WEEK BY WEEK.
We have often been asked how we contrive to put together every week the delightful paragraphs which appear in this column. The system is really wonderfully easy, and, with proper instruction, a child could do it. The first point is to select an item of intelligence about which few people care to hear. This must be spun out very thin and long, and adorned with easy extracts from TUPPER, the copy-books, or Mr. W.H. SMITH'S speeches. Then wrap it up in a blanket of humour, sprinkle with fatuousness, and serve cold.
For instance, you hear that grey frock-coats are very much worn. On the system indicated above you proceed as follows:—It is curious to observe how from year to year the customs and fashions of men with regard to their wearing apparel change. Last year black frock coats were de rigueur. This year, we are informed by a Correspondent who has special opportunities of knowing what he is writing about, various shades of grey have driven out the black. No doubt it is every man's duty to himself and his neighbours to array himself becomingly, according to the fashion of the hour, but we are inclined to doubt the wisdom of this latest move. It is often said, that the grey mare is the better horse, but when the horse itself has a grey coat, the proverb seems inapplicable.
The rest of the space allotted can be filled with political gossip and personal items, with here and there some inspired twaddle about foreign personages, of whom no one has ever heard before or desires to hear again.
We beg to state that we offer this information gratis to all intending journalists. If they follow our system they must succeed.
"SAY!"—Speaking of the relations between England and France in Africa, and of the proposed Bill for a Sahara railway, connecting Algeria with Lake Tchad, the Times' Paris Correspondent says:—"England, it is explained, agrees not to go beyond Say, on the Niger." This sounds ominous. It was Lord GRANVILLE'S indisposition to go beyond "Say" (and to shrink when it came to "Do") which got us into hot water in Africa before. Mr. Punch hopes, despite this disquieting sentence, that Lord SALISBURY, after his excellent speech at the Mansion House, is unlikely to fall into the same fatal error.