A fruitless endeavour to track to its source
The cause of this sudden cessation;
And so I had tinkered with tools for a space
Ere I thought of my favourite poet,
And said to myself, "Lo! the time and the place
And the loved one in unison; go it."

I might have remembered man seldom appears
Alluring in look or in manner
With a smut on his nose, oleaginous ears
And frenziedly clutching a spanner;
Though down by the cycle I fell to my knees
And ported my heart for inspection,
I only received for my passionate pleas
A curt and conclusive rejection.

* * * * *

"Gentlewoman, good family, small means, musical, devoted to parish
work, wishes to correspond with clergyman with view to being 'an
helpmeet for him.'"--_Church Times._

The _Matrimonial News_ must look to its laurels.

* * * * *

"The Picturedrome, ----, and ---- Cinema, have been acquired by a
London Syndicate, in which are several gentlemen."--_Provincial Paper._

We do not profess to know much about the film-trade, but is this so very