This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles.

A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the "bloofer lady" is supremely funny.

Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture.

It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular role at these al fresco performances.

Our correspondent naively says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend, and even imagine themselves, to be.
There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat.
The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own.