"THE MAGAZINE RIFLE."--Is this invention patented by the Editor of _The Review of Reviews_? Good title for the Staff of that Magazine, "The Magazine Rifle Corps." * * * * * [Illustration: UNNECESSARY CANDOUR. _Critic_. "BY JOVE, HOW ONE CHANGES! I'VE QUITE CEASED TO ADMIRE THE KIND OF PAINTING I USED TO THINK SO CLEVER TEN YEARS AGO; AND _VICE VERSÂ_!" _Pictor_. "THAT'S AS IT _SHOULD_ BE! IT SHOWS PROGRESS, DEVELOPMENT! IT'S AN UNMISTAKABLE PROOF THAT YOU'VE REACHED A HIGHER INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC LEVEL, A MORE ADVANCED STAGE OF CULTURE, A LOFTIER--" _Critic_. "I'M GLAD YOU THINK SO, OLD MAN. BUT, CONFOUND IT, YOU KNOW!--THE KIND OF PAINTING I USED TO THINK SO CLEVER TEN YEARS AGO, HAPPENS TO BE _YOURS_!"] * * * * * BETWEEN THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. The Appeal's to Justice! Justice lendeth ear Unstirred by favour, unseduced by fear; And they who Justice love must check the thrill Of natural shame, and listen, and be still. These wrangling tales of horror shake the heart With pitiful disgust. Oh, glorious part For British manhood, much bepraised, to play In that dark land late touched by culture's day! Are these our Heroes pictured each by each? We fondly deemed that where our English speech Sounded, there English hearts, of mould humane. Justice would strengthen, cruelty restrain. And is it all a figment of false pride? _Such_ horrors do our vaunting annals hide Beneath a world of words, like flowers that wave In tropic swamps o'er a malarious grave? These are the questions which perforce intrude As the long tale of horror coarse and crude, Rolls out its sickening chapters one by one. What will the verdict be when all is done? Conflicting counsels in loud chorus rise, "Hush the thing up!" the knowing cynic cries, "Arm not our chuckling enemies at gaze With charnel dust to foul our brightest bays! Let the dead past bury its tainted dead, Lest aliens at our 'heroes' wag the head." "Shocking! wails out the sentimentalist. Believe no tale unpleasant, scorn to list To slanderous charges on the British name! That brutish baseness, or that sordid shame Can touch 'our gallant fellows,' is a thing Incredible. Do not our poets sing, Our pressmen praise in dithyrambic prose, The 'lads' who win our worlds and face our foes? Who never, save to human pity, yield One step in wilderness or battlefield!"