“Who are those who will eventually be damned?” asked a Seeker after Truth of the Busy Pastor. “Oh, the others, the others, the others!” was the reply. * * * * * Mrs. E. A. Richmond of West Medford, Mass., has been granted Letters Patent as Chief Musician to the Society of the Philistines. All parties expecting to strike the lyre and lift the tuneful lay at Christmas-tide around the merry yule log, should supply themselves at once with a copy of Mrs. Richmond’s _Philistine Phantasia_. It is dedicated to the American Academy of Immortals. Price, single copies, fifty cents. * * * * * That Philistine giant, Col. Robert Mitchell Floyd, is cultivating a fine tonsure, yet his nature is as frolicsome as that of a country boy at recess. When Death calls for the Colonel he will have to wait, smoke a cigar and hear a good story, and by that time, egad! the destroyer will forget his errand. The Colonel is bookish, and has written some choice verse and better prose, but the thing he is to bring out soon is a compilation of over a hundred poems relating to the fruit that cost us Paradise. Incidentally there will also be in the book selections on apple pie, apple fritters, hard cider, baked apples and apple jack. * * * * * Midnight Oil—high test—recommended by Charles G. D. Roberts; also the Gilbert Parker XXX brand Local Color in casks. Address, PROF. JOHN PEASCOD, Room 1101 Philistine Building, East Aurora, N. Y. * * * * * All jokes in the _Lotos_ are warranted worked out by the publishers’ own Egyptologist. * * * * * My friend, Nixon Waterman, has been sending out Ms. and getting it back for about forty-seven years. Now the tide has turned. Three publishers, within a single week, have written him asking him to send ’em articles. One request would have been all right—but three! Land sakes!! Straightway did Nixon hasten to the printers and order ten thousand blanks printed, of which the following is a copy: In declining to furnish the contribution you request, I trust the motives prompting my action will not be misconstrued. No reflection, whatever, upon the merit or character of your publication is intended. My non-acceptance of your offer may result from one or more of many causes, none of which relates to the desirability of your publication as a means of placing my work before the public. A publisher, on having a request for manuscript rejected, should not infer, necessarily, that his offer lacks the qualities that would insure its acceptance by other writers of creditable standing. A request for manuscript which one writer may refuse, another may gladly consider. Again thanking you for your pleasant communication, I am,