A DEGREE BETTER.--The Degree of Doctor of Music is to be revived at Cambridge. The duties will be to attend ailing Musicians and Composers. When appointed, the Doctor will go out to Monte Carlo, or thereabouts, to see how Sir ARTHUR SULLIVAN is getting on. Sir ARTHUR will, of course, regulate his conduct at the tables by the prescriptions of his Medical Adviser.
MR. WAGGSTAFF AND HIS DOCTOR.--He was ordered by his Doctor to walk two miles a day. "Can't do it in London," was the patient's reply; "never walk more than one mile. But," he said, brightening up, "I'll go to Paris, as one mile there is equal to double the distance in England. How's that? I'll tell you. I do half a mile out, half a mile back: one mile; _et voilà two_!"
"LITTLE TICH" AND "COLLINS."--The former, not the _Little Tich_ of Drury Lane Pantomime, but Sir HENRY TICHBORNE, Bart., has, for absence of mind and body, thus not fulfilling his duties as High Sheriff, been fined by Mr. Justice COLLINS five hundred pounds--_quids pro quo_--unless he can show some just cause or impediment. "He wants TICH-ing up a bit," thought Mr. Justice, but he didn't say so.
REPORTS OF CRACKERS.--If among our old friend SPARAGNAPANE & Co.'s Crackers there are any that will "go off" better than others it will be those called _The True Lovers' Code Cosaques_. This is the latest addition to the School-Board Education Code for the Christmas Holidays.
[Illustration: "SET A THIEF TO CATCH A THIEF!"
_Mrs. Brown_ (_a victim of secret social ambitions_). "OH, AS FOR POOR MRS. ROBINSON, _HER_ ONLY OBJECT IN LIFE IS TO DROP ALL HER OLD FRIENDS AND KNOW TITLED PEOPLE! ISN'T IT LOATHSOME AND SICKENING?"
_Mrs. Jones_ (_who is consumed inwardly by just the same desire_). "YES, INDEED, IF IT'S TRUE! BUT WHAT MAKES YOU THINK SHE WANTS ANYTHING SO _UTTERLY_ DESPICABLE AND MEAN?"
_Mrs. Brown_ (_naïvely_). "BECAUSE SHE WAS SO PRECIOUS HARD ON MRS. SMITH FOR TRYING TO KNOW LORD AND LADY SNOOKS!"]
THIS is "The Maiden All Forlorn," bowed down with burdens scarce to be borne, Waiting a blast on Hope's clarion horn, loud as the "Cock that crew in the morn." Bucolic, wheat-crowned, she--_Micawber_ seems she, waiting for something to turn up--somehow. Poor Agriculture! Care's merciless vulture has harried her vitals, and furrowed her brow.