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. JOTTINGS <« GLEANINGS.

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JOTTINGS <« GLEANINGS. THE WHISTLE. When straying along in the twilight I meet Oft many a friend in deep trouble;. Some gobg on careiess, and others sigh deep Through paying tooSmuch for their whistle. Then comes a young maiden who swiftly goes by, And dashing a( ong on her cycle And thinking herself the belle of the day, But paying too mnch for her whistle. Soon follows a swelling young gent in her train, Who squanders his fortune to wrangle; Not thinking one moment he's going to ruin By paying too much for his whistle. I met them again one eve on the road, Both looking so haggered and feeble Their fortune had gome—been blown by the wind Through paying too much for their whistle. Llangollen. H.R. A SWINDLE. This item has been going the rounds of the Australian press:—"A. Swindle" is the name that appears over the door of a strugliug lawyer in an up-country town in New South Wales. A friend of the unfortunate gentleman suggested the advisability of his writing out his name in full, thinking that Arthur, or Andrew Swindle, as the case might be, would look better and sound better than the significant A. Swindle." When the lawyer, with tears in his eyes, whispered to him that his name was A-dam, the friend under- stood, and was silent.-Inland Printer. 3VIAJUBA HILL. It is the custom to speak of the battle of Majuba as a disgrace to British arms. There are many millitary critics who take, on the contrary, a favourable- view of General Colley's action on that fatal day. Major Arthur Griffiths, for instance, in his introduction to Battles of the Nineteenth Century (now being reissued in monthly parts, price 7d.), makes references as follows to the ill-starred general The fate of the general, whose name will always be associated with the Boar war, was its saddest episode. Misfortune pur- sued Sir George Colley; he was one of the "unlucky." Opinions differ concerning his latest failure, but there are many who hold that the story of imajuba-of the craggy and, seem- ingly, inaccessible hill climbed by Colley aud his devoted band, only to find death and defeat on the top-onght, with hetter fortune, to have ranked with Wolfe's scaling of the Heights of Abraham, or Charles Napier's desert march on Emaum Ghur. AN OLD CHESTNUT. A good joke, relating the experience of a modest young Dakota newspaper man, is going the rounds. It is to the effect that the pusher of the pencil went out to report a party the other evening, where the home had been recently blessed with a new baby. Accompanied by his best girl, he met the hostess at the door, and after the usual salutations, asked after the new baby's health. The lady, who was quite deaf, and suffering with the grip, thought he was asking about her cold, and told him that though she usually had one every winter, that was the worst one she ever had it kept her awake at night, and confined her to her bed. Then, noticing that the scribe was getting quite pale and nervous, she said that she could tell by his looks that he was going to have one just like hers, and asked him to go in and sit down. The paper was out as usual the next week, but the local editor has quit enquiring about babies. CARMEN SYLVA AT HOME. Tis said that" uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," but those happy mortals who have been privileged to see the Queen of lioumania, "Carmen Sylva," at home among her birds and flowers know of at least one exception. She is so passionately fond of flowers that she is posit- ively unable to rest happily in a room where there are no blossoms. As to writing without the neighbourhood of flowers, that she has declared to be quite out of the question. Nearly all her literary works have been composed out of doors, in a roofless room, built of reeds and surrounded by a hedge of rose bushes, in the hollows of which are cunningly concealed cages full of singing birds. The floor is of mossy turf. In one corner a tiny fountain pours forth perfumed waters in another swings a luxurious silken hammock, in which the Queen can rest and dream. Her seat is a mossy bank, her desk a lichened stone, carved into the shape of a writing table. WHO IS TO BLAME ? A military expert, in the course of a trenchant article in the current issue of To-Day, in defence of Sir George White, does not hesitate to lay the blame on other shoulders. He writes: "The whole course of this Natal campaign has been in the nature of a forlorn hope; a gallant effort made by a small devoted band to cope with tremendous, almost overwhelming odds. We should not repine at indecisive actions and ghastly butchers' bills, but rejoice that worse has not befallen. But we must not for one moment forget—and we have long memories—how and why these woes have overtaken us. The blame must be visited on the chief offenders. Nothing can excuse the British Government, which must, and will, be yet arraigned at the bar of public opinion, charged with the endangerment of the national prestige, held solemnly to account for the death of so many brave men. It is perfectly clear that Ministers were asleep in a fool's paradise, deaf to reiterated warnings, blindly, obstinately, stupidly indifferent to the dread consequences of their supineness. When they did move, at the eleventh hour, it was in a sluggish, half-hearted way, that showed their inability to grapple with the situation. Allowed an effete department to charter crazy troopships and commit field batteries to an end- less voyage, and when every day, every hour saved was of vital consequence, still hesitated about indispensable expenditure. We have not done with the ineptitude, the gross carelessness of the Government. It is as well to prepare the public for further disappointments. Buller's Army Corps is, thank God! nearing the Cape of Good Hope, but it can hardly hope to move forward for some time to come. It will not have the necessary transport. The vast trains needed to give it due mobility cannot be organised until the mules and horses arrive, which are still on the sea, many indeed not even embarked at the distant ports where they were purchased. The Government could not harden its heart to give the order. Still more, gulled by vain hopes of peace, in their continual reluctance to spend money, a thousand or more mules were secured by the enemy in the very teeth of our buyers. We might have held our peace for the present on this shameful story of wasted opportunities, this neglect of the true functions of Government, but it is right that at such a great crisis as this its true causes should be fully set forth and explained, otherwise the pregnant lesson might be lost by the nation."

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