LEX OSCULATORIA.

Evening Post, Volume XLV, Issue 5, 7 January 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

LEX OSCULATORIA.

(A Man's View) in tho Globe. Our maiden aunts are horrified That girls neglect their stitches, Wear " mannish " shirts, high collars, tie, And some say even breeches. Consistent still, they now refuse To waste on one another That sweetest joy, too surely moant For someone else's brother. But girls, remember this ! the -sign Of an advancing nation Is said to be the practice of The art of osculation. 'Tis yours to give ; 'tis ours to tako, We shall not fail or falter, We lay ourselves a sacrifice Upon a nation's altar. Don't hesitate. Just kiss the first, Make both your lives the brighter ; Or if you're doubtful where to go, Just come and kibs — The Writer. AN HISTORIC BOATRACE. Dean Hale, whose memoirs have recently been published, was among the spectators at that historical boatrace when Oxford won with only seven oars, one of her crew being taken ill justj ust before the start The account of an eye-witness will still be read with emotion : — Leaving the invalid to the speedy restorations of the doctor, the crew returned to the river with a substitute, whom, though he was not in training, they proposed/^c de mieux to put in Menziee' place. Unhappily, the Cambridge captain objected to this arrangement, and reiused to allow an additional oar. While the Oxonians, and, as it was reported, some of the Cambridge men, were protesting against his decision, and the former were discussing whether they should row or not, the steward (Lord Camoys) informed them that the signal for the start should be given at the appointed time. Both the boats went down — the Cambridge with eight and the Oxford with seven oars. I never saw an assemblage of faces on which disappointment and disgust were so plainly and universally expressed, or heard of so many exclamations, not loud but deep, of "mean," "cowardly," "sneaking," " snobbish," etc. We mounted the drag which had conveyed us from Oxford, and was now placed on the bridge, and there we waited to denounce and deride the imminent and inglorious victory. 1 shall never forget the roar of " Bravo, Oxford !" j which reached us as the boats came I in view, nor the amazement, which could not believe what it saw — the boats close together, and our own gradually drawing ahead, until the race was over, and by half a boat's length Oxford beat Cambridge with seven oars ! Had they been the Seven before Thebes, or the Seven Champions of Christendom, or the Seven Bishops who stepped out of their boat at the Tower, they could not have been cheered more heartily.

Mrs. Plankington (sorrowfully) — " H my husband would only stop playing nap I could have a new bonnet like yours." Mrs. Witherby — "If he had stopped playing with my husband before they began the last time, you might have had this." "The practice of smoking is bo prevalent in Holland," once remarked a traveller, " that, when you are in the alehouse where everybody smokes, you cannot posssibly recognise the person sitting next to you." " Then how does the waiter manage to distinguish the customers ? " "Oh! easy enough. He always carries a pair of bellows about with him to blow away tho smoke until he discovors the person who summoned him."