The Vicar. "And were you at the Ball last Night, Mrs. Ramsbottom?"
Mrs. R. "Oh, yes; I was Shampooing Eight Young Ladies there!"
LOCAL COLOUR.
Mr. Alfred Austin, in his new poem, Fortunatus, the Pessimist, has hit upon a new notion, to say nothing of a novel rhyme. Sings he:—
"When the foal and brood-mare hinny,
And in every cut-down spinney
Lady's-Smocks grow mauve and mauver,
Then the Winter days are over."
This opens a polychromatic vista to the New Poetry. Technical Art comes to the aid of the elder Muses. The products of gas-tar alone should greatly regenerate a something time-worn poetic phraseology. As thus:—