SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SUNDRY BITS OF WISDOM WHICH HAVE BEEN HERETOFORE SECRETED, AND ARE NOW SET FORTH IN PRINT.

Bot. Let me play the lion, too. I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the duke say, “Let him roar again. Let him roar again.”

Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

All. That would hang us, every mother’s son.

Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.

There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

I have seen the tribulation that God has given to the sons of men; yet He has made everything beautiful in its time: and I know that there is no good but for a man to rejoice and to do the good that he can in life: and I would have every man eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of his labor, for this is the gift of God.

Our neighboring city of Buffalo is to be congratulated. The International League of Press Clubs will convene there next summer. A plumber who was accidentally blackballed by the Buffalo club writes me that they will come “some in rags and some in jags.”

If the women who wheel did but know it they would undoubtedly be influenced by the fact, patent to all men, that all the compromise garments for bicycle wear are hideous. There is no beauty in and of any of them. The more cut off they are the worse. There is only one element of grace about drapery, and that is in its flowing lines. The cut-off Russian blouses are no lovelier than a high hat or a hydrant cover. By and by, when Philistine good sense shall have won dominion over the ladies who bike, it will be discovered by them that there is no essential impurity in dress. The woman who does masculine things should wear masculine covering. Why not? Is it to be assumed that the pedal branches of the human form divine are by any natural law under ban? Or is it custom that makes the difference? If so, it will be deemed indecent one of these days to drape the arms, now hidden in balloons, in the tight sleeves of our elder sisters.

It may be guessed at a venture, there being no authority except that nebulous tyranny that controls all matters of feminine custom, that the difficulty would be met in some measure if the fair wheelers did not have to get off the machine in public view. Even a man is apt to be embarrassed when he walks the pavement with a clamp around his nether drapery, both looking and feeling as if he had been through burdocks and come away loaded. It is of easy recollection how one feels on the board walk with clinging garments that were all right in the water a moment ago. The ladies might be willing to wear knickerbockers—and they ought to be told that in nothing else would they look so well—if by some contrivance a fall of drapery sheltered the too-freely evidenced pedestals of beauty when off the wheel. What Felix will invent such a curtain and a way of keeping it out of the way when not wanted? Here is an opening for genius—and a beneficent one, for by such devices is civilization advanced.

Mrs. Frank Guesslie has written an article on How My Husbands Proposed. It will be syndicated by the National Thought Supply and Newspaper Feeding Company.

A newspaper that does much show printing announces in big headlines: “A Woman Clown. The Only One Is With Barnum and Bailey.” Barnum and Bailey reside in different climates just now. That “only” woman clown must be as ubiquitous as Sydney Smith’s Scot.

The Boston Woman’s Rescue League has the champion non sequitur. The league is against bicycling by women, and announces the startling discovery that “thirty per cent of the girls that have come to the Rescue League for aid were bicycle riders at one time.” Probably one hundred per cent of the same were innocent girls at one time. Maybe it was when they biked.

I understand there’s a movement in the Back Bay gravel pit of Boston, Mass., to abolish the word “Mr.” on calling cards. Some of the three-named have been a little crowded for space, perhaps, or it may be that they dimly realize that it isn’t good taste to call oneself by a complimentary title. Some clergymen refuse to sign “Rev.” before their names, or put it in parenthesis as if to have it beyond their personal reach, as New England ladies write “(Miss)” and others “(Mrs.)”. Good Philistines need not be told that Mr. means Master and is a compliment in the second person. It is of a piece with lifting the hat, theoretically a helmet, to the person whom you respect. That was the old time vote of confidence. You thus expressed the belief that he wouldn’t brain you with a broadsword at the first opportunity. Giving the hand was another token of disarmament as a mark of confidence. Bowing the head also invited the knightly salute with any convenient weapon. With this went a more or less sincere confession of his imputed power. You called him “master,” which became “mister” by corruption. Our imitative good society has forgotten the meaning of the thing it imitates, as usual. Our ready-made coats of arms seldom fit. He that is greatest calls himself servant, according to good authority, and not master. Even Beacon Hill and the adjacent desert seems to have come to a realization of the fact. We may look for the cards of John De Smythe Smythe or Perkins Hopkinson Revere with Mr. in brackets or omitted one of these days.

“Mamma,” said seven-year-old, in the suburbs, “when will somebody’s house or somebody’s barn burn up?”

“I don’t know,” said mamma, “I hope never. But I suppose they will sometime.”

“Well,” said the son, with a sigh, “it’s an awful long time since we had a good fire.”

Thus we see that even calamity may furnish entertainment for the simple and sincere.

Rock & Bumball, of Chicago, announce a new volume by Gallbert Faker. Its title is Scenes in the Boshy Hills.

Several mighty and high church bishops in this country are out against “the new woman.” It is noted that they don’t say anything against “the old woman” in general or in particular.

How to Carry a Cat in a Basket is the attractive title of an article to appear in the forthcoming Ladies’ Fireside Fudge, from the pen of its gifted editor, Mr. E. W. Sok.

There are things in these maxnordo days that are enough to make a man strike his father—for something besides a loan. For instance, a few weeks since we had the peculiar spectacle of the Marquis of Queensbury being done up by his son according to London rules; and now in the last issue of the Chip-Munk we see “A Recent Writer in Scribner’s” well cuffed by a boy of whom he is the author. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” etc.

Judge Tourgee is still making straw without bricks in the Basis.

Now that Mrs. Cady Stanton has launched her Woman’s Bible, let her prepare to enter a woman’s heaven. The men won’t be in it.

Robert Grant is getting democratic. He is down as far as the summer girl in the current Scribner.

The Napoleon on the Hearth is a new magazine announced from New York. It will bear the subtitle, Every Man His Own Bonaparte Revival.

A new book by Mr. Poultry Bigead is about ready. It will be called My Collection of Stones from Cherries Eaten by the German Emperor, and will contain a frontispiece of Cavalry Horses Having Spasms, by a well known artist.

On what ought to be very good authority I am told that if the women who wheel adopt knickerbockers, there will be more care of the female infants of the next generation. Some of the ladies who most strongly object to the advanced and advancing style are said to have good reasons in the matter of physical conformation. I know parents who are very careful not to let their boy babies stand alone too early, fearing bow legs. Perhaps the parents of the future will be equally careful about their girlies, in view of the changing fashion in nether drapery.

Apropos of this, I know a very pleasant little lady—pleasant, but thin—whose brother is a sad wag. “Adelaide,” he said to her last Tuesday, “if you wear those new knickerbockers of yours out on the street, you’ll get yourself arrested for having no visible means of support.”

It is asserted that Mr. George A. Hibbard is perfectly serious.

It is really too bad that a magazine which lives up to its standard so well as the Overland Monthly should try to make us believe that its illustrations are much better than those in Frank Leslie’s Budget.

How I Wrote the Account of How I Wrote My First Book, by General Louisa Wallace, author of Bob Hur, is announced.

I have received through Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, publishers of a Methodist dictionary and other works of erudition and vital piety, an invitation to vote aye on a large number of changes of words in common use—mostly in the fonetic direction. Simplicity is the apparent aim. There is a good deal of retrospect in the list. Some of the spellings that were licked out of us when we were boys seem like old friends come back to ask our pardon. The old days are with us when we are told to spell “skul,” for example. The evisceration of sacred words is a little arbitrary. “Savior” is spelt without the full-mouthed British “u,” dear to every lover of the Prayer Book, but Antichrist isn’t economized at all. “Pel-mel” looks it, if a word ever did. “Graf” is something to be guessed at, and one may ask if “adulterin” is something to eat. The fonetix didn’t reach Czar, or perhaps our M. E.—me friends are respecters of persons. However, they shortened “pontiff” by an “f,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if His Holiness masqueraded as “Pop” in the next circular. It is interesting, if not impressive, this reform—like the abbreviation of bicycle clothes and the sending of bad writing by wire.

That choking female on the cover of the Mid-Continent is still tottering, but hasn’t tumbled yet. Neither have the publishers, it would seem.

A hammock and a book and a horse and a yacht are really enough to begin with for Robert Grant. He says as much in Scribner’s and he doesn’t care a dam for Newport for a week or two. How little the things of this vain world appeal to those who can have them by touching a button.

It runs in the Howl family. W. Dean has a daughter who puts her poems under display ad heads in Scribner’s. The decorative head is the thing. The poem just belongs.

The last Century is not so distinctly medieval as some of its predecessors.

Mrs. Robert Humphrey Elsmere Ward has quit twaddling for a space. “Bessie Costrell” is ended, and it’s a toss up between jubilate and nunc dimittis.

The current Atlantic is very pacific—not to say mild.

The June Chautauquan really praises “newspaper English.” This is the time of year when the Reservation wants all the newspaper English it can get for nothing.

The amazing thing about that Amazing Marriage is the lot of talk the proof reader has read about it.

Tarbell discovered Napoleon, but McClure discovered Tarbell. Now let’s have a series of living documents—“Tarbell at 8,” “Tarbell at 9:30,” “Tarbell at 46,” etc.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil have gone out of partnership in the ’Frisco News-Letter. The head of the firm retires.

THE SPOTTED SPRINTER.

AFTER THE MANNER OF MR. STEAMIN’ STORK.

AN EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER.

ADDRESSED TO THE BAIRNS AND OTHER RELATIVES OF ALL SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS.

TO THE NICEST GIRL.

AFTER THE FRENCH OF PIERRE DE RONSARD.