAN THAT REELLY CAN'T AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE ON THE FREE LIST!"] * * * * * THE AGE OF LOVE. (_To the Editor of "Punch."_)