TORR-RESTIAL NOTES.

Happy Thought.—Ilfracombe, just now. If it be a question of "Ways and Means," then Ilfracombe offers you "the ways" in the matter of drives, walks, rides, excursions by rail, by sea, likewise by river and road almost ad infinitum, and sometimes by sea ad nauseam. Sea-bathing naturally excellent, but still open, considerably open, to improvement. Still, as the man of no politics replied, when asked why he belonged to the Reform Club, "There is in this world nothing so good but what it is capable of improvement," and Ilfracombe cannot claim exemption from this rule of universal application. Should an Ilfracombe-ination require suggestions, mine are at the service of the I. I. C. (Ilfracombe Improvement Committee).

_*^*_*

On a bench at the summit of the Torrs sat three Elders. Gray-bearded and full of confidence in their own wisdom. On another bench facing them sat a cherry-cheeked maiden of some nineteen summers, evidently an elder sister in charge of a little brother, with whom in a shy sort of way, as if old enough to know better, and yet unable to resist the temptation, she was sharing, with very evident relish, some succulent toffy recently extracted from one of the many "penny-in-the-slot" machines, which, as "bits of colour," are such brilliant ornaments to the Torrs Walks, and such universal favourites with youth of all ages. The three Elders were discoursing on the mysteries of creation, with such a "cock-sureness" of tone as seemed to imply that they themselves had been on some committee of management when the first idea of making this particular planet, called the world, had occurred to its Creator. "These rocks," said one grandly, "were in existence long before the date assigned to the creation." Whereat the toffy-sucking girl sniggered foolishly as if somehow personally implicated, while the boy stared, open mouthed, with toffy, yet untasted, in his dexter hand. "No one," observed the second Elder, blandly, his eyes on the maiden,—not by any means a Susanna but rather a fairly educated Awdrey,—"no one now accepts the Mosaic account of Creation as given in Genesis." The boy looked up, inquiringly, at his sister. The girl giggled bashfully as if, in presence of so much learning and such reverend seniors, she were suddenly somewhat ashamed of the home-teaching she had received, and in which her trust had never been shaken, at least until this minute. The third Elder, his eye too on the girl and boy,—and perhaps the toffy,—now joined in. "It was absurd," quoth he, supremely, "to believe that this"—here with a wave of his hand he took in air, earth, sky, and all points of the compass—"was made in six days." Then both boy and girl sniggered at one another. "I suppose they teach you that all this," said the third Elder, straightly addressing the girl, and again explaining his allusion to the universe by waving his right hand about in an all-embracing gesture, "that this was made in six days, eh?" With a demure and silly giggle the damsel admitted that her education on the subject had tended in the direction indicated. The three Elders regarded one another with a sad, despondent air, as though here were another case of crass ignorance which they had a special mission to enlighten. "Why," said the second Elder, "the Chinese"—here the little boy became suddenly interested—"the Chinese possess records which reach back to a date anterior, by some thousands of years, to that popularly assigned by Christians to the creation of the world." The girl opened her eyes, but the boy, having lost his suddenly awakened interest in the Chinese (probably he had expected some stories about the war with Japan, or another tale of Aladdin), had resumed his toffy-sucking process. At this point my companion, who had been fidgetting on our bench, suddenly cut in and took a hand. "You remind me, Sir," said he, quite pleasantly, speaking to the second Elder, but addressing all three, "of the ancient and royal Irish family of O'Toole, whose records, as you will of course remember, went back for some millions of years; and in which, at a comparatively late date, occurred the famous entry, 'N.B.—About this time the world was created.'" As this was told with perfect good humour, and with an inimitably comic imitation of a brogue, the damsel and boy were greatly amused, and the Three Wise Men looked as black as the trio of Anabaptists in Le Prophète when there is a danger of the truth being told by Fides, as to Jean of Leyden being no heaven-descended prophet but only her commonplace peasant-born son. So girl and boy departed, laughing, to gather more sweets, and perhaps to recount at home the Irish story, which, thank heaven, is more likely to dwell in their memory than is the second-hand philosophy "falsely so-called" of the Three Wise Men of the Mountain.

_*^*_*

Kodakers everywhere. Bathing, walking, resting, admiring the scenery, no matter what you are doing, out pops Mr., Mrs., with the Misses and Masters Kodaker, and you are taken in the act. The snap-shooting season is at its height.

_*^*_*

Startling to see staring advertisement over a shop in the Arcade, "Dark Room for Amateurs." Sounds like a punishment. Bad amateur actor, or entertainer, sentenced to dark room would, probably, deserve it.

_*^*_*

The visitor to the delightful Torrs can have one penn'orth or two penn'orth of Torrs. Twopence is the top price. Well worth it, as a treat, now and then. Ordinarily penn'orth of Torrs will suffice. There should be shelters on the Torrs. Immediate attention of I. I. C. requested.

_*^*_*

The hedges in the lanes are redolent of honey-suckle; and the Torrs Walks are sweet with honey-mooners.

_*^*_*

Beware of taking too much of the cream of Devon. "Is it possible to take too much?" asks my friend and companion, to whom half a pound of it at breakfast, another half-pound at lunch, and a third at dinner, are but as a dozen natives, at a single sitting, to a champion devourer of bivalves. I cannot resolve my friend's question. But, after emulating, as far as my limited powers would permit me, his excellent example, I had the following curious dream. For particulars, see next paragraph.

_*^*_*

The Dream.—I was seated opposite a lady, popular alike in the social and political world, whom I will designate as "Lady Jay." It was at a dinner-party, I think, though it might have been some other sort of entertainment, as there seemed to me to be, between Lady Jay and myself, the narrow width of a very long table, the ends of which were out of sight. This table was covered with a white cloth, not too clean; and there were no knives, forks, plates, or dishes. The room was inconveniently crowded by persons, inextricably mixed up, none of whom, however, incommoded us in the least, or, indeed, seemed to take the slightest notice of our presence. Somehow, this struck me as delicate conduct on their part. Lady Jay was insisting that an Archimandrite could, or could not, do something or other officially. But, having more than once demonstrated to Lady Jay that this act, whatever it was, had no essential bearing on his clerical position, I continued to take very slight interest in the discussion; at least, I thought I did not, until, on Lady Jay suddenly becoming dreadfully in earnest, and most positive as to her being in the right, a Whip of the late Government, whose name I could not recall, but with whose lineaments I was perfectly familiar, interposed some conciliatory remarks. Then Mr. Gladstone, in the absence, unaccountably sudden, of both Lady Jay and the Government Whip, strode up and down on the hearth-rug, rubbing the back of his head with his left hand; whereupon I became aware that we were no longer wherever I had been until the appearance of Mr. Gladstone on the scene, but that we were in the library of the Prime Minister's official residence in Downing Street. I was seated in an odd sort of spider-legged arm-chair. Mr. Gladstone, bringing himself to a halt, turned round, and asked me, pointedly, "Whether I could play the piano." Being rather nettled at the tone of this inquiry, which seemed to imply a doubt of my proficiency as a pianist, I replied, somewhat testily, "Certainly; rather better than Beethoven." Apparently satisfied with my answer, Mr. Gladstone said that "if I would oblige him by not continuing my discussion with Lady Jay, in which I had been," he admitted, "absolutely right"—and here he made some facetious allusion as to ladies in general, of which I could not catch one word—"I should," he went on, "have a seat in the Cabinet." Oddly enough, this offer of his did not strike me as anything so very extraordinary; and I at once replied, "No, thank you, I'd rather not." But Mr. Gladstone would take no refusal; he said, "I have come to a decision on this subject," and then abruptly disappeared, through the wall. Whether it was a few minutes, or hours, afterwards, I could not for the life of me determine, being only conscious of some time having elapsed, before I found myself in an avenue on the Bayswater side of Hyde Park, walking up and down with Mr. John Morley. Our conversation there was, I suppose, on the subject of Bulgaria, as this topic was continued by us in a kind of narrow box-room, with hat-pegs on the walls, on which bathing-towels were suspended; there were also trunks on the floor, and school-desks all about, on one of which Mr. Morley rested his elbow, swaying himself backwards and forwards like a pendulum, while always talking to me (I was seated on a box), and uttering platitudes about Bulgaria. I interrupted him by saying curtly, "It is no use talking to me like that, as I am in the Cabinet." Mr. John Morley was staggered; but, recovering himself, he turned to Herbert Gardner (to whom I apologised for not remembering his title, while he, sitting on a smaller box, smilingly refused to enlighten me), and asked for corroboration of my statement. Whereupon I produced an autograph letter of Mr. Gladstone's to me, which entirely satisfied Mr. John Morley, who, having handed it to Herbert Gardner, now candidly disclosed the schemes of the Government on the subject in question, putting forcibly before me "how we are going to deal with Bulgaria." Not a single word of what he said could I understand. Still, as a member of the Cabinet, I felt bound to give his explanations my gravest attention, my difficulty being not to expose my hopeless ignorance by any inappropriate question. It was with some new-born sense of importance that I found we were once again in Lady Jay's company, this time in her drawing-room, and seated in a low chair, while John Morley had brought with him the school-desk, on which he was still leaning his elbow, and still swaying and swinging like a pendulum. Lady Jay was all for resuming her discussion about the Archimandrite, refusing to credit the assurances given by Mr. Morley (balancing himself on his elbow) and myself as to my being in the Cabinet secrets. At this point rushed in someone, who was alternately Herbert Gardner and a Ponsonby, until he settled down into being Herbert Gardner for certain, who exclaimed excitedly, "I have just seen Mr. Gladstone! He says, 'It is absurd to suppose that his letter ever meant anything of the sort!'" I quietly demanded the restoration of Mr. Gladstone's letter to me; so did Mr. John Morley. The protean representative of Herbert Gardner or Ponsonby, or anybody else, replied simply, "I haven't got it." This seemed to perfectly satisfy everybody, and no further questions being forthcoming, Lady Jay seized the opportunity to declare triumphantly, addressing me personally—John Morley and the protean representative having disappeared—how she had "ascertained from a Cardinal that".... But what was the solution of the difficulty, or what was the original difficulty itself, I shall never know in this world, though I may do so in the World of Dreams, as here I awoke, and was so impressed with the reality of the events that had passed, and with the present necessity for recording them, that I at once entered them in my note-book, and here they are.

CABBY; OR, REMINISCENCES OF THE RANK AND THE ROAD.

(By "Hansom Jack.")

No. III.—SPORT—THE OVAL—GOOD OLD W. G.

"Hail, divinest Melancholy!" Decidedly the town of Penarth must adopt this Miltonian line as its motto. At a meeting of the Public Works Committee of the District Council, a letter was read in which a citizen complained bitterly of the frivolous name given to the street wherein he had his habitation. Gay Street! How too shocking! "The whole neighbourhood objected to it," and not even the assurance that the thoroughfare had merely been thus designated out of compliment to a noble lady of the locality, whose Christian name was "Gay," served to allay the righteous indignation. Away with the demoralizing title and the base insinuation borne with it! It was proposed that the street—being in the vicinity of All Saints—be known for the future as "Amen Corner," a name suitable to the unswerving sobriety and solemnity of the city. The proposal was put to the vote and carried with only a couple of dissentients. Is it possible that there are even two Penarthians in favour of gaiety?

A Matter of "Gorse."—Why will picnicers persist in being so careless? The Liverpool Courier reports that a party of them succeeded in setting fire to and destroying some 200 acres of gorse on land belonging to Lord Cholmondeley and Sir Philip Grey Egerton, at Broxton Hills, in Cheshire. Not only was the furze completely burnt, but a "valuable fox cover" was also destroyed. Shades of Jorrocks, M.F.H., and his huntsman, James Pigg, the "canny" Novocastrian! Pity, that these reckless al fresco diners—ready enough with their indignant resentment if turned off any domain—could not be apprehended, and summarily dealt with. Sportsmen will echo the words—adapted to the case in point—in Handley Cross, "Cut 'em down, and hang 'em up to dry!"

THE CONTRARINESS OF THINGS.

He. "That little Trip of ours to Boulogne never came off, after all!"

She. "Nothing ever does come off—except Buttons!"

STRICTLY ACCORDING TO PRECEDENT.

(Fragment of a Romance found between Fleet Street and the Kaatskill Mountains.)

Rip Van Winkle had slept (thanks to a hypnotic trance) for a considerable time. On opening his eyes he called for a paper. He eagerly glanced through the columns, and was absolutely baffled by the nature of their contents.

"What is the matter?" asked a bystander, who had watched his movements, not without amusement. "Can I help you?"

"Well, yes," replied the sleeper awakened. "When I commenced my slumbers all the world was talking about the Armenian question. Pray tell me, are the Powers going to coerce the Turks?"

"No one knows, and no one cares," was the prompt reply.

"And then there was the excitement about our relation with the French in Africa. Will the matter lead to international complications?"

"My good fellow, the matter does not attract the smallest attention."

"Once more, there was the boom in gold mines. Surely that is a topic of interest to some one?"

"No, I fancy not," came the answer. "Perhaps a few stockbrokers think about it—but I doubt it."

"And how about the reserve of ammunition? Have we got enough Cordite powder or have we not?"

"Really I don't know, and don't care," smilingly replied the person Rip had accosted.

"And how about the Shahzada?"

"I believe His Highness has left England, but the movements of the Afghan Prince remain nowadays unreported in the daily papers."

"You astonish me!" exclaimed Rip. "Does nothing interest you?"

"Well, not such out-of-date matters as those to which you have referred. My good friend, you are talking of things that happened ages—or to be quite accurate, about three weeks—ago. They belong to the past."

"Then what is now engaging your attention?"

"Why, one subject to the exclusion of all others—how to spend the recess!"

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Rip; and being a reasonable sort of person he again sought the good services of the hypnotist and went to sleep, hoping to return to consciousness when his countrymen had finished their holiday.

THE THREE CHOIRS.

A Song of the 172nd musical meeting of the Three Choirs of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford, which opens at Gloucester on Tuesday, Sept. 10.

Air—"The Three Ravens."

News from the Provinces.—A gentleman who was trying to cut a joke hurt himself severely. He says he will never again attempt the experiment, and his family express themselves satisfied.