A workman at Kinlochleven, Argyllshire, found a live crab in a pocket of sand at a depth of more than ten feet. On being taken to the police-station and shown the "All Clear" notice the cautious crustacean consented to go straight home. *** At a flower-day sale at Grimsby one thousand pounds was paid by a local shipowner for a blue periwinkle. In recognition of his generosity no charge was made for the pin. *** A Vienna telegram states that the Emperor KARL has handed the Grand Cross of St. Stephen to the GERMAN CHANCELLOR. The latter quite rightly protests that Herr BETHMANN-HOLLWEG is the real culprit. *** From Scotland comes the news that an inmate of a workhouse has received an income-tax form to fill in. This is considered to be but a foretaste of the time when all income-tax papers will have to be addressed to the workhouses. * * * * * In a Gloucester meadow, Lieutenant JAGGARD has picked a mushroom weighing ten ounces and measuring twenty-seven inches in circumference. Eyewitnesses describe the gallant officer's enveloping movement as a really brilliant piece of single-handed work. *** The Prussian Military Press Bureau, among its other fantasies, has discovered with horror that Calais has been leased to England for ninety-nine years. Our own information is that the situation is really worse than that, the lease being granted alternatively for ninety-nine years "or the duration of the War." *** An official statement points out that the work of the National Service Department is continuing without interruption pending the appointment of a new Director-General. It appears that the members of the staff have expressed a desire to die in harness. * * * * * IDYLLS OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA. A FRAGMENT. So spake Sir GERARD (U.S.A.) and ceased. Then answered WILLIAM, talking through his hat: "When first the heathen rose against our realm, That haunt of peace where all day long occurred The cooing of innumerable doves, I hailed my knighthood where I sat in hall At high Potsdam the Palace, and they came; And all the rafters rang with rousing _Hochs_. "So to my feet they drew and kissed my boots And laid their maily fists in mine and sware To reverence their Kaiser as their God And _vice versâ_; to uphold the Faith Approved by me as Champion of the Church; To ride abroad redressing Belgium's wrongs; To honour treaties like a virgin's troth; To serve as model in the nations' eyes Of strength with sweetness wed; to hack their way Without superfluous violence; to spare The best cathedrals lest my heart should bleed, Nor butcher babes and women, or at least No more than needful--in a word, behave Like Prussian officers, the flower of men.