DEAR SIR,—­As the conductor of the recognised organ of the legal profession, I have the honour to address you.  My learned and accomplished friend.  Mr. MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C., complained the other day that there was a right of appeal from the Police Court to the Bench of Middlesex Magistrates.  He said that his colleagues were barristers and gentlemen of considerable eminence, and in those characters were better able to decide upon the merits of a case than the persons who compose the Tribunal to which appeal from their decision is permissible.  I have not recently looked through the list of Metropolitan Police Magistrates, but, if they have been chosen from the ranks of literature and law, as they were thirty years ago, I can well understand that they are an exceedingly capable body of men.  That so accomplished a litterateur and admirable an advocate as my friend Mr. MONTAGU WILLIAMS himself should have been raised to the Magisterial bench, is a proof that the standard has been maintained.  But, Sir, can nothing be done for the other tribunal?

Would it not be possible to appoint a certain proportion of stipendiaries, with ample salaries, to that body?  What is wanted are men with a perfect knowledge of the law, and a large experience of the adversities as well as the pleasures of life.  If they occasionally dabble in literature, so much the better.  But, it may be said, where are such men to be found?  I answer, in very many places, and, to encourage the authorities in their search, shall be most happy to personally head the list.

Yours, very faithfully,

(Signed) A. BRIEFLESS, JUNIOR. Pump-handle Court, Oct. 4th, 1890.

* * * * *

THE GROAN OF THE GUSHLESS.

(A SONG A LA SHENSTONE.)

["What is described as an Anti-Gush Society has, according to a Pittsburg paper, been formed in New York, its object being to check the growing tendency, especially noticeable among young people of the period, to express themselves in exaggerated language.”]

Girl Member of the A.G.S. loq.:—­

  Ye maidens, so cheerful and gay,
    Whose words ever fulsomely fall,
  Oh, pity your friend, who to-day
    Has become a Society’s thrall. 
  Allow me to muse and to sigh,
    Nor talk of the change that ye find;
  None once was more happy than I;
    But, alas!  I’ve left Gushing behind!

  [Illustration]

  Now I know what it is to have strove[1]
    With the tortures of verbal desire. 
  I must use measured terms, where I love,
    And be moderate, when I admire. 
  No slang must my diction adorn,
    I must never say “awfully swell.” 
  Alas!  I feel flat and forlorn,
    I have bidden Girl-Gushing farewell!