Volume 102 — A BACHELOR'S GROWL.

Oh, the beautiful women, the women of ancient days, The ripe and the red, who are done and dead, With never a word of praise; The rich, round SALLIES and SUSANS, the POLLIES and JOANS and PRUES, Who guarded their fame, and saw no shame In walking in low-heeled shoes. They never shrieked on a platform; they never desired a vote; They sat in a row and liked things slow, While they knitted or patched a coat. They lived with nothing of Latin, and a jolly sight less of Greek, And made up their books, and changed their cooks On an average once a week. They never ventured in hansoms, nor climbed to the topmost 'bus, Nor talked with a twang in the latest slang; They left these fashions to us. But, ah, she was sweet and pleasant, though possibly not well-read, The excellent wife who cheered your life, And vanished at ten to bed. And it's oh the pity, the pity that time should ever annul The wearers of skirts who mended shirts, And never thought nurseries dull. For everything's topsy-turvy now, the men are bedded at ten, While the women sit up, and smoke and sup In the Club of the Chickless Hen.

"WE DON'T WANT TO FIGHT, BUT, BY JINGO, IF WE DO, ——"

I am rather a "pootlesome" bat— I seldom, indeed, make a run; But I'm rather the gainer by that, For it's bad to work hard in the sun. As a "field" I am not worth a jot, And no one expects me to be; My run is an adipose trot, My "chances" I never can see. I am never invited to bowl, And though, p'raps, this seems like a slight In the depths of my innermost soul I've a notion the Captain is right. In short, I may freely admit I am not what you'd call a great catch; But yet my initials are writ In the book against every match! For although—ay, and there is the rub— I am forty and running to fat, I have made it all right with the Club, By presenting an Average Bat!