ANOTHER TELEPHONIC SUGGESTION.--Connect the Theatres and Opera Houses by Telephone with all the Clubs. On payment of a fixed charge, any member should be able to hear just as much of the piece or Opera as he might require. Something above the price of a Stall to be the maximum charge for one person to hear entire Opera. For half the Opera, say six shillings; for a quarter of it, three-and-six. For hearing one song in it, eighteen-pence; and, if certain songs be in great demand, the prices could be raised. * * * * * EPIGRAMMATIC DEFINITION OF MOST PUBLIC BANQUETS WITH POSTPRANDIAL ORATORY.--"Stuff and Nonsense." * * * * * [Illustration: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL. LORD SALISBURY. "HALLO!" M. LE PRÉSIDENT. "HALLO!" LORD SALISBURY. "YOU THERE?" M. LE PRÉSIDENT. "ALL THERE!" LORD SALISBURY. "CAN YOU SUGGEST AN _ENTRÉE_ FOR DINNER?" M. LE PRÉSIDENT. "_HOMARD AU GRATIN_,--AND, BY THE WAY, HOW ABOUT NEWFOUNDLAND AND LOBSTER QUESTION?" LORD SALISBURY. "NOT BY TELEPHONE, THANK YOU!!!" [_Telephone between London and Paris opened, Monday, March 23rd._]] * * * * * [Illustration: SUFFERING ON THE "SILVER STREAK." THESE GENTLEMEN (AFTER A FEW HOURS' REST) DECLARED UNANIMOUSLY IN FAVOUR OF THE PROPOSED CHANNEL TUBULAR RAILWAY.] * * * * * HANDS AS THEY ARE SHOOK. (_NEW STYLE._) In healthier times, when friends would meet Their friends in chamber, park, or street, Each, as hereunder, each would greet. Tour level hand went forth; you clasped Your crony's; each his comrade's grasped-- If roughly, neither friend was rasped. Such was the good old-fashioned one Of honest British "How d'ye do?" I think it manly still--don't you? But _now_, when smug acquaintance hails A set that would be "smart," but fails, Another principle prevails. The arm, in lifted curve displayed, Droops limply o'er the shoulder-blade, As needing some chirurgeon's aid: The wrist is wrenched of JONES and BROWN, Those ornaments of London Town; Their listless fingers dribble down: BROWN reaches to the knuckle-bones Of thus-excruciated JONES; BROWN's hand the same affliction owns. At length his finger-tips have pressed The fingers of his JONES distressed: Both curvatures then sink to rest. A sort of anguish lisped proceeds Prom either's mouth, but neither heeds The other's half-heroic deeds. Exhausted, neither much can say; Complacent, each pursues his way; And JONES and BBOWN have lived to-day. For both have sought by strenuous strain To demonstrate, in face of pain, That friends they were, and friends remain. Ah, wonderful! Can Poets deem Self-sacrifice a fading dream? Are salutations what they seem? Is BROWN some Altruist in disguise, And JONES an Ibsenite likewise, That thus they flop and agonise?--