MANY HAPPY RETURNS!
(Punch to Madame La République.)
["The Republic attains its majority to-morrow (Sept. 4). It is the first Government since the Revolution which has had a twenty-first birthday."—The Times.]
Dear Madam, "Perfidious Albion" proffers
The best birthday wishes good feeling can shape!
A snap of the fingers for cynical scoffers!
A fig for the framers of venomous jape.
May Peace and Goodwill be your lasting possession,
Your proud "Valour" tempered by "years of discretion!"
HYGEIA OFF THE SCENT.—It is stated that even the charms of a champagne luncheon failed to attract more than one out of twenty-four members of the Hygienic Congress invited to test the merits of sewage-farms by ocular—or should we say nasal?—demonstration. Perhaps the missing three-and-twenty thought that in this case, at least, Mrs. MALAPROP would be both correct and pertinent in saying that "Comparisons are odorous!"
