Commercial prosperity continues to attend the cheery coster as he hawks
his wares about the Liverpudlian streets, and the situation is getting
hawkward for the local tradesman, who declares that the itinerant
vendor's opposition draws away customers from his shop. So momentous,
indeed, to the welfare of the Lancastrian port has this Cockney
Crusade become, that the magnates of the City Corporation assembled in
Committee to discuss means for "making the coster go back to London."
Among other weighty reasons for the expulsion of the intruder, it was
stated that "a gentleman trod upon a banana peel the other day, and
fell." Whether the peel was deposited by an offending coster, or by one
of the many bare-footed but picturesque and ingenuous youths of the
town, history does not relate. However, the great gravity of the crisis
may be understood when, towards the end of the debate on the question,
we are told that the chairman observed that, "if this thing was allowed
to go on, perhaps a certain alderman and himself would start a barrow
with a picture on it, and go about selling fine arts." Chorus of
aldermen:--
Round the town! Up and down!
Anything to earn an honest brown:
Civic costers enterprising,
Up-to-date and early-rising,
Why we'll hawk our blooming pictures round the town!
* * * * *
BRAEMAR Castle is to be restored. "The alterations on the
building are to be mostly internal," says the _Daily Free Press_, "and
the external appearance will remain as at present, so that on rounding
Creag Choinnich"--a good coigne of vantage this, by the way--"the
traveller will have no difficulty in recognising the castle." Good.
Beau BRUMMELL once snubbed a sovereign, but we should hate to
run the risk of cutting a castle. The same authority further informs
us that the edifice in question "stands on a grassy mound between the
Deeside road and the river Dee, and _as it is not surrounded by trees_
it forms a rather conspicuous object in the landscape." Dee-side-dly
this smacks more of Erin than of Caledonia, and calls to mind PAT
O'FEEGAN'S remark--"Shure, me bhoy, an' I wasn't in the room at
all, at all. I was hidin' behind the fire-shcreen!"
* * * * *
LITERARY PROVERB.--Too many characters spoil the novel.
* * * * *
[Illustration: REVENGE IS SWEET.
_Beach Musician_ (_to constant Non-Subscriber_). "'SURE WE SHOULD
BE MOST 'APPY TO PUT ANY GENTLEMAN THAT REELLY CAN'T AFFORD TO
CONTRIBUTE ON THE FREE LIST!"]
* * * * *