"Old Spot Pigs," we are informed, are now being bred successfully once more. It surprises us to hear this announced as a triumph. One would have thought that in these days of beauty culture a clear complexion would have been the desideratum. * * * "If," says a contemporary, "the middle-class girl were regularly provided with a dowry, the matrimonial enthusiasm of young men would probably be stimulated." We cannot imagine how people think of these clever things. * * * Members of the Women's Social and Political Union are, says _The Daily Mail_, boycotting West-End shopkeepers and stores not advertising in the Militant organs. However, if the rest of the public will agree to boycott such firms as do advertise in these organs the matter should come all right. * * * A warning has been issued to pic-nic parties as to the danger from adders, which are exceptionally numerous this year. They are apt to bite if suddenly sat upon, and prudent persons are taking the precaution of sitting on their plates. * * * "I shall never," writes a journalist in _The Express_, "forget the shudder with which I saw a very well-known dramatist at a garden party eating strawberries with his gloves on." We ourselves sometimes have these sudden sensations, but, unlike the writer, are very prone to let them slip out of our memory. * * * A dress-designer, we read, went mad one day last week in Paris and fired a number of revolver shots at the police. To judge by many of the creations one sees there must be quite an epidemic of mental deficiency just now among designers of modes. * * * "Bags," we read in a lady's paper, "are going out of fashion." Men will, however, continue to wear them. * * * * * From a list of awards at the Horse Show:-- "Riding Jonies ... Shetland Jones ... Pairs of Pones ..."--_Morning Post._ You see the animal they mean. * * * * * "Cutter wanted for ladies' and gentlemen's trade; city house; state experience, salary." An ordinary enough advertisement, but _The Irish Times_ imparts a certain melancholy humour to it by inserting it in the section headed "Yachts, Boats, etc." * * * * * "GRAND NIGHTS." O benchers of the various ancient Inns At whose so generous tables I have battened, Where potions of the best and fruitiest bins And fare on which LUCULLUS might have fattened Tend to reduce the awe Proper to laymen shadowed by the Law; How good I find it, full of meat, to sit (The while Oporto's juice of '87, Served on the polished board with silver lit, Heartens me to postpone the joys of Heaven) And hear, _remotis curis_, The legal jest, the apt _scintilla juris_.