It is a recognition on the part of a hundred contributors—literary, musical, and artistic—who have served under his flag, of the ability, friendliness, and discretion which have been all along displayed in his dealings with his staff. No one can go back, as I do, to the very beginning of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER without seeing how much it owes of its best features to his presiding care. Under his capable management and under that of a long line of successors, to whom he will be able to transmit the best maxims of editorial success, there seems no reason why THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER should not go on flourishing till the printers have to add a fifth figure to the number on the front page—and that will be a hundred and seventy-three years and four weeks from the present date! VARIETIES. THE PIANO HAS BEEN SOLD. A Dutch paper, the other day, published the following significant advertisement from a disconsolate wife— “Adolphus. Return to your Matilda. The piano has been sold.” BEAUTY IN UGLINESS.—“Ugliness of the right sort,” says the late Jean Ingelow, “is a kind of beauty. It has some of the best qualities of beauty—it attracts observation and fixes the memory.” TO MAKE AN EGG STAND ON END.—It is not generally known that an egg can be made to stand on end on any smooth, level surface. The process is very simple. Take the egg in the right hand and briskly shake it up and down for a minute or two, when the yolk will separate and sink to the broad end. If the egg be now properly poised on its broad end, it will stand perfectly upright even on a piece of glass. DOGS MADE USEFUL. The dog in Belgium is universally employed in drawing barrows and small carts about the streets. In Brussels alone over 5000 dogs are so engaged, and the total number of draught-dogs in the whole country is probably not less than 50,000. Generations of servitude have made the Belgian dog a race apart. For his size he is said to possess the greatest pulling power of any animal, four times his own weight being considered a load well within his power. Taking his average weight as half an hundredweight, this means that something like 5000 tons are daily dragged about by canine labour in Belgium. WELL BALANCED. “Aunt Emilina, what is it to be well balanced?” “Well balanced? Why, it is having sense enough to make more friends than enemies.” “PLENTY MORE DAYS.” In Spain, the people take no note of time, not even from its loss. Everything is to be done _manana_, to-morrow. A wealthy Englishman, who had long lived in Spain, had a lawsuit. He pleaded his cause in person, and, knowing the customs of the country, won his case. The victory cost him three days of trouble and expense, so that when the judge congratulated him on his success, he replied— “Yes, that’s all right; but it has cost me three days, and time is money. I am a busy man, and these three days are lost for ever.”