I've often druv Bishops and Premiers and such; but I doubt if the whole 'Ouse o' Lords took together,
Would match—say, Tom Sayers, or Stoddart or Grace after one of their six hours' slambanging the leather.
Sportsman? Oh yes, in my own 'umble way. But I ain't got the fever like Jerry-go-Nimble!
Poor Jerry! 'E carn't resist no sort of gamble, from Derby or Oaks to the pea and the thimble.
Mad on it, Jerry is. Bad when it's that way, the mischief in fack I like sport and a flutter
A bit within bounds; and if t'aint the best biz,—well there, life, after all, isn't all bread-and-butter!
"Hail, divinest Melancholy!" Decidedly the town of Penarth must adopt this Miltonian line as its motto. At a meeting of the Public Works Committee of the District Council, a letter was read in which a citizen complained bitterly of the frivolous name given to the street wherein he had his habitation. Gay Street! How too shocking! "The whole neighbourhood objected to it," and not even the assurance that the thoroughfare had merely been thus designated out of compliment to a noble lady of the locality, whose Christian name was "Gay," served to allay the righteous indignation. Away with the demoralizing title and the base insinuation borne with it! It was proposed that the street—being in the vicinity of All Saints—be known for the future as "Amen Corner," a name suitable to the unswerving sobriety and solemnity of the city. The proposal was put to the vote and carried with only a couple of dissentients. Is it possible that there are even two Penarthians in favour of gaiety?
A Matter of "Gorse."—Why will picnicers persist in being so careless? The Liverpool Courier reports that a party of them succeeded in setting fire to and destroying some 200 acres of gorse on land belonging to Lord Cholmondeley and Sir Philip Grey Egerton, at Broxton Hills, in Cheshire. Not only was the furze completely burnt, but a "valuable fox cover" was also destroyed. Shades of Jorrocks, M.F.H., and his huntsman, James Pigg, the "canny" Novocastrian! Pity, that these reckless al fresco diners—ready enough with their indignant resentment if turned off any domain—could not be apprehended, and summarily dealt with. Sportsmen will echo the words—adapted to the case in point—in Handley Cross, "Cut 'em down, and hang 'em up to dry!"