"London, 30th Jan.--The Fool Controller states that...."--_Indian Paper_. We had not heard of the appointment of this Minister. But it has been made none too soon. * * * * * From a recent University examination paper:-- "Three persons have four coats, five vests and six hats between them. In how many different ways can they dress themselves with them?" A problem for the coming Clothes Controller. * * * * * [Illustration: "FASTER? NO, I AIN'T GOIN' NO FASTER, YOUNG 'IGH VELOCITY. I AIN'T GOT BUT TWO SPEEDS, SLOW AND STOP."] * * * * * THE FOOD OF LOVE. A LYRIC OF MEATLESS DAYS. Eat to me only with thine eyes And I will munch with mine; Or let my lips but brush thy locks And I shall seem to dine; The hollow 'neath my belt that lies For flesh of beeves doth pine; Yet, might I wolf a roasted ox, I would, of course, decline. I sent thee once a juicy steak To prove thy troth and see If in that stern ordeal's test Stedfast thou still wouldst be; And thou thereof one sniff didst take And post it back to me, Since when I wear it next my chest, Potted, for love of thee. O.S. * * * * * A NATIONAL SKY-SCRAPER. I have been often asked why the Government, foreseeing the inevitable increase of Departments, had not the elementary imagination to build a colossal sky-scraper to accommodate them all. The objections to such an act of apparently obvious intelligence may be briefly enumerated. (1) With such a landmark whoever had business to conduct with a Government Department would know where to find it, for which reason alone the system of huts and hotels is to be preferred. The hotels are widely scattered and the huts hidden away in odd corners of public gardens and parks, and even in the bed of a lake. By the use of motor-cars (petrol being for official and not for private consumption) such co-operation as cannot be avoided between Departments is assured. (2) Even in a single Department too close co-operation is not desirable. An hotel, divided into hundreds of small rooms and flats, enables the occupant of each room to be isolated, and each self-contained flat to have almost the status of a sub-department. Thus the vexatious supervision, the easy intercourse and rapid decision which are so disturbing to official routine are avoided. (3) The express elevators, by which the visitor is shot up to the higher storeys of a sky-scraper, would suggest a certain directness and celerity in official methods that is calculated to arouse false hopes.