And the great commander was more than satisfied. His fortune was assured. Before allowing the news to be spread abroad he had taken the precaution to do a preliminary deal with his stockbroker! * * * * * AN ALPINE RAILWAY. Abominable work of man, Defacing nature where he can With engineering; On plain or hill he never fails To run his execrable rails; Coals, dirt, smoke, passengers and mails, At once appearing. To Alpine summits daily go The locomotives to and fro. What desecration! Where playful kids once blithely skipped, Where rustic goatherds gaily tripped, Where clumsy climbers sometimes slipped, He builds a station. Up there, where once upon a time Determined mountaineers would climb To some far _châlet_; Up there, above the carved wood toys, Above the beggars, and the boys Who play the _Ranz des Vaches_--such noise Down in the _Thal_, eh? Up there at sunset, rosy red, And sunrise--if you're out of bed-- You see the summit, Majestic, high above the vale. It is not difficult to scale-- The fattest folk can go by rail To overcome it. For nothing, one may often hear, Is sacred to the engineer; He's much too clever. Well, I must hurry on again, That mountain summit to attain, Good-bye. I'm going by the train. I climb it? Never! * * * * * [Illustration: "FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD." _Tourist from London (to young local Minister)._ "HOW QUIET AND PEACEFUL IT SEEMS HERE!" _Minister._ "EH, FRIEND, IT SEEMS PEACEFU'. WHA WAD THINK WE WERE WITHIN SEVEN MILES O' PEEBLES!"] * * * * * AN ANGLO-RUSSIAN ECHO. [At Baku, on the Caspian, a Society has been formed to abolish hand-shaking and kissing, on the ground that bacilli are propagated by such personal contact. The ladies, however, have protested against this to the Governor-General. _Daily Telegraph._] Baku is a place that is pretty well Grundyfied, Where the good folks have all frolic and fun defied, Where I'd be shunned, if I'd Play at Whit-Mondayfied Games such as "Catch-can" and Kiss-in-the-ring! For the greybeards, it seems, of this naptha-metropolis (Really, their reason about to o'ertopple is) All o'er the shop'll hiss, Hollering, "Stop! Police! Hi, there! hand-shaking the mischief will bring!" And kissing, they think, only leads to diphtheria-- Well, I should say, such a dread of bacteria Quite beyond query, amounts to hysteria! No, it won't "wash"--they don't either, I fear! But SONIA and OLGA and VERA are mutinous, Rightly, I think, at such nonsense o'erscrutinous. "_This_ rot take root in us? No, keep salutin' us!" Echo our MABELS and MAUDS over here! * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TORY, M.P.