London _Punch_ sent a pleasant greeting to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes on his retirement from the professorship at Harvard, in this form: Your health, dear “Autocrat!” All England owns Your instrument’s the lyre, and _not_ “the Bones.” Yet hear our wishes—trust us they’re not cold ones! That though you give up bones, you may make old ones. * * * * * Take care, girls! A professor in Jefferson College, Philadelphia, says that the habitual use of arsenic “for the complexion” causes the clearness of the skin it produces at first to be succeeded by a puffy, dropsical condition. * * * * * President Arthur’s New Year reception was interrupted by the sudden death of one of his callers—the Minister from the Hawaiian Islands. The music ceased, but the handshaking went on. * * * * * A forcible “temperance” argument from the Queen of England is found in her last speech to Parliament: “The growth of the revenue has been sensibly retarded by a cause which, in itself, is to be contemplated with satisfaction. I refer to the diminution of the receipts of the exchequer from duties on intoxicating liquors.” * * * * * Moral reforms move to victory slowly. The Mormons are liable to have a rest because public sentiment, that was focalized against their system a year ago in a law enacted by Congress, is in danger of being inoperative. The friends of the commandment against Mormonism will reap the harvest if they now enforce the law of Congress with as strong a public sentiment as they inspired to enact it; otherwise we shall see the movement a failure. * * * * * Girton College, the girls’ college at Cambridge University in England, is about to be enlarged, and the plans for the new buildings have been already drafted and submitted to the proper authorities. The applications for admission have recently been very much in excess of the accommodation at present offered. * * * * * The Alcott homestead in Concord—“Orchard Home”—standing next to the “Way-side” home of Hawthorne, is a quaint-looking old mansion, with a peaked roof and gables, high old-fashioned porches, and surrounded by lofty oaks and elms. It was here that Miss Louisa Alcott wrote “Little Women” and most of her other works, and here, too, that her younger sister, Mrs. May Alcott Nericker, executed the beautiful sketches and paintings that still adorn the parlor walls. It is now the home of Professor Harris, of the Concord School of Philosophy, and author of the series of articles on “Education,” now running in “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.” * * * * *