GUSHING HOSPITALITY. (Time 3 p.m.)
Hospitable Host. "HAVE C'GAR, OLD F'LLA?"
Languid Visitor. "NO—THANKS!"
H.H. "CIGARETTE THEN?"
His Visitor. "NO—THANKS. NEVAR SMOKE 'MEJATELY AFTER BREAKFAST."
H.H. "CAN'T REFUSE A TOOTHPICK, THEN, OLD F'LLA?"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal. A Society Journal of a peculiar character, of which this is the Third Series and Third Volume. It is noticeable for Lord CATHCART's appeal for the wild birds, which, as addressed to farmers and farm-labourers and armed ploughboys, may be summed up by an adaptation of the refrain of the remonstrance—so frequently urged by one of Lieutenant COLE's funny figures—"Can't you let the birds alone?" Then Mr. HASTING "On Vermin," which doesn't sound nice, though better than if the title were vice versâ,—is most interesting, especially where he tells us that "shrews are harmless." If so, why did SHAKSPEARE give us "The Taming of the Shrew" as such a feat? Professor BROWN writes about disease in sheep, of which paper Lord ARTHUR WEEDON DE GROSSMITH would be absolutely correct in observing, "What rot!" And, by the way, à propos of WEEDON, the Baron has to congratulate the Brothers GROSSMITH on their Diary of a Nobody, republished from Mr. Punch's pages, but with considerable additions. The Diary is very funny, not a page of it but affords matter for a good laugh; and yet the story is not without a touch of pathos, as it is impossible not to pity the steady, prim, old-fashioned jog-trot NOBODY, whose son, but just one remove above a regular 'ARRY, treats him with such unfilial rudeness.