Buy a bottle of reviver to renovate your coat and trousers for forthcoming parties. Rout up old kid gloves, and send them to be cleaned. That, on the 14th, if there is any one you wish to insult, it can be done cheaply and anonymously by a valentine, without the chance of being tricked in return; whilst the shaft rankles the more, because it is not known who has sent it. Do not accept an invitation to Hampshire for wild-duck shooting, unless you wish to catch a rheumatism that will last you for life. This sport consists in sitting all night up to the knees in mud, half frozen, armed with a long gun, which your fingers are too cold to let off. This, however, is your only chance of safety, as, if it did go off, the recoil would knock you backwards, and you would never get up again. In early times the greater part of the month was dedicated to the Saxon god, _Thaw_. FIRE ESCAPES. The frequency of accidents from fire renders some certain method of escape desirable. The following have received medals:— [Illustration] The first is founded on those ingenious machines we find in the Dutch toy-boxes, for causing soldiers, ducks, sheep, and even tea things, to march, deploy, and fall into lines, in the most orderly manner. One of these will be kept at the corner of every street, and, by the aid of four policemen, will always raise the preserver, or lower the preserved, in this manner. [Illustration] The next is simply by a parachute, formed of canvas, which may be folded up, and kept in the window-seat. Should there be any wind, the inmates will be carried to the end of the street, and perhaps further, which is of course, an advantage. An ingenious architect recommends that the ceiling of every room should be a shower-bath on a large scale, always charged. This is practicable, but in the event of the bath going off when there was no fire, the results would be very inconvenient. [Illustration] BALLAD: THE LAY OF THE BLIGHTED POTATO. AIR—"I HAD A FLOWER WITHIN MY GARDEN GROWING." I saw a murphy in a garden growing; I boldly prigged it—nobody was there;— Rich in all charms familiar to the knowing; Of size unrivalled, and of kidney rare. At ev'ning hour I put it in my cellar, Where never murphy had been put before: I thought myself a very downy fellow; I smiled upon it, and I shut the door. Next day I took the murphy out to peel it, Casting the peeling carelessly away; When—horrid fact! I shudder to reveal it!— I found it blighted—hastening to decay. Vainly I strove the wholesome parts to cherish; But nought remained of what is now so dear:— Only with life shall the remembrance perish, How bad potatoes have turned out this year!