But O for my "compass," so high and grand,
And the voice that I used to trill!
Break, break, break,
Like a creaky old gate, top C!
But the high treble notes of a voice that is cracked,
Will never come back to me!
QUEER QUERIES.
The White Currency Question.—Can nothing be done to prevent the Indian Viceroy from carrying out his monstrous proposal about the Rupee? I was just off to Bombay (having recently completed a period of enforced seclusion in Devonshire, occasioned by a too successful competition with a monopolist Mint) on the strength of a newspaper paragraph that "Free Coining of Silver" was permitted in that happy land. Free Coining! In my opinion it beats "Free Education" hollow, and is just what I have always wanted. I felt that my fortune was made, when suddenly the news comes that the free coinage business is stopped. What an injustice! In the name of the down-trodden Hindoo, to whom my specially manufactured nickel-and-tin Rupee would have been quite a new revelation, I protest against this interference with the immemorial customs of our Oriental fellow-subjects.—Jeremiah D'Iddla.