Just got home after _dreadful_ incident! I was in a Bayswater Square, when suddenly a man driving round a corner in a cart got upset, and was pitched on to the road close to me. A small crowd gathered immediately, and evidently expected _me_ to help. One man shouted "Hi! Come and bind up his head, Miss!" And his head was actually bleeding! I couldn't do anything, except feel awfully inclined to faint, and then the mob began to hiss and jeer! Somebody said I must know how to render "first aid to the injured," and if I didn't come quick the man would bleed to death. I was so frightened I ran away, and the mob ran after me, and I had to take shelter in a shop, and ask the shopman to explain to the crowd that I was not really a nurse at all. Then they used dreadful expressions, and I had to be got out by a back way. I don't think the costume is half as becoming as it seemed this morning; I'm going to sell it as a "cast-off garment." Lucky for me it wasn't a torn-off garment! * * * * * Scott on the New Woman. (_As the Wizard of the North would have written now._) New Woman! in our hours of ease A smoking rival hard to please, Wishing to put Man in the shade, Collar his togs and take his trade; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A swaggering, "spanking" _Pipchin_ thou! * * * * * [Illustration: "THE COW WAS THE STAMP TO IMPRESS SUPERIOR BUTTER." "ARF A POUND ER MARGARINE, PLEASE; AN' MOTHER SAYS WILL YER PUT THE COW ON IT, 'COS SHE'S GOT COMPANY!"] * * * * * HINT FOR THE ALPINE SEASON. (_Adapted freely from the Old Royal Repartee._) _Middle-aged would-be Mountaineer (loq.)._ Fain would I climb, but,--well, my belt's too small. _Mr. Punch (in reply)._ If your girth grows, Sir, _do not climb at all_! Your Alpen-stock put by, ere the world mock. And you become an (Alpine) Laughing-stock. Though Alps on Alps arise _you_ stop in bed, And let a younger man yon glaciers tread. The dangers of steep slides and deep crevasses Are not for elderly donkeys, but young asses. The Himalayas woo you still to pant on? Well, treat 'em as you would an arch young wanton, Think of your legs, the boys, the girls, the Missus, And do not play the elderly Narcissus. To witch the world with noble "Icemanship" Is tempting, yes, but if you chance to slip, Your bones a fathomless abyss may strew, An Alpine death,--and they'll all pine for you. Man after fifty fits not the sublime, So stay at home nor seek a foreign climb. The plague of guide, and chum, and wife and daughter, Is Senex who will climb and didn't oughter. Stick to your Alpine Club, but like old foodles, Pay, stop at home, and play at whist at Boodles'. Decline with the old mania to be bitten, And you will own this tip is diamond-written (Like good Queen Bess's repartee on glass), And that you're saved from being an old ass!