This ogre of our towns to slay,
    Where is the urban “Beamish Boy”? 
  CARROLL, when comes that “frabjous day,”
    We’ll “chortle in our joy.”

  Young County Council, are you one? 
    ’Tis said you’re but a Bumble-batch! 
  Beware the Jobjob Bird, and shun
    The Bigot-Bandersnatch!

  We’ll pardon much that seems absurd,
    Excuse some blunders that bewilder,
  If you’ll but “draw your vorpal sword”
    And slay—­the Jerry-Builder!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  METAMORPHOSIS.

("We know what we are, but we know not what we may be.”)

Conductor.  “TAKE YER TO THE CIRCUS, AND THERE YOU’LL CHANGE INTO A HELEPHANT.”

Master Kenneth.  “OH, MOTHER, WHAT A JOLLY CIRCUS!  MAY WE GO AND SEE THE OLD GENTLEMAN CHANGE INTO AN ELEPHANT?”]

* * * * *

THE MODERN MERCURY.

[Illustration]

  Behold that urchin, occupied
  In counting with an honest pride
    The marbles he has won! 
  O tardy messenger of fate,
  Without distinction, small and great,
  Their telegrams, perforce, await
    Until your game is done.

  Perchance a philosophic strain
  Makes you regard as wholly vain
    Our human bliss and woes;
  What matters, whether State affairs,
  Or news of good, or weighty carts,
  Or tidings relative to shares
    Within your bag repose?

  Well, not by me will you be blamed;
  I like to see you not ashamed
   To dawdle for awhile;
  You furnish, by example sage,
  A moral for our busy age;
  And so, though others fume and rage,
    I watch you with a smile.

  He moves at length, and now we’ll see
  Which way ...  This telegram for me? 
    Oh, worst of human crimes
  Is such delay!—­it’s monstrous quite! 
  I’ll forward a complaint to-night! 
  Here, pen and paper—­let me write
    A letter to the Times!

* * * * *

MRS. RAM was heard to remark that she “didn’t know a finer body of men than the Yokel Loamanry.”  Probably the old lady meant the Local Yeomanry.

* * * * *

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO.  XVI.—­TO YOUTHFULNESS.

You are much misunderstood.  For it is supposed that those who in this world bear your stamp upon them are to be recognised without trouble by the mere calculation of their years of life.  No notion can be further from the truth.  Mere absence of wrinkles, the presence or colour of the hair on the head, the elasticity of limbs, these do not of themselves, I protest, testify to youthfulness.  I knew a lad of twenty, who, in the judgment of the world, was young.  In mine he was one of the hoariest as he was one of the least scrupulous of men.  No