answers, Wen!  The uniwersal werdick of heverybody as was there agreed in saying, that nothink like it in buty, and wariety, and size, wasn’t never seen nowheres before.  And then came the werry natural enquiry, what on airth’s a going to be done with it all?  And then came the equally nateral answer, “The Fruiterers’ Company is a going to send all the werry best of it to the LORD MARE?” And then, “Hey, Presto!” as the cunjurer says, and on Wensday evening there it was on the table at another Grand Bankwet at the Manshun House, and quite a number of the Fruiterers’ Company a sitting a smiling at the LORD MARE’s horspitable table, and the werry head on ’em all, Sir JAMES WHITEHEAD, giving the distingwished compny sitch a delightful acount of what they had bin and gone and done, and was a going to do, as made ewerybody rejoice to think that we had such a nobel Company as the Fruiterers’ Company, and such a prince of Masters to govern ’em.  And I feels bound in honor to say, that the black grapes was about the werry finest as ewer I ewer tasted.  ROBERT.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE SHIELD AND THE SHADOW.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE VICTIMS OF HIGH SPEED.

THE DREAM OF AN ANXIOUS CAPTAIN AFTER TEARING ACROSS THE
FISHING-GROUNDS OF NEWFOUNDLAND.]

* * * * *

THE SHIELD AND THE SHADOW.

["Before the ‘silent millions’ who make up the rank and file of Hindoos discard the cruelties of their marriage system, their opinions, prejudices, and habits of thought must change.  Nothing is more certain than that they will change slowly; but we hold to the belief that judicious legislation will hasten the process more powerfully than anything else.”—­The “Times” on Child-Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India.]

  Yes, compassion is due to thee, India’s young daughter;
    The sound of thy sorrow, thy plaint of despair
  Have reached English ears o’er the wide westward water,
    And sympathy stirred, seldom slumbering there.

  Child-Wife, or Child-Widow, in agony kneeling
    And clasping the skirts of the armed Island Queen,
  Her heart is not cold to thine urgent appealing;
    Considerate care in her glances is seen.

  Not hot as the urgings of zealotry heady
    The action of her who’s protectrice and guide. 
  Her stroke must be measured, her sympathy steady,
    Whose burden’s as great as her power is wide.

  She stands, AEgis-armed, looked forth calm, reflective,
    Across the wide stretches of old Hindostan. 
  The plains now subdued to her power protective,
    Saw politic AKBAR and sage SHAH JEHAN.

  If AKBAR was pitiful, Islam’s great sworder,
    Shall she of the AEgis be less so than he? 
  The marriage of widows he sanctioned, his order
    Three centuries since laid the ban on Suttee.