17 OCTOBER 1896, Page 16

UNCONSCIOUS PERVERSIONS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")

Sra,—Are the following worth recording ? I have heard them daring the last few months. A gentleman near here had "a hydraulic ram" erected on his estate. A labourer said to his clergyman, "Sir, Captain Blank has been putting up a idolatrous ram." In the same village I heard a good old woman expressing her sorrow that the assistant school- mistress had not got "a sir-to-pick" (certificate), and also that the late rector had undergone an operation to have "his violent cord taken out of his throat."—I am, Sir, &c.,