will run: "My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Right Hon. the Lord
MAYOR pledges you with a loving leek, and bids you HALL a 'arty
welcome."

* * * * *

OUR OWN FINANCIAL COLUMN.

(_BY CROESUS._)

[_Mr. Punch_ has decided that it is absolutely necessary
for him to publish every week a financial article. The best
treatises on Political Economy lay it down as an axiom
that, where the desire for acquisition is universal, and the
standard of value absolute, a balance between gain and loss
can only be reached by the mathematical adjustment of _meum_
and _tuum_. Acting upon this principle, _Mr. Punch_ has, in
the interests of everybody, retained the services of one of
the most, if not _the_ most, eminent contemporary financiers,
whom modesty alone prevents from signing his own name to his
benevolent and comprehensive articles. Those, however, who
care to look beneath the surface, will have no difficulty
in determining the identity of one of the greatest modern
monetary authorities, a man whose nod has before this
shattered prosperous empires, and whose word is even better
than his bond, could such a thing be possible. _Mr. Punch_ has
only one thing to say to those who desire to be rich. It is
this. Follow implicitly the advice of CROESUS.]

SIR,--You have asked me to devote some of my spare time to the