According to figures published in our bright little contemporary, _Fire_, property amounting to L359,875 was destroyed by fire in Great Britain during the past year. This seems to us more than enough, but it is not easy to satisfy a militant suffragette. * * * Mr. "MARK ALLERTON" has suggested that London ought to have a special golf course for beginners. If it could be arranged for spectators to be admitted at a moderate charge we believe this might become one of the most successful places of amusement in the Metropolis. * * * A suggestion that school children shall be taken to museums, as a reward for good school work, has been made by Lord SUDELEY. This is scarcely a new idea. We remember that when we were at school there was a feeling that the very good boys ought to be in a museum. * * * We have been favoured with the sight of a letter from a money-lender, in which the following remarkable passage occurs:--"The above terms are for short periods, _to be repaid_ as mutually agreed upon _before the advance is made_." The italics are ours, but the proleptic idea is a happy invention of the author himself. * * * "SPRING IN THE AIR." _Daily Mail_. We are sorry not to oblige our contemporary, but advancing years have taken something from our resiliency. * * * ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY. "Dr. Glover, in giving up the Editorship of this most valuable periodical, has earned the grateful thanks of the whole Diocese." _Chichester Diocesan Gazette._ * * * "A ridiculous fad that some society ladies are adopting at the present time is not to place any month on the date of their correspondence, simply giving the day of the year. Thus to-day will be marked '34, 1914.' This is not very difficult, but when it comes to, say, '271, 14,' it will need more than a little calculation to discover the actual date." _Pall Mall Gazette_ (_Feb. 4th_). Even "to-day" is too difficult for our contemporary. * * * "POTATOES, POTATEOS." _Advt. in "Bedale Chronicle"_ (_its full title being "Bedale, Leyburn and Hawes Chronicle," but that would make the name of the paper longer than the quotation from it--always a mistake._) We don't care for the second helping. * * * "'Ha! ha!' the others laugh in their native tongue."--_Evening Dispatch._ You should hear us gargle in German. * * * The Editor of _Punch_ has reproved his Dramatic Critic for referring to _It_, in _The Darling of the Gods_, as "a precocious babe." He is assured that Mr. BURTIE, who plays this neutral part, "has seen some five-and-twenty summers, and has advanced intellectual views about most things." _Mr. Punch's_ Dramatic Critic has been instructed to "give him double bowing" by way of deferential compensation. * * * * *