Yet there is a vermin-killer, Like to thin the dipterous pest, To the farmer and the miller, Which instruction may suggest. What may be, the question narrows, If they doubt they can but try, Is, if let alone, the sparrows Might keep down the Hessian Fly. * * * * * BLESS HIS 'ART.--If there is anything in a name, the recently suggested appointment of _Artin Effendi_ as Turkish Commissioner at Sofia ought to mean something. Certainly the situation is one demanding the exercise of no little diplomatic art. But the question is, whether the proposed Commissioner has got, as ROBERT would put it, his _art in_ the business. There's the point. * * * * * A PRETTY KETTLE OF FISH.--The Riots at Ostend. * * * * * THE SIGH OF THE SEASON. [Illustration: Pilled at the Club.] Good-bye dinner, good-bye lunch, Good-bye turtle, good-bye punch, Good-bye jambon soaked in cham., Good-bye venison, cutlets lamb, Good-bye salmon, smelts, and sole, Good-bye HEIDSIECK'S Monopole, Good-bye hock, sauterne, and sherry, Good-bye all that makes me merry, Good-bye liqueurs, _petite verre_, Good-bye Sauce _au Vin Madere_, Good-bye all these joys of life, Good-bye fork, and good-bye knife, Good-bye all I take when out, Good-bye _then_ this twinge of gout! * * * * * WORTH NOTICE.--There is this slight difference between the conventional Yankee and the average Home Ruler, that whilst the former swears "by Gum," the latter swears by G. O. M. * * * * * "THE STORY OF A KISS."--(_A "Novel" Reading._)--Kiss and tell! For shame! * * * * * INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS. No. 51. [Illustration: THE LATE PARLIAMENTARY HARVEST. (_Facsimile of Sketch by Our Out-of-Town Special._)] * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P. _House of Commons, Monday August 22._--Peers at last face the inevitable. As records have shown there has been for week or two no work for them to do. Still, they have eased their tender consciences by assembling to see HALSBURY take the Woolsack. (Always a pleasing spectacle. Innate grace of LORD CHANCELLOR comes out in every step and gesture.) To-night there was, as usual, nothing to do; but Noble Lords really could not again make believe that Nation could not get on without them. So stayed away, and for one night House of Lords abolished.