"When the blessing had been pronounced and the bridal pair were kneeling at the altar Dame Nellie Melba, wearing a blue dress and hat, crept from the side chapel to the choir and to the joy of the audience sang the pathetic 'Ave Maria' that Desdemona sings in the last act of Verdi's _Othello_ when she feels her predestined doom approaching."--"_Evening Standard" on a Society wedding_. * * * * * "Mr. Bottomley objects to By Jingo." _Daily Paper_. Yet in one or another of his "powerful" articles we seem to have seen something like "Damn the Kaiser" and "To Hell with Hindenburg." * * * * * [Illustration: THE PHILANDERER. SINN FEIN. "BE MINE." PRESIDENT WILSON. "I DO HOPE I HAVEN'T GIVEN YOU TOO MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT--BUT I CAN NEVER BE MORE THAN A BROTHER TO YOU."] * * * * * [Illustration: _First Australian_. "'OO's YER SWELL PAL, DIGGER?" _Second Ditto_. "I DUNNO HIS NAME, BUT I REMEMBER HIS FACE. I GIVE HIM A BIT OF BACON JUST OUTSIDE ST. QUENTIN."] * * * * * WHY DRAG IN MRS. SIDDONS? DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Nothing annoys me more than the assumption that wit, learning, fancy, etc., were the monopoly of the past. For example, a correspondent of one of our leading dailies has been trotting out Mrs. SIDDONS' use of blank verse in familiar conversation, and quoting from LOCKHART:-- "John Kemble's most familiar table-talk often flowed into blank verse; and so indeed did his sister's [Mrs. Siddons']. Scott (who was a capital mimic) often repeated her tragic exclamation to a foot-boy during a dinner at Ashestiel-- 'You 've brought me water, boy,--I asked for beer!' Another time, dining with a Provost of Edinburgh, she ejaculated, in answer to her host's apology for his _pièce de résistance_-- 'Beef cannot be too salt for me, my lord.'" This is all very well, but just as good blank verse is commonly used by eminent men and women to-day; indeed some of them excel in impromptu rhymes. Thus in Mr. HAROLD WESTMORELAND'S interesting volume, _Eavesdroppings_, there is this charming story of the first meeting of Madame CLARA BUTT and Miss CARRIE TUBB. They were introduced at a garden-party at Fulham, and Mr. WESTMORELAND overheard the memorable quatrain in which Madame CLARA BUTT greeted her sister-artist:-- "In our names we 're alike But in minstrelsy--ah no! For I'm a contralto And you're a soprano." To the same veracious chronicler I am indebted for a specimen of the impromptus which Lord READING frequently throws off, to the delight of his friends. Mr. WESTMORELAND was having a pair of boots tried on at a famous Jermyn Street bootmaker's when Lord BEADING was undergoing a similar ordeal, and electrified the courteous assistant by observing:-- "The right-foot boot to me seems rather tight; The left, _per contra_, feels exactly right."