MAY DAY.
Reading edition
(Strictly according to Precedent.)
Open the windows, salute the day; Welcome, welcome the First of May. Everything's changed, or ought to be, Buds are bursting on hedge and tree. Sweet winds breathe from the West or South Soft as a kiss from a maiden's mouth. Everything speaks of warmth and love, Bright is the sun in the blue above. Out in the woods, I know. I know, Fur and feather are all aglow. Downy rabbits with jewel eyes Dart about in a wild surprise. Yellow-billed blackbird, speckled thrush, Pour their notes in a tuneful gush. And all the neat little boys and girls, With clean fresh faces and hair in curls, Sing in a chorus, "Hurray, hurray! April's gone, it's the First of May!" * * * * That's how I dreamt my May-day dream; But things are not what they ought to seem. For the wind—why, bless me, the wind is East, And the birds don't warble or chirp the least. The whole of the sky is wrapped in gloom. And fires are lighting in every room. And I shiver and sneeze and spend my day In a winter-suit on the First of May.
Auk'd About.—The skin of a Great Auk was put up for sale last week, but the reserved price was not reached. Evidently it was of bad omen that it should have been put up at an "Auk-shun."
THE NEW BOY!
"Look, Father, this is your new Overcoat."
"By George, it fits you capitally!"
"Yes, doesn't it! You will now be able to wear my Old Clothes!"
DRAMATIC FAMILY LIKENESS.
For the plot of The Passport, recently produced with a fair amount of success at Terry's Theatre, the authors admit their indebtedness to Colonel Savage's novel, My Official Wife. Oddly enough, this plot bears a considerable resemblance to that of The Orient Express, a piece "made in Germany," of which the English adaptation was produced here, at Daly's, during his season. In this piece, i.e., The Orient Express, a gentleman has tourist tickets for himself and wife; but his wife, after disposing of her ticket to a professional cicérone, returns to England alone, while her husband, travelling on business, continues his journey. The cicérone has sold the ticket cheap to a lady, who is therefore compelled to travel under the name inscribed on the ticket, and finds herself in the same carriage with the gentleman who has the corresponding ticket, and the ticket-collector, seeing the same names, hands back both tickets to the gentleman, and tries to keep the carriage strictly reserved for them all the way, in which attempt he fails, and hence arise, on their return to England, complications analogous to those of The Passport. Was the novel of My Official Wife written before the German farcical play, or is it only a family likeness?
"Il ira loin."—Dr. Farrar, now Chaplain to the Speaker, has been made Dean of Canterbury. From the Deanery to a Bishopric is but a step. He has gone Far, will go Farrar and fare better ... and then ... Farrar-well to all his greatness!