The service-pipe was sound and good In the Jamaica Road; The cistern there had harboured ne'er Microbe, or newt, or toad; No clearer water softly laved A coral island beach; So thought the householder, until-- He found that awful Leech! Perchance he was a temperance foe To alcoholic drink, And from all dalliance with Bung Did scrupulously shrink. Yet now to forms of fluid sin He'll cotton, all and each; He does not like such liquors, _but_-- Prefers them to a Leech! Our pipes will not be pipes of peace If such things hap, I trow; And as for Water Trusts, 'tis hard To trust in water now. Oh, Co. of Southwark and Vauxhall, We ratepayers beseech, Double your filtering charges, _but_-- Remove the loathly Leech! * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration] There is a judicial review of GEORGE MEREDITH's work in the _Quarterly_ for October--masterly, too, quoth the Baron, as striking a balance between effect and defect, and finding so much to be duly said in high praise of the diffuse and picturesquely-circumnavigating Novelist through whose labyrinthine pages the simple Baron finds it hard to thread his way, and yet keep the clue. When the unskippingly conscientious peruser of GEORGE M.'s novels is most desirous that the author shall go ahead, GEORGE, like an Irish cardriver, will stop to "discoorse us," and at such length, and so diffusely, and with such a wealth of eccentric word-coming and grammar-dodging, that at last the Baron gasps, choked by the rolling billows of sonorously booming or boomingly sonorous words, battles with the waves, ducks, and comes up again breathlessly, wondering where he may be, and what it was all about. "Story! God bless you, I haven't much to tell, Sir!" says the luxuriantly fanciful novel-grinder. And he hasn't much, it must be owned, for essenced it would go into half a volume, or less, and all over and above is pot-fuls of rich colour, spilt about almost at haphazard, permutations and combinations, giving the effect of genius. Which--genius it is; but a little of it goes a great way, in fact, a very great way, wandering and straying until at length the Baron calls for his _Richard Feverel_, and says, "This is the best that GEORGE MEREDITH has written, as sure as my name is "THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS." * * * * * BARD V. BARD. There was a poor Poet named CLOUGH, Poet SWINBURNE declares he wrote stuff. Ah, well, _he_ is dead! 'Tis the living are fed, By log-rollers, on butter and puff. * * * * * A SUGGESTION.--In a new poetical play at the Opera Comique there is a good deal of hide-and-seek. It might have had a second title, and been appropriately called _The Queen's Room; or, Secret Passages in the Life of Mary Stuart_. * * * * * [Illustration: STREET IMPROVEMENTS.