West Bromwich's Committee-men, they fairly tore their hair. In all West Bromwich's expanse they could not find a Mayor. Each deputy with anguish notes his prematurely shed lock, But, dash it, what are men to do confronted by a deadlock? Each portly Alderman his Aldermanic self excuses, In vain they try the Councillors, for every one refuses. Declined with thanks by ROLLASON, the honour next they proffer To BUSHELL, who, in turn, declines their most obliging offer. Next, moving on, they tempt again their ex-Mayor, Mr. SLATER, "Be thou," they cry, with emphasis, "our mayoral dictator. With badge and chain and gown of fur it's not a paltry billet; The breach is ready-made," they say; "step into it and fill it. A vacuum a nuisance is, we ask thee to abate it; Our edifice is roofless now, climb up and promptly slate it." * * * * * If Mr. SLATER should ultimately decline the proffered mayoralty, the only suggestion I can make is that somebody should be pricked for the office. I don't quite know what it means, but I know that every year some forty estimable gentlemen are pricked for the shrievalty of their respective counties. One after another they arise in the Court of Justice in which this terrible ceremony takes place and declare that there are circumstances which absolutely forbid them to accept the post of High Sheriff. One pleads a reduced rental, another asks to be excused on the ground of failing health, but the plea is allowed in very few cases, and in the end most of them are reluctantly pricked. The new cook on board ship in CHARLES DICKENS'S _American Notes_ was boxed up with the Captain standing over him, and was forced to roll out pastry which he protested, being of a highly bilious nature, it was death to him merely to look at. But he had to roll it out all the same. So it ought to be with an unwilling candidate for a mayoralty. * * * * * Let us be just to our American cousins in spite of boat-racing and yacht-racing _fiascos_. There are certain things that they obviously order much better than we do. For instance, when the silly season presses they just mark out one of their prominent literary men and have him attacked by highwaymen. At least this is what lately happened to Mr. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, for I read in _Harper's Weekly_ that "a considerable number of daily journals of average veracity in New York and Boston published accounts of Mr. DAVIS'S encounter, differing to such a degree in details that each paper seemed to derive its information from an independent source. The very variation of the reports was an indication of a basis to the original tale: but after all, the despatch which carried most conviction was one only four lines long, in which Mr. DAVIS was quoted as intimating that some industrious writer had lied about him." * * * * *