Old Nicholas should wear the loose
Robe that once clad the form of Zeus,
That is the garment for the Deuce.
Britannia's Safety Belt.
Considering how much England is indebted for its safety to the magic belt of water that runs round it, every Englishman, when speaking of St. George's Channel, ought, in true nautical fervour, to ejaculate: "Bless its old Chops!"
INFECTION GLEBE.
Everybody knows that an intramural churchyard has a tendency to enlarge itself—not in area, but in perpendicularity. It is in every sense a rising concern, and it swells like an investment at compound interest. The attraction of mortality increases in a ratio multiplying with the increase of the mass—and what is there to prevent so deadly a nuisance from being immediately abolished? Hear the Bishop of London in his evidence given before the Lords' Committee on the Great Extramural Cemetery Bill—opposed by the Lord Bishop:—
"I wish, in a very few words, to explain that, when the bill was first printed, the clergy were much alarmed. They saw that it would interfere with the establishment of parochial burial grounds, and they objected more particularly to the small amount of compensation fees which the company intended to pay, viz., 1s. 8d. for the open ground, and 2s. 6d. for the brick graves and vaults."