DEAR MR. PUNCH,--I appeal to you, and I know I shall not appeal in vain. The picturesque Cabman's Shelter in the middle of Piccadilly is threatened! I hope you will exert your influence to preserve it. It absolutely teems with historical associations. Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL is supposed to have used it for writing his famous letter on the Poor-Laws, and to this day is shown the initials of CHARLES STUART PARNELL which were carved by that celebrated statesman on one of its benches about the middle of the last century--probably in 1854. And why is it to be removed? Simply because it is said to impede the traffic! Could anything be more absurd? Do, pray, save it from the hand of the ruthless "improver." Yours truly, ONE WHO RESPECTS THE PAST. _Tumbledowns, West Kensington_ (_late Reading_). * * * * * [Illustration: OVERHEARD IN THE HIGHLANDS. _First Chieftain_. "I SAY, OLD CHAP, WHAT A DOOSE OF A BORE THESE GAMES ARE!" _Second Chieftain_. "AH, BUT, MY DEAR BOY, IT IS THIS SORT OF THING THAT HAS MADE US SCOTCHMEN _WHAT WE ARE_!!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A NUISANCE. _Miss Priscilla_. "YES; IT'S A BEAUTIFUL VIEW. BUT TOURISTS ARE IN THE HABIT OF BATHING ON THE OPPOSITE SHORE, AND THAT'S RATHER A DRAWBACK." _Fair Visitor_. "DEAR ME! BUT AT SUCH A DISTANCE AS THAT--SURELY--" _Miss Priscilla_. "AH, BUT WITH A _TELESCOPE_, YOU KNOW!"] * * * * * AT LAST! (_JEREMIAD BY A MIDDLE-AGED MARTYR TO THE GREAT SEASIDE SUPERSTITION._) ["To middle-aged people, at all events, nothing can be more trying and deleterious than holidays."--_Daily News_.] Oh, thanks to thee, thanks to thee, sage unconventional! Heaven be blest, the truth's out, then, at last! Holiday woes--'twould take volumes to mention all!-- Now, in the lump, meet a shrewd counterblast. _Trying?_ Of course they are! _Most deleterious?_ Scribe, let me clasp thee, in thought, to this breast! Holiday-hunting is Man's most mysterious, Maddening guest! _Quixote_, I swear, was a model of sanity, When with the Holiday-seeker compared. Fidgety folly, and fussy inanity. These be the figments by which we are snared. Soon as you're drawn from your own cosy drawing-room, Far over flood, field, or foam--for your sins-- Then, when your breast makes for vulturine gnawing room, Bother begins! Bother, that bugbear of bufferish Middle-Age! Swift "scurry-funging" may do for the young, The "hey-diddle-diddle, the Cat-and-the-fiddle" age. "Over the moon" I myself once had sprung, Thirty years syne, in sheer fervour athletical-- Now, like the dog, I would laugh, and look on. Once, with sheer "drive," I'd a sense sympathetical-- Now I have none!