PRANKS AT THE POST OFFICE.

CERTAINLY if the letters of "our own" Crimean correspondents may be any way regarded as letters of credit, there seems sufficient reason for complaint of the Post Office arrangements-or perhaps we should say, more correctly, of the want of them. The mail service is so managed as to be but little serviceable, and what with tardiness of transit and mistakes in sorting, the correspondents in the camp find that a Readletter day is but seldom marked in the calender. Judging from the latest accounts we have audited, it would seem that the arrival of the mails had been solely guided by the laws of eccentric motion; while their departure has been suffered to take place at any time-that previously announced alone regularly excepted. In fact such has been the want of punctuality, that, inasmuch as it is always held to be the "soul" of business, we suppose it has been argued by some postofficial wag that it cannot be material.

It is questionable whether in the event of an enquiry it might not turn out that the blame should chiefly fall upon authorities so high, that like the Alps, they are almost inaccessible.. If, however, it be found, the matter rests with the Post Office, we think the old proverb As stupid as a post," should in future be read "As stupid as a post-master."

THE Press says that the Government has made the most difficult sacrifice, namely, the sacrifice of character. It might be retorted on the party of MR. DISRAELI, which the Press is understood to represent, that though the Government find it difficult to sacrifice character, the opposition would-from absence of the material-feel such a sacrifice impossible.

WHEN the new article was added to the creed of Popery the other day, at Rome, his Holiness in proclaiming it, is said to have shed tears in the pulpit. We could not account for this until we also read that "Rome was intoxicated with joy."

RAW MATERIAL OF BARRISTERS.

THE study of the law now requires something beyond the mere eating of a series of dinners, which used to be the only qualification for an utter Barrister, who might therefore be an utter ignoramus on all legal subjects. We can see no value in the dinner-eating test, beyond, perhaps, a remote possibility that it may prepare the eater for the various digests with which the law is identified. The theory of cramming" to pass an examination is undoubtedly of ancient date, and the Lawyers may possibly have imagined that, as according to BACON, learning makes a full man ;" a full man must be a learned man, and that it is only necessary to get the man "full" by any means in order

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to make him a "learned

We are, however, glad to find from the prospectus of lectures for the ensuing educational term, that the "legal mind" is to be constituted of something more than the old mixture of mutton and port wine, and that the wearer of a Barrister's stuff gown is no longer to be made up like a Guy Faux, by mere stuffing.

The Reader on Constitutional Law refers his class to Rapin-a book quite in keeping with the objects of a legal education.

د,

The reader on Equity proposes to give nine lectures on "Trusts in connection with Voluntary Conveyances," a topic that the mere dinnereater would easily confound with Turnpikes-the only "trust of which he would be aware-and exemption from toll, which would seem to belong to the subject of "voluntary conveyances.'

The Reader on Civil Law proposes to treat of "Legal Fictions"-a most extensive branch of the law, which abounds in fictions of the most humorous, as well as of the gravest character. In Common Law there will be lectures on "Simple Contracts," including no doubt that very simplest contract of all, which ends in the purchase of a "hunter, the property of a nobleman going abroad," on the recommendation of the family coachman," who has just come from abroad, and is likely to go abroad again after an early sessions at the Old Bailey.

THE CZAR'S SERENADE FROM BELOW.

AIR.-" Chorus of Demons," "Robert le Diable."

YE demons and spirits whose Prince is Man's Foe,
Ye souls who inhabit the mansions of wo,
Cry, Honour to him that on Earth has brought war,
Cry, all evil Angels, Hurrah for the CZAR!

Blasphemer, Destroyer, Tormentor, than him
Our Carcase possesses no worthier limb,

Hurrah! with the blood from the ground let us cry,
Hurrah for the Psalm! and hurrah for the Lie!

We have risen O Tyrant, thine eyelids to close,
In hatred and malice to bid thee repose:
Thy head on thy pillow, CZAR NICHCLAS, lay,
In joy for the ruin wrought by thee this day.

Abandoned, abhorred by the Children of Light,
By day as we prompt thee, we tend thee by night;
Thy Guardians, our watch by thy pillow we keep,
In charge of the Wicked Ones, Wicked One, sleep,

But open thine ears to our song in thy dreams,
Our anthem of groans, lamentations, and screams,
Thyself with such music hast made the world ring,
And such in our chorus hereafter shalt sing.

Thou know'st not the place thou among us hast won,
In slumber we'll show thee what deeds thou hast done.
Lie shattered and mangled and torn on the plain,

In fantasy wrung as with bodily pain.

Lie freezing, thy cruelty's greatness to learn,
Or howling for water in vain, lie and burn,
Without a kind traitor to bring, at thy call,
The halter that throttled thy mad Father, PAUL.

Descend in the festering grave of the dead,
Which thy mere ambition with victims hath fed,
Imagine it closes upon thee; and there
Thou raisest the yell of infernal despair.

Roll, NICHOLAS, roll thy mild eyes in thy rest,
Receiving the homage of demons unblest,
Who cry with their Master, the Author of War,
And all evil Angels, Hurrah for the CZAR!

PEACE AND PLENTY AT MANCHESTER. THERE is to be a great demonstration at Manchester in honour of the members; and, particularly, in admiration of MR. BRIGHT; who will receive a testimonial at the present hour in course of construction at Birmingham. The antiquarian reader may remember the wooden dove of REGIOMONTANUS that flew out to meet MAXIMILIAN, and having made two or three circuits around the imperial head, finally perched upon the emperor's shoulder. At the world's toy-shop (we are not permitted to name the firm) there is now constructing a sucking-dove in brass; a dove that, in imitation of the wooden pigeon, will in due season be thrown into the air to welcome JOHN BRIGHT, at length after frequent cooing, to settle upon his beaver.

There will be a tea-party, at which several of the Russian prisoners with their wives will be the honoured guests. MR. BRIGHT will, in the course of the proceedings, present to the men a dozen of cotton handkerchiefs a-piece (with the portrait of the meek-eyed NICHOLAS in the centre), wherewith they may dry the tears of captivity; whilst the women will have the choice of two gowns each from any collection of the choicest Manchester prints.

There will be Greek fire-works in the evening; the whole to conclude taking the bass solo parts. NICHOLAS (through the Greek house of with the anthem of "God preserve the Emperor," MR. BRIGHT himself TRAITORTORIUS and SPYZKI) has sent a supply of caviare for the tea-table.