Volume 104 — SAFE PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR.

Someone will write about the extraordinary characteristic of the Season, whether it be warm or cold.

There will be a Political Crisis in Paris on the average of once in every six weeks.

The German Emperor will continue his tours, to the great inconvenience of the Crowned Heads he favours with a visit.

Mr. Gladstone will lecture, write articles to the Magazines, fell trees, and govern the country, as per usual.

Someone will get a trifle tired of Home Rule, the Channel Tunnel, and General Booth.

A few persons will leave Europe for America, to see the Chicago Exhibition.

A crowd (more or less) will attend the Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race, the Derby, and the Private View at the Royal Academy.

Mrs. Smith (after having been presented by My Lady Brown) will present Miss Smith, Miss Elfrida Smith, and Miss Victoria Alexandra Smith, at Her Majesty's Drawing-Room.

Mr. and Mrs. Portland Snooks will give a dinner-party, which will be reported in the Society papers.

The First Nights at the Lyceum will be amongst the features of the Season.

There will be several failures at the Theatres, and also a success or two.

There will be half a dozen full-dress debates in the House of Commons, and as many important divisions.

The "Popular Budget" is sure, with some people, to be exceedingly unpopular.

The London County Council and the School Board will be censured by the Press.

There will be any number of railway "accidents," and avoidable "deaths by misadventure."

It will be discovered that the British Army is a myth, and that the British Navy is a snare and a delusion.

Parliament will be up in time for the partridges, even if a little late for the grouse.

Everyone will praise the United Kingdom as the land of the tourist, and promptly go abroad.

A subject of deep domestic importance will be discussed in the columns devoted to correspondence in the daily papers during the Silly Season.

A new Author will be discovered, and spring into great popularity with the Publishers, if not with the Public.

Out of every hundred novels, ten per cent. will be absorbed by the London Libraries, and the remainder carted off to the "Circulating Book Emporiums" at the seaside.

Someone will write his experiences, and expect someone else to read them.

A new Magazine will be started, to supply a want hitherto unsuspected.

Going with the Times.

The children (periodically) will return to school after the holidays, and "men" will go to Oxford and Cambridge, as occasion requires.

Calls to the Bar by the Benchers of the Inns of Court will add materially to the numbers of the Unemployed.

Several social failures will go to the Colonies, and (like a bad shilling) return again.

Professor Jones will call black white, while Professor Robinson that it is grey.

There will be bags on the moors, and sales at the poulterers'.

The Christmas Numbers will be prepared in May and published in October.

The Divorce Court will be open for the Season, and the Season will amply avail itself of the opportunity.

The year will pass in less than no time, and the Yule-tide greetings will be heard, as it were, shortly after Easter.

Subject for Fancy Picture.—Fined five shillings for swearing. A bench of Magisterial Salmon from the River Tees, after considerable consultation, deciding that they cannot pass over the Dinsdale Dam, but admitted that it was quite allowable for a ladylike Salmon to say to the river, "O you Tees!"

"The Present Times."—Christmas and New Year.

NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.