On the St. Andrews golf links he is to be seen on great occasions "living up to his moustaches and knickerbockers." He has his London club, mingles in the highest literary coteries, and is always talking about "charming girls." Evidently the professorial chair in a Norbritish University is a very comfortable kind of arm-chair, and our "Arts Professor" a professor—and practiser, too—of various useful arts.
Wail from the West.—They are trying at Bristol to move the G. W. R. to give better train facilities between Bristol, Salisbury, Southampton, and Portsmouth; and the Chamber of Commerce has sent in a memorial asking for a "complete remodelling of the service between such important centres of commercial activity," and complaining of the "unsatisfactory service of trains on other parts of your system," particularly on the Devizes, Marlborough, and Reading branch. Why, suggests the Chamber, not run three fast trains a day up and down viâ the new Holt Junction, "instead of all trains going into Trowbridge, and waiting nearly an hour." Why, indeed? West-of-Englanders seem to think that "your system" needs strengthening, and so they are supplying a little bark as a tonic, for "local application" only.
To this Chamber of Commerce the fault of the Co.
Is running too seldom, and moving too slow.
Evident, as appropriate Site.—"Eely Place" for a Conger-regational Chapel.
THE LAST TURNPIKE.
["The last of the old turnpike trusts is to terminate on the 1st of November."—Daily News.]
Remember, remember the first of November!—
The old turnpike system grew old, ripe, and rotten;
But man loves to dream by the Past's waning ember,
And turnpikes, though troublesome, won't be forgotten.
Like old inns and highwaymen, stocks and stage-coaches,
The white turnpike bars have their memories fragrant;
But on quaint antiquities Progress encroaches.
The knight of the road, and the picturesque vagrant,
The "Highflyer" coach and the postchaise have vanished;
And now the old turnpike is destined to follow.
When from his snug box the last toll-taker's banished,
One feels the Romance of the Road will sound hollow.
The toll was a nuisance, the toll-keeper grumpy,
He turned out to pocket his coppers and tanners
With curt elocution which made one feel jumpy;
There wasn't much charm in his dress or his manners.
His "stand and deliver" made timid folk quiver,
And when not despotic he mostly looked drowsy;
He'd keep you a-waiting till all of a shiver,
Then yawn on you, looking forbidding and frowsy.
And yet his snug box and white bars had attractions.
The gleam from his fire, the red rose o'er his portal,
Would make you forgive his rough ways and exactions,
And Turpin and Weller have made him immortal.
His locks, bolts, and bars were extremely obstructive,
But then his white apron and mannerless greeting—
In retrospect—take on a something seductive.
Sure oft on our highways his spook, slowly fleeting,
With glimmering shirt-sleeves and coin-chinking pocket,
Will haunt the lone traveller; make him remember
The jolly old days of the fast-rattling "Rocket,"
And heave one sad sigh for this fatal November.