The country I rob of its treasures (By carting its ruins away!); I lessen all popular pleasures By spoiling the market, they say; And so they invoke Mr. George's assistance To tax the poor plutocrat out of existence! ROSES ALL THE WAY ['Mr. Frank Lascelles left London yesterday for Calcutta. As he entered the railway carriage at Victoria, Lady Jane Kenney-Herbert handed him a basket of roses.'--The _Times_.] Each year in vain I take the train To Dinard, Trouville or Le Touquet; No lady fair is ever there To speed me with a bouquet; No maiden on my brow imposes A snood of Gloire de Dijon roses! No purple phlox adorns the locks Of scanty hair that fringe my cranium; No garlands deck my shapely neck With jasmine or geranium. I travel, like a social pariah, Without a single calceolaria! Though up and down I 'train' to town, Each day, with fellow-clerk or broker, No female hand has ever planned To trim my third-class 'smoker,' To wreathe the rack with scarlet dahlias, Or drape the seats with pink azaleas! Let others envy wealthy men --The Rothschilds, Vanderbilts or Cassels-- I'd much prefer, I must aver, Like lucky Mr. Lascelles, To travel well supplied with posies Of (on the 'Underground') _Tube_-roses! [Illustration] THE TRIUMPH OF JAM (_With shamefaced apologies to the author of a beautiful poem_) [The _Daily Mirror_, in a leading article, deplored the fact that 'roly-poly' pudding, otherwise known as 'jam-roll,' was not to be obtained at fashionable West End restaurants.] Although our wives deride for ever, Though cooks grow captious or gaze aghast (Cooks, swift to sunder, to slash and sever The ties that bind us to things long past), We will say as much as a man might wish Whose whole life's love comes up on a dish, Which he never again may feast on, and never Shall taste of more while the ages last. I shall never again be friends with 'rolies,' I shall lack sweet 'polies' where, thick like glue, The jam in some secret Holy of Holies Crouches and cowers from mortal view. There are tastes that a tongue would fain forget, There are savours the soul must e'er regret; My tongue how hungry, how starved my soul is! I shall miss 'jam-pudding' my whole life through! The gleam and the glamour, glimmering through it, The steam that rises, to greet the sun, The fragrant fumes of the jam and suet That mix and mingle, to blend as one; The white-capped cook who stirs so hard, To twine the treacle and knead the lard, To soak and season, to blend and brew it-- These things are over, and no more done!