Son and Heir (whose Inquiring Turn of Mind is occasionally a nuisance). "I SAY 'PA, WHAT'S A V'CAB'LARY?"

Father. "A VOCABULARY, MY BOY-WHAT D'YOU WANT TO KNOW THAT FOR?"

Son. "'CAUSE I HEARD 'MA SAY SHE'D NO IDEA WHAT A TREMENJIOUS V'CAB'LARY YOU'D GOT, TILL YOU MISSED THE TRAIN ON SATURDAY!"

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

ment, produces a theatrical effect in the otherwise striking reproduction of Lady LINDSAY'S living presentment. Here we have the same baronial hall, the same urn of ancestor's ashes, perhaps, in the distance, only the chair is different, and there is some drapery introduced with a property cushion for the lady's foot, a Wardour Street table, and a property vase and book. The entertaining and interesting monographs, by L. ENGEL are drawn from his usual well of pure and undefiled ENGEL-ish.

GOOD novel Hartas Maturin, by H. F. LESTER. So excitingly interesting. The character of Hartas himself is finely drawn, and that of the visionary Bastian might have been imagined and described by Lord LYTTON in such a work as Zanoni, or A Strange Story. I hope there are not many Bastians about, as his theories would do away with all moral responsibility, and necessitate the building of Public Lunatic Asylums on an extensive scale, and a consequent increase of burden Tracked Out, by Mr. ARTHUR À BECKETT, is, I am informed, on the unhappy ratepayer. But Mr. LESTER is "only purtendin'," having a perfectly unprecedented sale. It is indeed a weird story, and "there ain't no such person." I am sorry that Mr. LESTER'S Yet there is nothing quite new under the sun, as, I think, the weird heroine should be troubled with a profusion of golden hair; I should author will himself be the first to acknowledge when he reads A Tale have cut that hair, or dye'd it; and I do not think that the lighted of Wonder, by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, now republished end of a cigar put into the pocket of a damp coat would set a house by ELLIOT STOCK, in a collection of the Novelist's early writings, on fire, particularly such a house as the author has previously been compiled by C. PLUMPTRE JOHNSON, in which the decapitated Head at no little pains to describe. But these are mere details. The idea tells its own decapitated tale, and the criminal is discovered!! How's THE SAGACIOUS BARON DE BOOK-WORMS. of the story is decidedly original, and to lighten the tragedy of the this for High, inquires tale there are many touches of genuine humour.

I have just seen Messrs. BARRAUD'S eighth number of Men and Women of the Day, wherein a portrait of HELEN MATHERS, Mrs. REEVES, looking as if she were trying to imitate the American Siffleuse, is between those of Dr. W. G. GRACE, the Cricketer, and Lord Justice COTTON, with a wig which, were he LORD CHANCELLOR, would be suggestive of the Cotton-Woolsack, but, as he isn't, it is evidently only an old wig that doesn't fit him. HELEN MATHERS, the charming Novelist, couldn't be in better company than appearing thus with GRACE and COTTON, typical at once of her literary and personal charms on the one hand, and of her devoted domesticity on the other. Well selected.

Also the September Number of Our Celebrities. There is about WALERY'S Photographs a soft tone that I've rarely, if ever, seen equalled. The portrait of Sir MORELL MACKENZIE this month is perfect as a print, and lifelike as a portrait. The great merit of this positive likeness is a "negative" one; I mean the absence of the stereotyped background, in which, as in a cold ancestral hall, with only one chair in it, to which he fondly clings, stands Lord STANLEY of Preston. The fault of background, in my humble judg

PASTORAL TO THE "BOY BISHOP."
[The World says of Dr. JAYNE, the new Bishop of Chester:-"He cannot
be said to have made any mark there (i.e., at Leeds).".
he hardly realises one's idea of a Bishop: he enjoys a fair, fresh, ingenuous
boy-like aspect, and owns an engaging frank demeanour."
will be, by far, the youngest Bishop on the Bench."]

AIR-Refrain of "My Pretty Jane."
My fairish JAYNE, my boylike JAYNE,
Oh, never look so shy;
But come, oh come, and go a Bishoping,
While the bloom is 'neath your eye.
Chorus (everybody at Keble College) :-
My fairish JAYNE, my boylike JAYNE,

Oh, never look so shy; &c., da capo.

"In person, "and he

CANDID OPINION.-Coal Tar Sugar can't be Beet.

FIRST MEETING OF THE PARNELL COMMISSION. Toby, M.P., Q.C., with a brief to watch the case for the Public, presents Lika Joko, who watches the case for Japan, to the Three Commissioners.

strong Zola-esque novel, The Mummer's Wife,-in which, by the way, while spades are called something more than spades, there is much unpalatable truth,-like the proverbial red rag to the bull, or he ankles of the timid stranger to GEORGE MEREDITH's "distraught goose." All that Mr. GEORGE MOORE has to say about the " Stage as a profession" has been said, without mincing matters, long ago in Mr. EDMUND YATES's Time (a Magazine), and in the Fortnightly Review, in Mr. ESCOTT's time. Mr. MOORE wanders away from his text of Mummer-worship, and needlessly and inconsequently attacks Mr. CHARLES WYNDHAM and Miss MARY MOORE for their Continental tour with David Garrick. That Actor and Actress should be received into "Society" at all" does make him so wild." Well, he needn't meet them. He can keep aloof from Society, and the loss will, of course, be Society's.

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"Because I have cakes and ale," Mr. MOORE seems to say to the Actors, therefore you shan't be virtuous." And "you shan't even be respectable, if I can help it," is his implied determination; forgetting that "respectability is the homage paid by vice to virtue," with which cynical definition Mr. MOORE should be satisfied, as covering all his ground of complaint.

The artistic temperament is innately Bohemian, and it feels itself ridiculous when attempting to shine with the veneer of bourgeois respectability. But the ostentatious Bohemianism which Mr. GEORGE MOORE considers the proper colour for the Actors to live and die in, with its inordinate vanity, vulgar self-consciousness, affected bonhomie, and flippant profanity, is more repulsively snobbish and revoltingly caddish, than the best silk-hatted, frock-coated Respectability can ever be.

A TALE OF ONE HUNDRED CIGARS. SIR,-The ordinary Englishman may fondly imagine that he can pass his cherished Havannas, up to, say, one hundred, through that remarkable institution known in France as the Douane. That's where he's wrong. He can't! At all events, he can't, if he tries to be honest, as I did, and disclose the fact that his paquet contains Havanna cigars. As is well known, the French Government is a paternal one, and in its infinite wisdom does not permit anything but cabbage, choux, to be smoked in La Belle France. Real tobacco is considered deadly. However, let me at once proceed to the recital of the One Hundred Cigars.

First week of August I wrote, enclosing cheque, to the Army and Navy Stores, from Royat-les-Bains, to order one hundred of the forbidden fruit, I should say, weeds. By return I get receipt from Stores, and note to say that "the goods shall be forwarded with all practicable dispatch." So far, so good. Four days after this I receive from Monsieur le Chef de Gare du Nord at Paris the following most bewildering communication:

Paris.

Grande Vitesse 1. Trafic International. MONSIEUR, J'ai l'honneur de vous informer qu'il est arrivé à votre adresse, en grande vitesse [observe the sarcasm], dans les magasins du douane, à la Gare du Nord, expédiés par M. Army Navy (sic), à Londres, les colis ci-après designés: 100 cigarres.

Vous devrez signer l'une des deux formules ci-dessous, selon que vous prendrez livraison en gare ou que vous préférez vous faire livrer la marchandise à domicile par le camionage de la Compagnie.

I do so. Sign the "formule" which permits, apparently, the delivery of our one hundred chez nous. Alas! how little I knew of the ways, and means, of the Douane. Daily we (myself and expectant friends) journey down to the Gare de Royat, pour demander si les cigarres [why two r's ?] de Monsieur sont arrivés." "Non, Monsieur, pas de paquet pour vous." Quoi faire? Nous attendons. On a Wednesday in August we receive a billet-doux from the Chef de Gare, as follows:

"Nous avons reçu votre lettre. Les cigarres étant prohibés, veuillez adresser une demande d'autorisation d'entrée sur papier timbré à M. le Directeur de la Douane pour obtenir l'entrée des cigarres conformément aux instructions, jointes à notre avis 338 du 11 courant." I fly-always with my friends, who are now beginning to doubt whether I ever ordered any cigars at all, and are rather less generous with their own towards me than they were-to the post-office to purchase the cherished" papier timbre." We are told, 66 Vous trouvez ça chez le marchand de tabac." Thither we wend our weary way, to learn that "Il n'y en a pas ici. C'est à Clermont (town twenty minutes by carriage from Royat) que vous trouvez ça. Rue Saint Esprit." My friends will not quit me, so we all go together. Arrived at Clermont, we find the marchand de tabac, Rue Saint Esprit, and are, on payment of soixante centimes, armed with the formidable papier timbré. So off we walk to the nearest café, demand ink and pen, and indite in our most classic French a humble petition to the Directeur de la Gare du Nord, à Paris. In five minutes more it is in the letter-box, and we are wending our way back to the iron waters of Royat. We feel we require tonics. This ends our labours on Thursday. Allons! du courage! Enfin c'est toujours possible que M. le Directeur de la Douane finira par nous envoyer nos pauvres cigarres.

66

Seated at dinner on the following Saturday evening, we learn, to our dismay (a heavy rain-storm is at the moment doing its best The craze of Actor-worship is rapidly passing away. BUFFALO to wash the town away), that the ill-fated cigars have at length BILL's popularity with "Society" hit the histrion a serious blow; arrived at the hotel, but the well-meaning though officious Conso did the momentary success of the athlete. The fault is in the eierge has sent them away, because he did not know if Monsieur Worshippers, not in the object of their adoration. Mr. GEORGE (meaning the humble individual who now addresses you, moi qui GROSSMITH laughs pleasantly at the craze in his amusing shillings-parle") was prepared to pay the trifling sum of thirty-six francs worth, entitled, The Clown in Society. duty on one hundred cigars! Having explained that I was ready to pay double, he secured the cigars; and thus, after much time, labour, journeying, lamenting, and heart-ache, I was rewarded by the receipt of my One Hundred Cigars! How sweet was the first one (slightly damp, it is true), but real tobacco! All's well that ends well.

Let the Actor enjoy himself with his Dukes and Duchesses, his supper and champagne, and do you, Mr. MOORE, enjoy yourself too, with your "couple of Princesses and a Duchess" (which is your own modest allowance for yourself "in perspective"), but you needn't throw stones through the window panes, merely because you catch sight of Comedians in the Duke's drawing-room.

66

If the Actor's vanity hungrily craves for recognition in what is termed Society," then, like the little boy in the bath, "he won't be happy till he gets it." And if that makes him happy, Mr. GEORGE MOORE, happy man be his dole." But why envy him? Why blame him? Blame Society,-and your task is futile and endless.

Moral.-When endeavouring to pass a cigar through the Douane, allow at least a fortnight for the function. Ah! Mr. Punch, know you smoke, like myself, good cigars, and I feel that, in your kind heart, I shall find some of that sympathy which may soothe my shattered nerves. Vale, amice! Yours, A MERE BACCA TELL.

"QUITE ENGLISH, YOU KNOW!"-We see a new Opera announced for the 25th at the Crystal Palace. It is an English Opera, Libretto THE Morning Post, last Wednesday, mentioned a "Firework by an Englishman, C. BRADBERRY (never seen it spelt like this Drama," by Mr. BROCK, at the Crystal Palace. Of course the lead-before-" put it down a 'u,' my Lord"), and the music by another ing Lady was Miss CATHERINE WHEEL. There must have been Englishman, Mr. GEORGE FOX. The subject is The Corsican Brothers. several Stars. Probably the show concluded with a political Squib. Mr. Fox ought to play Château-Renard. Of course he can, Brothers, The next novelty in the Pyrotechnic Theatrical line will be an if he pleases. With the usual white face, corked eyebrows, and adaptation of one of PLANCHE's old Fairy-tale Extravaganzas, to Mephistophelian moustache, he might come out as a sort of Guy be entitled, Rocket with the Tuft. Fox. Success to the English Composer.

NOTICE.-Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Piotures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule