THE LORD MAYOR AND HIS MENIALS. tribtion an A CHRISTMAS BOX. WE have lately paid a visit to the Danube and the Pruth, which amid their various windings have found their way at last to the Adelphi, where they are causing something like a nightly overflow. It would be difficult to trace the windings of a plot which varies according to the windings of two rather eccentric rivers, set free from all other restraints than the rules of Burlesque, which are wide enough to extend to the utmost limits of extravagance. E perceive by the papers that the LORD M MAYOR has just given his "first state dinner" to no less than sixty members of his Lordship's household. After leaving out the Chamberlain and the Chaplain we are puzzled to find fifty-eight upper servants to whom it would seem appropriate that a "state dinner" should be given. Including the Butler and the Housekeeper, and throwing in the Cook, we can only make up five "members of the household" with whom the King of the City might be expected in a fit of unusual condescension to sit down to a "state dinner." Even letting in all the Flunkies, and then opening the door to the Housemaids, we should scarcely get the number of guests up to twenty, and yet we are told "sixty" dined at the LORD MAYOR'S table. As the "household" must have been all present, we should The Lords of the Admiralty might learn a lesson from the managelike to know who "dished up," and who ment of the Adelphi Fleet, the manoeuvres of which are executed with waited at table. Did the company assemble a precision that would set the oldest Captain in the service dancing a in the kitchen or in the dining-room? and naval hornpipe, with all the enthusiasm of that middle period of life bine did each flunkey take a lady "up" to dinner, when he has just emerged from his midship-manhood. or escort one "down" to the banquet? We confess ourselves rather puzzled by this bit of "Low Life Above Stairs" at the Mansion House. If there is an extravagant plot, with rather extravagant humour, there is an extravagant outlay to complete the picture, or rather a series of pictures. Whatever may be said of the efficiency of the Fleet in the Baltic, there can be no doubt of the efficiency of the fleet at the Adelphi, where a sort of sea-fight takes place, by a contrivance which is one of the most novel, as it deserves to be one of the most successful of engagements. If the army wants in the conduct of the navy at the Adelphi, where every Man of War HEAD, HEAD, HEAD," there is assuredly no deficiency of that article is managed by one of the best as well as the youngest heads that ever directed a nautical movement. As we find that covers were laid" for sixty, we have thought it just possible that the dinner may have been sent in from a cookshop in those eightpen'orths, which are usually served in plates with a tin cover, for the accommodation of the eating-house frequenters of the community. This would have cut the Gordian knot, as to who should have done! the cooking, when the Cook was herself a member of the company. SEASONABLE REINFORCEMENTS. By a paragraph which is now on the contemporary circuit, or, in common phrase," going the round of the papers," we are delighted to learn that cargo." Among other consignments for the Crimea, a quantity of plum puddings have recently been shipped, together with some jars of mincemeat, and a good supply of Christmas beef. These substantial Compliments of the Season' are accompanied with sundry barrels of porter, which will, doubtless, serve our brave fellows as the wherewithal to drink the healths of those who have sent out to them so timely a Very seasonable reinforcements these, we think, and eminently calculated to strengthen our position. Indeed we may consider them doubly serviceable just now, as they will serve not merely to fill the mouths they are intended for abroad, but to stop those, here at home, who have been telling the most lamentable stories of the want of provision-al arrangements for our troops. As civilians our opinion is of little value at the Horse Guards, but we opine nevertheless that the better a man is fed the better he will fight; and it cannot be disputed by the strictest military economist, that troops on active service will have all the more activity, if they be A BULLET-PROOF HERO. has an Iron Captain. The Constitutionnel quotes the following asserENGLAND once had-alas for the past tense!-an Iron Duke. France tion, contained in the letter of a French officer in the Crimea describing the sack of a village, under fire : "I saw CAPTAIN DE MARIVAULT, of the Navy, carrying away, with the greatest precaution, a window, which he protected with infinite address, with his body, against the balls." We should like to see some of those balls, which, doubtless, must have been flattened against the iron sides of the gallant officer. Let no one, for the sake of making a vile pun, term this an ironical observation. If CAPTAIN DE MARIVAULT is not literally made of iron, he is unquestionably a man of mettle. WISEMAN, AN INDEX OF THE MIND. WISEMAN-We are glad to hear that Rome agrees with him better than Golden Square-has been promoted to the post of member of the Sacred College of the Index! In other words he is to be another fingerpost that points the flowery way to ignorance. He is to arraign the souls of all books, and to consign the wicked-by way of avant-couriers to the souls of the writers-to darkness! The question is, will WISEMAN be magnanimous ? Remembering LORD JOHN's famous Durham letter, by which the Doctor's red stockings were so shamefully bespattered with political ink,-will WISEMAN place LORD JOHN's Life of Moore in the Index Expurgatorius? It is said he will do so; and further, still unrelenting, will add thereto his lordship's Don Carlos. NICHOLAS' CROSSES. "The Cross (so NICHOLAS tells us in his Manifesto) is in our hearts." daily strengthened with a good supply of beef." Of course the Considering the number of crosses NICHOLAS's army has received nature of a soldier will "abhor a vacuum as much as any other, and in the Crimea, we can hardly be surprised if each Russian soldier has a it is clear to any one who understands the "weight of bodies" that the " cross in his heart." lightest troops will make all the heavier charge for having individually half a plum-pudding or so inside them. The presence of the mincemeat, too, will doubtless inspire them to make it of the enemy; while without rendering them pot-valiant, the porter will contribute much to their stout-heartedness. In fine we cannot but feel that reinforcements such as these will materially strengthen our chances of success, and while improving more than anything the condition of our troops, will certainly enable them to carry on the war to the knife-and fork. The Czar in Pewter. "NEVER shall I forget his cold, pewtery look," writes POLEZHACO, the Russian Poet (ingenuous reader, you of course know POLEZHACO?) of the CZAR. What next? NICHOLAS has been praised for his mild eyes his beautiful head. And here is a poet looking in the CZAR'S face, who pronounces it to be a pewter mug! A NEW ORDER-MILITARY AND DOMESTIC.-A new military order is about to be instituted for home-sick officers, so many of them having returned. It is to be called-The Order of the Hearth-Rug. However, what cross" is it, pray? Candidly speaking, we should say that the Russian in his nature was "a cross" between the Bear and the Tiger, combining the stupidity of the one with the ferocity of the other; and when we recollect the brutal atrocities committed on our disabled soldiers at Inkermann, we do not think we are guilty of any undue severity in our zoological definition. The King of the Third Gender. AN EMINENT CAVALIER SEUL. Do you know why CARDINAL WISEMAN may be supposed to be fond of dancing?-Because he is always figuring in the Pastorale. THE RAILWAY AT BALAKLAVA.-A friend suggests that LORD ABERDEEN should be laid as the first sleeper. THE LEARNED SERJEANT ENDEAVOURS TO GET HIS FOREIGN RECRUITS INTO "Left! Right!! Izquierdo! Derecho!! Gauche! Droit!! A MODEL CORONER'S INQUEST. A CORONER'S Inquest in the present day, 'would seem to be intended, not only to inquire into the cause of death, but into the circumstances, habits, and characters of the living. A Coroner's Jury feeling that the public appetite for scandal is somewhat sharp, and some of the jurymen having perhaps a little natural curiosity of their own to gratify, will frequently extend the scope of inquiry, so as to make it comprise, not only all matters relating to the deceased, but the private affairs of the relatives, and even of the witnesses. At the Inquest on the person lately murdered in Foley Place, we have "an intelligent British Juryman" asking, "Was your brother a holder of Dutch Stock?" A question which had about as much to do with the cause of death, as the inquiry whether he has ever worn a black satin stock, or, "Did he ever bake a potato in a Dutch oven ?" As reports of Inquests are, we believe, paid for by the line, we do not wonder that these irrelevancies are faithfully chronicled by the "Gentlemen of the Press," who see at least one slice of bread in every absurd interrogatory, and who may even get a bit of butter out of the epithets "intelligent," or acute, as applied to the Jury, and ""active, vigilant," or "indefatigable," as used in reference to the beadle, the police, or the summoning officer. دو We furnish a few specimen passages, as guides to reporters and jurymen engaged in assisting at Coroner's Inquests. In the following model for an opening paragraph, it will be seen that as words help to make lines, and length is the test of the value of a report, we have selected a style that the Gentlemen of the Press will duly appreciate. In order, however, to consult the interest of the reader as well as that of the writer, and to save the time of the former, while contributing to fill the pocket of the latter, we have placed between parentheses the words that may be omitted in the persual of the ensuing paragraph. "Yesterday (which our readers, by referring to the date of our paper of this day, will find to have been Tuesday, the ninth of January, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five), MR. WAKLEY, the (highly respected and very able) coroner for (the metropolitan county of) Middlesex (who, it will be remembered, was formerly, for some years, the talented and popular representative of the large and important borough of Finsbury, in conjunction with the liberal and amiable THOMAS DUNCOMBE, ESQUIRE, who, though at one time, it was generally feared, would have been reluctantly compelled, on account of the very indifferent state of his health, which has since been happily reestablished, to relinquish the honourable seat he has so long filled, Links! Rechts!! A MOST DESIRABLE END. IT is the popular architectural fashion, when any great building is taken in hand, to call in PRINCE ALBERT to lay the first stone. Now, judging from the very long time that most of our public buildings take before they arrive at maturity, we think there is something wrong at the bottom of this custom, and that our charitable founders begin foolishly at the wrong end. Would it not be desirable to secure the services of our beloved Prince to lay, not the first, but the last stone? because the latter ceremonial, if well-advertised beforehand, might have a beneficial effect in hurrying on the works, and the chances are, that they would be finished within a reasonable time. As it is, any one anxious to wish PRINCE ALBERT a long life, could not express it more neatly than by saying: May your Highness live to see the compleion of one half of the public buildings of which you have laid the first stone!" A Crack Regiment. IT has been remarked by a desperate and atrocious buffoon, that if a light division of our home force is wanted abroad, the best troops to send will be the Cork militia. with great credit to himself and to the perfect satisfaction of at least a very large majority of his constituents), proceeded to the Cloudesly Arms, Queen Street, John Street, to hold an inquest. He was accomnanied by a (most intelligent and extremely respectable) jury (comprising some of the most active and enterprising tradesmen of the populous and flourishing borough of Marylebone, a parish which may be said to divide with St. Pancras the well-merited reputation of being, if not the most influential, at any rate the most noisy and notorious in the vast metropolis of the British Empire). The jury (which we have already described as most intelligent and respectable, and was ably presided over by MR. FUSSY FOOZLE, one of the well-known and muchbeloved assistant relieving-officers of this most extensive district) having been sworn (with all the solemnity that is usual on similar occasions by the experienced clerk of the very able and highly respected coroner), the proceedings were commenced," &c. &c. &c. We now proceed to give a few forms of questions for the use-or abuse-of Coroner's jurymen : You are the deceased's brother ? What is the present price of Spanish Stock? Had he a collection of Spanish pictures? Are you in debt? What is his wife's income? Is any of it invested in Spanish Stock? The above questions, though they will perhaps appear impertinent to the general reader, will scarcely seem so after a perusal of the report of a recent inquest in the daily newspapers. "A Novel Housebreaker." SUCH has been the heading of a paragraph that has been running through the papers. Good gracious! We hope it is not another edition of Jack Sheppard. THE MILITARY TRIPOS.-The noses of Oxford and Cambridge have been quite put out of joint by the men who have taken honours in the Crimea. WRITING to the Editor of VOLUNTEER COUNTRYMAN'S QUESTION. We should have thought it possible for a young man to attempt to pay his addresses however unjustifiably and impertinently to a young lady, without its being imputed to him that he had conceived a thorough contempt for the court presided over by the highest judicial personage in the kingdom. Nevertheless, it is assumed to be a "constructive" contempt,-a "constructive" taking of a "constructive" sight, a "constructive" turning-up of a "constructive" nose, and he must of course, therefore, take the consequences of his indiscretion. The SINCE the war began there has been considerable question delinquent having, by some process of submission, "purged" himself of the con- raised as to what are "Neutral Bottoms," and, as is usually tempt, he is called on to swallow a tremendous dose in the shape of a draft, the case, when anything unusual puzzles it, half the nation submitted to him as a bill of costs, amounting to £260 in round numbers. This has been writing for our judgment on the subject. For sum had been reduced by the master to £154,-a tolerable sum for a "con- several months past, our desk has been loaded with a structive" want of respect for the administration of equity; but an application is perfect Alp of correspondence, and our opinion has been made to compel the taxing-master to restore the bill to its original dimensions. asked in all varieties of writing, from the burried scratch of The application was made by two learned barristers, and resisted by two other the "business man," to the easy flourish of the "conlearned barristers, who had of course been regularly "instructed" by two solicitors; stant reader." We have, however, little inclination to all of whom would be entitled to their pickings from the bone or bones of commit ourselves by venturing too hasty a decision in the contention. Jo poison amze ed io en matter, and we can therefore, only inform our corresThe consequences of a contempt of the Court of Chancery would seem to be pondents for the present, that we consider the peculiar so tremendous that we should not be surprised to find the suitors entering the semi-gritty semi-glutinous sediment, which we discover at building with a salaam, and saluting even the bag-bearer with obeisances. There the bottom of our milk jug every morning, may in strictis certainly something very awful in the idea of Chancery, and the awe that it has created is likely to be enhanced by a knowledge of the fact that it cannot be at least as we can analyse it, we find it to be neither one "Neutral bottom," since, as far ness, be regarded as a even indirectly despised at a cost of less than £260, in addition to a period of thing nor another. imprisonment. We beg to finish these remarks by tendering our best bow to the Court in token of that intense respect which will we trust preserve us from the stomaty audacity of ever entering for one moment its formidable precincts. The Czar's Compass. THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA has accepted the Four Points, has he? We are afraid, indeed, that he is prepared to accept nothing else. East, West, North, and South, we apprehend to be the only points which NICHOLAS thinks of accepting. Doesn't he wish he may get them? Prussian Russians. THE fête-day of NICHOLAS was, absolutely, celebrated by KING CLIQUOT at Potsdam. We are told that "such of the Prussian generals as are proprietors of Russian regiments put on the Russian uniform for the occasion." Besides this, they carried the Russian Bear in their breasts, and the ineffaceable stains of Russian gold in their hands. MUCH ADO ABOUT NEXT TO NOTHING. IT seems that there are held four times in the year some Quarter Sessions for the Borough of Southwark. These Sessions are opened with all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious law;" but there is little or no business to transact, when the whole machinery of justice has been rather expensively got together. On a recent occasion, though there was a grand jury of forty-eight, and a petty jury of twenty-three, there was not a single case for trial. The swearing the coroner to his accounts was the only affair that had to be gone through: and this very trifling act was performed by what the managers in the good old days of puffing would have called "the whole strength of the company." Notwithstanding the immense disproportion between the means and the end, there was of course some official at hand to dilate on the extreme importance of keeping up a mass of idle forms, for the preservation of some precious privileges or other, which are supposed to be dear in one sense, and are certainly dear in another sense to some portion of the community. THE PREVENTION OF SHOPPING. (By a man who is "very near.") YE tradesmen of London, how much do I owe I owe that agreeable species of debt, To the state of the pavements, so muddy and wet, In double-soled highlows I tramp through the slush, For oh! but for that, every day of her life, CONTRIBUTIONS OF NICHOLAS TO THE PARIS THERE is some hope that peace may be concluded before the opening of the Paris Great Exhibition. In that fortunate event, NICHOLAS Will no doubt become a contributor to that Exposition of the Industry of all Nations, by sending specimens of Russian manufacture. It may be presumed that these will chiefly illustrate the arts and sciences which his Imperial Majesty is now encouraging, the arts of killing and destroying, and the sciences of delusion and priestcraft. Instead of malachite vases, he will despatch coffins of the same costly material. Anatomical wax models, explanatory of army surgery, and expressive of various forms of disease and death may be expected of him. In the chemical department he will perhaps exhibit a large crystal of widows' tears, preserved by his orders; if the building is big enough to contain one as large as he will be able to send. Articles of furniture, showing the effects of bombardment, specimens of the products of conflagration amongst human dwellings, and amid stores and crops, may also be What the forty-eight grands and twenty-three petties, who were added. The cross will, of course, figure largely in the collection, and dragged from their usual occupations to see a coroner take an oath, likewise of course, will be formed of cross bones; together with these may have thought of the business, or rather of the no-business, before sacred symbols, there will be snuff-boxes constructed of fractured skulls them, we can easily conceive; but we would suggest that some attempt inlaid with rubies, and flagons of the same portion of the human should be made to render the matter interesting by setting the skeleton entire, gilt and jewelled, with emeralds and carbuncles in their proceedings to music, and making the swearing of the coroner an affair sockets. The assortment will be completed, most likely, with ecclesiaslike "The Blessing of the Poignards," or The Oath" in William tical inventions, in the shape of episcopal fabrications, beautifully Tell, or any other great event in operatic history. With a jury printed (in vermilion), and spiritual articles of a similar utility in that. consisting of seventy-one, each of them having more or less of a voice of raki and rum. in the country, there might be a very efficient chorus to support the solos of the coroner or the concerted pieces between the high bailiff, the ushers, the alderman, and the other principal characters. Either the whole affair should be abolished as an idle and expensive extravaganza, or an attempt should be made to derive entertainment from that which seems to have lost all its utility. FLOGGING RETURNS.-We put it to the Lords of the Admiralty to consider this question-Whether BRITANNIA Rules the Waves by help of her cat, or in spite of that nine-tailed deformity? Immaculate Gunpowder. celebrated the discovered and established fact of the Immaculate Printed by William Bradbury, of No. 13, Upper Woburn Place, in the Parish of St. Pancras, and Krederick Mullett Evans, of No. 27, Victoria Street, in the Parish of St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, both in the County of Middlesex, Printers, at their Office in Lombard Street, in the Precinct of Whitefriars, in the City of London, and Published by them at No. 85, Fleet Street in the Parish of St. Bride, In the City of London.-SATURDAY, January 20 1855. DEPARTING GRANDEUR. HE rumour of those changes about. to be made in military attire, by stripping it, in a great measure, of lace and embroidery, has created an immense sensation among a class of officers who may be called civil-at least as regards their general demeanour towards their superiors.-The Beadles are apprehensive that a similar alteration will also be effected in their uniforms, insomuch that alarm, almost amounting to panic, prevails among that important parochial body. Ceasing to blaze in blue, gold, and scarlet, they would, it is their unanimous belief, soon forfeit all that respect and reverence with which their glory has hitherto inspired the little boys. They consider too, that in the event of peace, the facilities for foreign travel will soon be so increased, that they will be occasionally enabled, during a leave of temporary, absence from their official duties, to visit the Continent, where they would wish to appear in a species of costume which would invest them with a dignity likely to command attention. THE UNMENTIONED BRAVE. SONG BY A COMMANDING OFFICER. Он! no we never mention them, When they expect a word from me You say that they are happy now, The Aberdeen Bonnet. THE Globe announces that it is the intention of HER MAJESTY to confer the vacant Blue Riband upon the EARL OF ABERDEEN. Of course the QUEEN means the noble GORDON to wear this favour in his bonnet and HER MAJESTY'S subjects should second their Sovereign's intention by presenting LORD ABERDEEN with a proper bonnet, to trim with the Royal present. That, obviously, would be a bonnet of the sort denominated "coalscuttle." WOMAN AND HER MISTRESS AND THE STICK. WOMAN, ordinarily so gentle to the ungentle sex is, at timesPunch says it with shame and sorrow-a little ungentle to her gentle sisterhood. Here is a parish servant, a small wench of fifteen, the handmaiden of one MRS. MARY CUMBER, who graced Clerkenwell police court, charged with beating the parish drudge aforesaid, one FRANCES THOMPSON. Now, there may exist a prejudice in the minds of some people of acknowledged respectability, that there is no harm whatever in beating, even with a rattan about the thickness of a man's little finger and a yard long, a parish maid-of-all work. And MRS. MARY CUMBER is very respectable; in fact, according to the report, the wife of a man of independent means. May she long make tea for him under their own fig-tree! MRS. MARY CUMBER SO chastised the girl for little household offences, that her "back and arms were covered with weals and discolorations." The drudge was moreover, even for a parish serf, over-drudged. Her enquiring mistress had further opened the girl's letters written by her sister; letters to whom "-said the magistrate-" they were a great credit." The girl swore that she had been beaten by the independent MRS. CUMBER about forty times. "She would strip me naked and beat me until I could not stand," swore FRANCES THOMPSON against MRS. MARY CUMBER: and further, in corroboration of the visits of the rattan, "the girl exposed her back." And the effect of such exposure? Why, we are told that "its appearance made every one shudder." MR. TYRWHITT, the magistrate, having no doubt shuddered as deeply and as coldly as any other in court, proceeded to pass sentence upon MRS. CUMBER. The girl had been beaten forty times. Well, the magistrate deciding that the assault arose out of a mere hasty display of temper, inflicted a fine of forty shillings." How nicely is the fine apportioned to the offence; it being exactly one shilling a beating! The fine was immediately paid; for was not MRS. CUMBER the bone of bone and pocket-of-pocket of independent property? The lady left the court with the sweet assurance that property has, indeed, its household rights; namely, the right to beat and bruise a poor parish apprentice, if property can afford to pay twelvepence for every beating laid on to the parochial naked flesh with "a rattan about the thickness of a man's finger, and about a yard long." WANTED, A FEW SMART POLITICAL LADS, to sweep away the mess that's lying at Ministers' doors. It must be partially, if not totally, cleared away by the 23rd, at which time a good opening is wanted. None but those accustomed to dirty work need apply. For terms, apply to LORD AB-RD-N, Downing Street. CATCHING A BUMBLE. BURGESS's sauce with herrings may be very good, but the HON. MR. NORTON does not seem to like it. That excellent magistrate, having had occasion to make some severe remarks upon the conduct of the Relieving-officer of Newington, was visited on Thursday by a brace of the Newington Guardians, and by their Clerk, and was exposed to the impertinent criticisms of the leash of "porochials," for having done his duty in reprimanding a negligent official. The Newington Guardians have upheld their officer, refused to believe anything against him, passed a resolution in his favour, and imagined that they could carry the whole affair through with a high hand, by sending down a deputation to bully MR. NORTON. But the tables were signally turned for, instead of submitting to their remonstrances, MR. NORTON inflicted a severe castigation upon his visitors, told the Clerk that he was entirely mistaken, informed the Guardians that they were dictated to by their officer, who had made a false statement, and added that, as for their resolution, it contained untruth, and they might take it away. So the Clerk "restored it to a leathern case, and carried it off in apparent dudgeon." Mr. Punch is much pleased with the issue of the affair, and with MR. NORTON's summary and spirited way of dealing with Bumbleism. Scarcely a day passes in which some Relieving-officer or another is not charged with neglect or cruelty to the poor. In some of these cases the "porochials" support their official, in others they very properly punish him. The Newington Guardians think it proper to back an official who is stated to have refused relief to 27 applicants in one day, though many of them were in a starving state. MR. NORTON'S contemptuous dismissal of the impertinent Clerk and Guardians will probably do them good, and in explanation of Mr. Punch's preliminary facetiousness he will explain that the snubbed Clerk is called BURGESS, and the reprimanded official is named HERRING. |