The Lampoon.

The current issue of the Lampoon, in spite of an unfortunate tendency toward advertising "shooting the chutes," is rather above the usual standard of the paper.

The illustrations are on the whole creditable, and the written contributions have, to an unusual degree, caught the spirit of genuine humor. The take-off on Richard Harding Davis' latest story in Scribner's is especially successful in this respect.

One point, however, deserves particular commendation. This is the evident effort to confine punning, pure and simple, to the "By the Way" column, so long avowedly devoted to the pursuit of that noble art. There is still room for improvement in the same line, but it is a long step in advance to purge the editorial page of such self-confessed twaddle as has at times appeared there, and to substitute for it the sound opinions on events of the day which appear in the present number.