[Illustration: "What cheer, my hearties!"] * * * * * Ladies desirous of "trying their luck" in the matter of marrying a title, had better turn their attention towards St. Petersburg, where a French Count has made the novel proposal of starting a lottery--with himself as the prize. A million tickets are to be issued at one rouble each. The winner is to receive, in addition to an aristocratic husband, the sum of 250,000 roubles; the Count himself will pocket a quarter of a million; and the remaining half of the money is to be divided between charity and the promoters of the "raffle." In the Parisian parlance of the boulevards, this enterprising nobleman is decidedly a "roublard." * * * * * ROUNDABOUT READINGS. I learn from _The Freeman's Journal_ that "Lord WINDSOR, who presided at the Librarians' Congress, is an all-round man. In addition to his interest in libraries and the support which he has given to struggling Tory papers, he is a first-class lawn-tennis player who has narrowly escaped playing for the amateur finals, and a cricketer who carries about with him still the marks of a blow which he received on the nose in the playing fields of Eton College." I assume, though the fact is not expressly stated, that the blow was inflicted by a cricket ball, and not by the hostile fist of a fellow Etonian. It appears, then, that in his early youth there was about Lord WINDSOR'S nose a something, a bridge, an angle, _que sçais-je_, which forbad the idea of complete roundness. The providential arrival of a sort of homoeopathic cricket ball removed the protuberance, and now Lord WINDSOR is _totus teres atque rotundus_. And, what is more, he still carries the marks about with him. Gallant President of the Librarians' Congress! [Illustration] * * * * * As a small boy at Eton Lord WINDSOR, I hear, Played a good game of cricket, but failed as a sphere. But behold, he grows rounder, the older he grows, With a ball to each eye _plus_ a ball on his nose. * * * * * West Bromwich has my profound sympathy. I read in a Birmingham paper that "there is a complete deadlock with regard to the mayoralty of West Bromwich for the coming year. The deputation appointed at the meeting in August have waited upon several eligible gentlemen to try and induce them to accept office, but without any success up to the present. Alderman ROLLASON has declined, and Councillor BUSHELL will not undertake the duties, and the committee are now doing their best to induce Councillor SLATER to take the position a second time." By this time, let us hope, the difficulty may have been removed, for imagination boggles at the idea of a town without a mayor. * * * * *