having announced LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S resignation, the Legislature "Bono JOHNNY "), and above all, the old Whigs were the greatest and rushed frantically to Westminster to hear his reasons. But so awful wisest men in the whole world, and would continue to watch over and and solemn an event was not to be prematurely explained, and an preserve the country. agitated universe was left in trembling uncertainty for twenty-four PALMERSTON then rose, swore eternal friendship for RUSSELL, which hours longer. This, by the way, turned out to have been LORD "nothing past, present, or future, should affect," and then pretended ABERDEEN'S postponement. It was just like him. Both houses to be vexed with him for timing his resignation as he had done. dispersed without doing further mischief. Government would meet the motion-"the future depended upon its results." This his lordship's organ explains to mean that he consents to be War Minister if the Government weather the present storm. MR. ROEBUCK then began his accusation, but was too feeble to go on with it, and SIDNEY HERBERT, in consideration, made his defence still more feeble. HENRY DRUMMOND blamed NEWCASTLE and ABERDEEN; COLONEL NORTH growled at the press; MR. MONCKTON MILNES (of course) echoed PALMERSTON LORD GRANBY defended NICHOLAS, who, he declared, had had no designs whatever on Turkey;" LAYARD gave it to Ministers right and left; SIR GEORGE GREY was evidently in a rage at the laudation of PALMERSTON, and also abused some of the Ministers for going out of town to shoot, instead of helping poor NEWCASTLE; WALPOLE supported ROEBUCK; and SIBTHORP asserted that fine words buttered no parsnips, and that he was anxious to hear when the QUEEN would get rid of the "loose, inefficient, weak set, called her Ministers." Some more talk, and the debate was adjourned until Monday. Friday. The portentous revelations were made. In the Lords, ABERDEEN read a letter from LORD JOHN, in which he explained that any Ministry of pluck must fight MR. ROEBUCK, but that as he, LORD JOHN, felt that the present Ministry had no defence, his conscience told him to walk. ABERDEEN added, that he was sorry to lose JOHN, but should certainly fight ROEBUCK. LORD BERNERS then made some nonsensical complaint about an Irish priestly procession, and NEWCASTLE answered, characteristically, that he was not quite sure the affair was illegal, but that if so, it would not be wise to cause the law to be obeyed. WINCHELSEA then, premising that he had been brought up virtuously, and taught to do his duty, bellowed most frightfully against the press, especially the Times, for publishing reports from the Crimea; and he also complained that the nation was being ruined by the immense quantities of food consumed by MR. RUSSELL, the Times Correspondent at the Seat of War. NEWCASTLE said, that he had warned the papers not to tell anything which should not be told, but they never minded him one bit. He promised to cut off MR. RUSSELL'S pork and biscuit, which, next day, the Times undertook should be paid for, though the Government owe MR. MACDONALD (another Times' Correspondent) money, for clothing a whole regiment, left destitute by the War Department. In the Commons, LORD JOHN RUSSELL, getting several rows behind his colleagues, for fear of accidents from the Peelites (who are ablebodied men), made his explanation. It was to the same effect as his letter, but he added details. It had suddenly "struck" him, while he was shaving one morning in October, that a better administration of the war was required. So he wrote to ABERDEEN, telling him, that PALMERSTON ought to be made the head of the whole war department. He explained to ABERDEEN that NEWCASTLE was a muff, but that as it would be uncivil to say so, he might be turned out on pretext of a change of official arrangements. ABERDEEN had admitted the muffship, and that had they to choose anew, NEWCASTLE Would not be made War Minister, but urged that it would annoy him so much to turn him out now, that common politeness required that the war should continue to be mismanaged, and the army ruined. LORD JOHN allowed that there was much in this, and after consulting his "intimate friends," who are all highly polite men, they agreed that he must "not press the matter further." Last Saturday the Cabinet determined to do something to improve the system of war administration, but it was so incomplete and ineffectual a measure (the proposal was that an extra boy should be laid on to carry the DUKE's notes to SIDNEY HERBERT, So that the regular porter might be promoted to the putting coals on the office fires), that LORD JOHN felt it would not do. So he determined to resign. He then said that ABERDEEN was a very respectable man, that Austria was our earnest friend, so was France, as he had ascertained on his late visit (having inquired of several garçons, a soubrette, and a limonadier on the subject, who had all said A GOOD THING FOR EARLY RISING. AN excellent thing for the above desirable purpose is a good smoky chimney-a chimney that will not be cured of its evil practices. It will require, of course, constant sweeping, constant repairs, and constant alterations, and as chimney-sweeps and bricklayers generally come the first thing in the morning, and are rather clever than otherwise in making a deal of noise over their avocations, you will find it exceedingly difficult to get a wink of sleep after five or six o'clock. Heaven! how my cheek is burning Domestic ends by seeking, To rob thee of thy splendour The beauty, too, of a good smoky chimney is, that the more it is cured you may rely upon being favoured at least once or twice a week with the more confirmed it usually becomes in its depraved habits, so that the above strong inducements for early rising. Profit by them. A GENTLE lady at the chivalrous court of KING WILLIAM OF THE BOTTLE OF PRUSSIA, seeing about her so many bearers of Eagles, Black and Red, Oak-Leaves, Knots, Laurels-in-Ring, and other insignia,observed". persons without decorations look so cold and naked-it is quite indecent." All this is very natural, because so very feminine. We question if, in the eyes of EVE, Father ADAM himself would not have had a more redeeming look, even after the fall, if he had instituted, as he had the best and dearest right to do, the Order of the Golden Pippin, decorating himself with, as Master of the Order, the very biggest and brightest apple. of silk to cover it? Every day the question is put to the nude and destitute-shall this nudity, this destitution continue? We have even fallen off from our illustrious and illustrated forefathers; men, who in their very rudeness, somewhat obeyed the instincts of a high nature by painting their own imaginary orders on their own bodies. And then great events have suddenly made us aware, and we hope ashamed, of our state of nakedness. We have embraced the French people: British millions have taken Gallic millions to their arms, and the first dozen or two fraternal hugs given and received, JOHN CRAPAUD has looked with an eye of wonder-a look in a moment sweetly tempered by his characteristic delicacy-at the utter indecency of JOHN BULL. Why, he is all but stark naked; for he has not a bit of riband in any one of his twenty button-holes: not a filament of silk redeems JOHN from stark staring nakedness! The face of BULL, on the other side, reflecting the geranium riband in the button-hole of CRAPAUD, BULL is ready to believe his new friend the very pink of chivalry, and the very best dressed gentleman. BULL never looked at geranium ribands before; or, if indeed, he saw them, it was with an uncontrollable curl of his national nose; with an ill-mannered grunt, which he can no longer utter-it has been pressed for good and all out of him-since he embraced his dear friend. It is, however, plain to BULL that a bit of riband may have "magic in the web of it" that with only a few filaments of silk, a man, otherwise naked, may be wrapped up in measureless content. Whereupon, JOHN BULL inclines his ears-and at full length, tooto the crowd that cries-"BULL, be decent and clothe yourself with an Order. Hit upon something that shall cover your social nudity. Be one of a multitude most multitudinous rather than of nothing notable, noted. The Cloud of Locusts.-The Legion of Ants.-The Swarm of Bees.-The Shoal of Herrings. Be of something. Sport your riband of honourable brotherhood with something, and no longer in the scandalised faces of the nations walk abroad naked. As our Prussian lady says "it is quite indecent." We fear, however the stiffneckedness of JOHN BULL-common JOHN BULL. We hardly know what sort of order he would take kindly to; inasmuch as we doubt whether his plain, dogged common sense can ever become sufficiently spiritualised as to care for any snip of any sort of silkworm's-work at present portable by so many decorated thousands. A Frenchman is lifted clean off his legs, and treads the air, by the very power and buoyancy inevitably bestowed upon him by that immortal bit of riband woven by Fame herself, and kissed into colour by her lips. We fear JoHN BULL is not to be raised even to tiptoe by any such beatific influence. No: the animal is too burly, too self-willed to be led in ribands. As, however, Mr. Punch neither expects, nor yearns for any Order of any sort soever-being warm and cosey far beyond the help or aid of ribands-he may be allowed to express his dissatisfaction that the Eagles should be allowed to carry honour all their own way, no other Here are a couple of birds, the Black and the Red Eagle of Prussia! bird of the air having so much as an honoured feather to fly with. What are they, in fact, but jackdaws and magpies in aquiline feathers? moralizing eye, are the birds other than obscene owls, nailed to the Consider the people upon whose breasts they sprawl, and what, to the wooden bosoms of their bearers? There was once an Order of the Swan-long since lapsed; the Swan, we presume, in its snowy whiteness not enduring the frequent touch of political hands. The Swan, having floated far down the stream of time, we might have, at least, the Order of the Goose. What bird has more sagacity; yet what bird so maligned? Alive, he gaggles for the protection of the Capitol; and dead, he bequeathes the weapons that dipped in honest ink, may still best defend it. And there can be no doubt of the profound truth that a day or two since fell, like a pearl of price, from the Prussian lady. There is a great deal of poor human nature that thinks itself in the shame of Now, we ask what could better mark the retirement of LORD primitive nakedness if it have not at least an inch or two of riband to keep ABERDEEN than the institution of the Order of the Goose-the Gray the cold away. For instance, how much nakedness is clothed by a bit Goose ? And this thought brings to our memory a matter that of riband of geranium hue! Not merely clothed, but buttoned up to the curiously illustrates the fitness of such an institution at such a chin, with an undercovering of warmest woollen; covered like a sheep time, and for such a man as our northern Premier; who-be from the throat to the toes, and only by means of that magical snip of doubtless knows the work,-will, if he consult MARTIN'S Western riband that, as though it held some fairy flame within it, warms the Islands of Scotland, page 283-find a curious story about a goose nest, arterial blood of the wearer, and makes his heart beat like a drum. a red coat and a sun-dial.-"The steward of St. Kilda told me that Twitch that bit of riband from the holder, and the man would on the they had found a red coat in a nest, a brass sun-dial and an arrow." instant be naked as a worm. At least, so would he look in certain How curiously this incident, of some century and a half ago, illustrates courtly eyes, that beholding man as first made, behold him unfinished the watchful sagacity of our ABERDEEN in his conduct of the present because undecorated. It was very well for ADAM, in his character of war! The red coat and the sun-dial in the nest of St. Kilda's wild godfather to give a name to the elephant; but surely the courtier of the court of Denmark, who carries the Elephant on his breast, or in his be considered and kept by the Capitol goose of 1854-5 in the supply of goose beautifully foreshadow how scrupulously the exact time would button-hole, is-according to the Prussian lady-far more decent than red coats and arms to the men in need of them at Balaclava. the nude sponsor. We, mere Englishmen-of course we speak of the mob, people; the red clay ware of the world; and not of the elect and porcelain painted we have of late been counselled to become decent THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MISS NIGHTINGALE AND HER DEfolks to clothe our social nudity with at least an inch of riband TRACTORS.-With the latter, the practice is to make wounds-with the of some sort. It is neither self-respectful, nor decent in the rigorous former, to heal them. eyes of nations that we, moral Englishmen, should so to speak,-live and die as we came into the world,-naked. For what is the under THE GREATEST HAMPER THE BRITISH ARMY HAS YET HAD.-The garment of flax or cotton, what the outer covering of wool-if the soul, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE !-and the sooner the hamper's packed off, the the divine part of the man, be left shivering and bare with not a particle better. THE HAY(ES) FEVER IN AUSTRALIA. 66 NEWS AND NUISANCE. Ir was for some time thought WE wish there were some authority to deal with those hoarse dis- AMMUNITION FOR THE CRIMEA. THE enormous disproportion between the number of bomb-shells thrown into Sebastopol by our besieging army, and the damage which has been done to that city, must have astonished everybody. The The CATHERINE HAYES' Russians, indeed, are said to have bantered their English prisoners on fever at Sydney seems to the innocence of those missiles. We think we can fully account for have even exceeded in the inefficiency of our shells. At first we thought that treachery had intensity the JENNY LIND stuffed them with sawdust instead of gunpowder, but now it is our fever in London, for at New opinion that blundering incapacity has caused them to be charged with South Wales we find the that gunpowder which was intended for the troops and-the teapot. Chief Justice taking the chair at a meeting for a bers of the Attorney Ge neral. We wonder the busi- might move for CATHERINE HAYES's rule to be made absolute. We should not have been surprised to hear that all writs of execution by the Sheriff had been ordered to be superseded by the execution of CATHERINE HAYES, whose Sol Fa should be paramount to every Fi Fa in the Colony. The judicial and legal staff of New South Wales, would seem to be what is rather oddly called "purely Irish," for the Chief Justice and the Attorney General both declared themselves "proud to claim CATHERINE HAYES for a country woman." The official force of Sydney has evidently a good deal of Irish blood in its veins, and, indeed, to read the report of the meeting, one would think that the cry of Ireland for the Irish could never be complied with, in consequence of the idea of New South Wales for the Irish, or, at all events, the Irish for New South Wales having been realised. We cannot say much for the eloquence of the Sydney Bench, notwithstanding the testimony of the Attorney General, who said that, "As he was obliged to leave the meeting to attend Council, he could not, he thought, do better than by reading an inscription for the testimonial from the eloquent pen of the Chief Justice: PRESENTED TO CATHERINE HAYES, By the Ladies and Gentlemen of Sydney, as a souvenir, by which she may be enabled I sometimes to recall its inhabitants to her recollection, and as a token of the personal respect entertained for her by them, and the admiration which her extraordinary vocal powers, and unsurpassed artistic talents, have inspired." ļ We hope our readers will properly appreciate the beauties of this "eloquent" passage, and will observe the adroitness with which the rich resources of the French language are drawn upon by the introduction of the word "souvenir" at an early stage of the inscription. We should look for a collection of the works of the Chief Justice of New South Wales with peculiar interest if we thought they all belonged to the class of which this inscription is a specimen, Strong Probability. We fully anticipate that one more great mistake will be made in managing matters in the Crimea. We are in daily expectation of hearing that all the plum-puddings which have been sent out there for the troops, have been fired away under the idea that they were round shot. COOKERY FOR THE CRIMEA. THE mess in the Crimea appears to be owing to divided responsibility, the work being distributed over a number of departments among too many cooks, who spoil the broth, and whose performances (result only in a wretched hash. "REST, WARRIOR, REST!" DEPUTATION of Aldermen and others at Folkstone has rushed with excusable haste on SIR DE LACY EVANS, to welcome the gallant soldier home; but we do not quite approve of the gift that has been presented by way of acknowledgment of his services. The good people of Folkstone have dashed at SIR DE LACY literally sword in hand;-a sword having been the gift chosen for a veteran who has just sheathed his own weapon, and has come to enjoy the Warrior's Rest on a bed of laurel, copiously supplied from a parterre of his own cultivation. It is a well meant but a rather clumsy compliment to a hero like SIR DE LACY EVANS to suppose that a sword is to him a thing rather for ornament than for use, and as he can no longer be expected, after a life of brilliant service to take the sword again in hand, it is far from flattering to ask his acceptance of an idle appendage to a soldier's dress, after his final retirement from a soldier's duty. If the Folkstone deputation had presented the gallant General with a magnificent sheath, in which his well used sword might henceforth repose, we should have acknowledged the taste with which the gift had been selected. Antiquities on the Shortest Notice. SCENE. A Celebrated Curiosity-Shop in Wardour Street. Old Curiosity Man. That mummy, Sir,-two thousand years oldwhy, Sir, the very lowest we could take for that mummy, Sir, is a five pun' note. Antiquarian. Oh, nonsense. I'll give you two pounds ten for it. Old Curiosity Man. Very sorry, Sir, but can assure you, Sir, it never was made for the money! Delicate Compliment. IN testimony to the extreme stagnation into which everything official has subsided under the influence of the DUKE OF NEWCASTLE and MR. SIDNEY HERBERT, it has been determined to consolidate the War Departments of Government under one common title, "HER MAJESTY'S Stationary Office." THE MILITARY AUTHORITIES AT ASTLEY'S. Ir is satisfactory to find that the Guards have not all perished in the Crimea; but that some of them are still at home occupying the care of "the military authorities." The following advertisement lets us into the secret that our resources are not yet exhausted, and considering the official mode in which it has been customary to prepare our soldiers for a campaign, we cannot be angry at some of them being sent to the somewhat preparatory School of War referred to in the following advertisement: ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE. Great National Military Demonstration.-THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA at the LAST MORNING PERFORMANCE, Monday, January 29.-MR. WILLIAM COOKE is happy to announce he has succeeded in prevailing on the military authorities to permit the soldiers of the Grenadier Guards to appear on this special occasion, which will enable him to present this chef-d'œuvre of spectacular display in all the terrible magnificence which marks its nightly triumphant career. After the experience we have had of the official "Conduct of the War," we can only hope that the DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, by an assiduous attendance at Astley's, may profit by some of the arrangements of that establishment, where at all events they have a knack of bringing everything to a glorious termination. We can scarcely be surprised, after the repeated failures we have recently seen in the heads of our ducting it on Astleian ideas, without recollecting that we have not We fear that some of the official managers of our war have been conAstleian fortresses to attack, or Astleian Cossacks, with an Astleian MENSCHIKOFF to grapple with. If our War Minister has seen-and accepted-the Astleian version of the Battle of Waterloo, where the enemy gave way before a handful of supernumeraries and a gallipot full of red fire, we cannot be surprised at the present war having been carried on by our officials in the pasteboard and pastepot style which has prevailed-or rather failed-at Sebastopol. Case of Double Vision. KING CLICQUOT cannot be brought to see that the points demanded by the Allies of the EMPEROR OF RUSSIA are only four. He will insist that he perceives eight. Printed by William Bradbury, of No. 13, Upper Woburn Place, in the Parish of St. Pancras, and Kederick 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 Pablished by them at No. 85, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride,i the City of London.-SATURDAY, February 3, 1855. TOO BAD. MARRIAGE IN VERY MEDIOCRE LIFE. LAST week the quiet monotony of the old Park of Whetstone-with its adjacent rookery-was disturbed by the marriage of the young and noisy HUMPHREY DE HUMPHREYS with the lovely and fascinating BLANCHE DE BLANCHISSEUSE-the last of a long line-we may almost say a long clothes line-of laundresses, who have "hung out" for some years in the neighbourhood we have mentioned. The HUMPHREYS are a family of very great antiquity. The Grandfather, familiarly known as "the Old Un," came over from his own parish at the time of the Union, of which he is now an inmate. The young woman is allied to the ancient race of MANGLES, and her family ties are among the first in-new-rope. When it was known that the marriage was to take place, much interest was excited in every one of the Seven Dials, where both the families are much respected, and every lamp-post in the immediate neighbourhood was, at an early hour, occupied. At Little Turnstile a very gay party had assembled at the residence of the venerable and highly esteemed Turncock, the uncle of the bride, who wore his official glazed hat on the occasion. ETIQUETTE FOR MOURNERS. WE have had books of Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen who have felt that they did not know how to behave themselves, but there is a novelty in attempting to regulate the mode of being miserable by a Book of Etiquette for Mourners, which has lately been published by one of the Mourning Establishments. The proprietors of these concerns are at liberty to trade on private grief, and to keep up a staff of melancholy looking young men and women to serve afflicted customers, but it is carrying trickery of trade a little too far to publish a book of Etiquette for Mourners. The first chapter is devoted to the Widow, the depth of whose sorrow is to be marked by the depth of her crape, while a cousin is allowed to show her mitigated sorrow in barège with flounces, and an option of grey or black in her gloves, parasol, and bonnet. દ There is a short chapter on Complimentary Mourning," which requires the solemnity of at least a gray dress, but allows the spirits to revive in the parasol, which may be of "Fancy" colours. The grief which exists in the dress, but perishes in the parasol, can scarcely be said to merit the epithet of "complimentary," and indeed any grief that requires a Book of Etiquette for its direction, might as well be altogether dispensed with. (of Whetstone) was covered with a layer of straw which an attached neighbourhood, occupying the same mews with the family of the bride had lavishly contributed. The procession passed under a sort of canopy of banners, for it being fortunately, "drying-day," the whole washing of several families with all the costly handkerchiefs of gorgeous Indian patterns, were suspended from side to side of the avenue. The bridal party was received by the titular beadle, and the happy pair with their equally happy "parients" were loudly cheered by the assembled juveniles. After the ceremony, the company returned to Whetstone Park, and in order that all classes might share in the festivities, a neighbouring fountain of ginger-beer had been allowed to run to the extent of six bottles, to enable the six first comers to drink the health of the bride and bridegroom. Whetstone Park, the lodging of MRS. WASHERWOMAN HUBBARD, the present wife of the bride's uncle is, par excellence, one of the most remarkable residences in England. What it lacks in breadth, it has in length, and what it wants in gilding, it possesses in whitewash. The interior of the room was stencilled by the late lamented EDWARDS, who died on the scaffold, or rather, who was killed by tumbling off it. From the ceiling hung a branch of mistletoe, and the floor is of deal, but the window bears away the palm, for it looks on a row of flower pots. Over the fire-place may be seen a figure of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, holding in his hand a card containing the name and address of MRS. WASHINGTON HUBBARD with her "list of prices." The room has long been in the occupation of the family at a weekly rental, under an agreement in writing, the original of which is faithfully preserved in the family pocket-book. Breakfast was served at several adjacent coffee-stalls, and though the principal eatable was the ordinary loaf, imagination might have turned it into fancy bread, for " a tremendous twist of his own was supplied by each of the company. The room in which the company assembled was panelled with coloured deal, and hung with a tapestry composed of the washing of several families. The bridesmaids-two in number-were attired in rich prints, of a middle age, or mediævial character, for they were In the evening there was a ball 'at the Dog and Duck, which was neither quite new, or decidedly old; and one wore a white shawl, the only interrupted by the attendance of the sweeps, who had come to other a blue, thus sharing between them the colours of the willow-sweep the kitchen chimney. The happy pair left Whetstone Park for pattern plate-that rare old specimen of modern-antique crockery. their seat, which had been taken expressly for them in the dress boxes The bride's costume was of the very richest description-indeed so at the Victoria. "rich" as to excite the mirth of the bystanders, some of whom declared it was the richest thing of the kind they had ever witnessed. The mother of the bride was most picturesquely attired. Her dress was also a print of the fastest colours, and the cope or cape which was also washable, was suspended from each shoulder by a terrifically large epingle with a head of the clearest mère de perle, which very much heightened the effect of uncommon richness. The marriage was solemnised at the adjacent chapel, built by JONES the bricklayer, some twelve years since and in which ten boys and ten girls are instructed in the usual rudiments. The path from the Park An Absurd Idea. WE have no authority for stating, that a note has been addressed by the Manager of Astley's Amphitheatre to the Commander-in-Chief, inviting the latter to take an active part in the Military Spectacle now being performed, with a view to his profiting by being an eye witness of the conduct of the war, which is being so successfully carried on at that establishment. |