However, I had to come to Billsbury, nilly-willy.  Met the Committee after dinner.  They were anxious that I should do some canvassing soon, and wanted me, when next I spoke, to explain myself more fully (1) on the Temperance Question and the question of Compensation to Publicans; (2) on the Women’s Suffrage Question; (3) on the Labour Question; (4) on Foreign Policy; and (5) with reference to the Billsbury Main Drainage Scheme.  I said I would, but I should probably require more than one speech to do it in.  Afterwards a very solemn member of the Committee, whose name I forget, got up and made a long speech, in which he observed that my habit of appearing in dress clothes at the meetings had annoyed a good many of my supporters, and that he ventured to suggest to me, for my own good, that I should wear ordinary dress.  It seems a good many of the lower lot thought it looked uppish.  I’m glad enough not to have to do it any more.  There were other points, but I’m too tired to remember them.  By the way, I have subscribed to about a dozen more Clubs and Institutions, and have promised to get Mother to open a bazaar here at the end of the month.  Back to London to-morrow.  What a life!

* * * * *

THE LATEST “LABOR PROGRAM.”

(BY A NEW-UNIONIST.)

  I am all for myself, and ’tis perfectly true
  That the “labor” I love is regardless of “u.” 
  But, per contra, informing my “program” you see
  Though I wink (with two I’s), I eliminate “me.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  POLITICAL BOATING-PARTY DURING THE RECESS.

(By Our Own Instantaneous Photographer.)]

* * * * *

IN A LOCK.—­A WHITSUNTIDE WARBLE.

  “Lock!  Lock!”—­Shock!  Rock!  That’s a pretty frock bulging over the
      gunwale! 
  She looks like to choke with that horrible smoke, which is fuming out
      of the Steam-Launch funnel. 
  Pleasant old cry!  All in, and dry. though we’re awfully crowded this
      first Spring holiday,
  Better this than St. Stephen’s dead-lock!  Our serious Senators out
      for a jolly day
  Might do worse.  Who carries the purse?  That ten-foot rod with the
      toll-net ending it
  Means a hint.  They must make “a mint”; and, by Jove, there are many
      worse ways of spending it,—­
  Money, I mean.  Now were G-SCH-N seen collecting cash for his dry
      Exchequer
  With pole and net, it were nicer, you bet, than keeping up his
      financial pecker
  With Spirit Duties!  Those two blonde beauties in Cambridge blue are
      exceeding bonny;
  B-LF-R now at that same boat’s bow would be quite in his element—­eh,
      my sonny? 
  And OLD MORALITY cooling his legs in the stern-sheets yonder would
      find the steering
  Easier far than amidst the jar of St.