KEEP THE
THE DOOR-CHAIN UP!

BRITANNIA (GOING OUT OF TOWN). "NOW, PAM, THERE ARE A GREAT MANY BAD CHARACTERS ABOUT JUST
NOW; MIND YOU LOOK OUT WELL-AND ALWAYS KEEP THE DOOR-CHAIN UP!"

GEESE AND GANDERS.

THE BEST OF SERVANTS.

IF you would wish to have a good servantE quote from the reone that is faithful, honest, and attentive, and port of a meeting of whom you will never quarrel with; one that will Society Masons," renever bother you for wages, nor drink your wine lative to the Strike, a behind your back; one that will never object to rather good thing, wear the clothes you have been wearing yourself, which was said by a nor make a fuss over what meals you give him; member of the asso-one that will not grumble if you keep him up ciation:half the night; one to whom you could at any time give with a clear conscience the very best of characters; one that will never wish to leave you, but would rather he remained with you all the days of your life, then you must be Your Own Servant-and that is best achieved by your diligently learning how on all occasions to help yourself.-The Hermit of the Haymarket.

"JOSEPH TURNER. It's an old adage that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.'

Combined

against

each other, recipro-
cating injury, and mu.
tually suffering and in-
flicting loss, the work-
men on the one hand,
and the masters on the
other, do certainly ex-
hibit themselves under
circumstances which
render them peculiarly
comparable, respec-
tively, to ganders and
geese. In reference to
both sides MR. TUR-
NER was very happy in
the remark that what
is good for the goose
is good for the gander.
He would, however,
have been much hap-
pier if he had observed
that what was bad for
the goose was bad for
the gander, and if

employers and employed could perceive that combination is equally bad for gander and for goose, it would be happy for all parties.

A CONCORDAT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. THAT Special statesman the O'DONOGHUE, the other evening, in a brilliant speech, most luminously pointed out a tremendous mistake under which LORD PALMERSTON and LORD JOHN RUSSELL have been labouring throughout their respective careers. Erin's bright particular star, before whose name the definite article stands for Mr., is reported to have said that

"The noble Lord at the head of the Government and the noble Minister for Foreign Affairs were still in pursuit of a phantom which had been the fixed idea of all their lives. That idea was ostensibly the destruction of the temporal power of the POPE, while in reality they had sought the destruction of the Catholic religion all over the world. (Hear.)"

Hibernia's distinguished son also administered a fine rebuke to MR. GLADSTONE:

"He had listened with great pain to the speech of the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, (hear, hear!) and as one who professed the Catholic religion, he should be sorry to have to sit on the same side of the house with, or even near to that right honourable gentleman. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.)"

The laugh was probably a tribute to the humour which insinuated MR. GLADSTONE to be a pestilent heretic. Heresy, so rank as that of the ultra Protestant representative of Oxford, the O'DONOGHUE jocosely treated as contagious. Of course he could not have seriously feared that he might contract the disease himself in consequence of going too near the infected Minister, although, by pitching into that great Homeric scholar, he ran some risk of catching it. However, as it was, he utterly demolished him, by the subjoined crushing refutation:

"The right honourable gentleman said, at least in effect, that the people of the Papal dominions were chained to the earth. Now, that was not true. It was a statement which was not founded in fact. It was contradicted by the condition of the people, and every one who was acquainted with or had travelled in those dominions must admit that, in a temporal sense, there did not exist in the world a more popular Sovereign than PIUS THE NINTH. (Hear, and a laugh.)"

Of course this shut up MR. GLADSTONE, but not only that; it also enforced conviction on LORD JOHN himself, whom we find subsequently making the following remarkable concession, and confession of faitha faith which the O'DONOGHUE will of course recognise as the faith, or, in other words, the cheese:

"I believe that if you allow the people of Italy to settle their own concerns (hear, hear), and that is the doctrine which my noble friend and myself have always

For a Poet's Critic.
THE Idylls a rhymester asperses-
O Public, rejoice and be glad!
If he were not abusing good verses,
He'd be busily writing some bad.

A "Nom de Guerre."

FRANCE can boast of its MONSIEUR TROPLONG, and can also rejoice now in its MONSIEUR TROPTARD-for such is the name that has recently been conferred on PRINCE NAPOLEON, in of always arriving a day after the battle. consequence of the unfortunate habit he has

A Conscience-Conundrum.

WE beg to acknowledge the receipt of the following conscience-conundrum from the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

Q. What form of currency is most used, when a person
A. (S) Cents!!!

has to pay money through the nose?

held in this house, especially during the whole course of the present Session-if you allow the people of Italy, whether they have hitherto lived under the rule of the KING OF SARDINIA, or of the GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, or of the DUKE OF MODENA, under the POPE, or under the KING OF THE TWO SICILIES, to settle with their Sovereigns on what terms they shall pay their allegiance, there will no longer exist the irritation and discontent which has long prevailed, but they will proceed with peace and order to establish the foundations of good Government."

What articles of belief can be more satisfactory to the O'DONOGHUE than the foregoing Credo? LORD JOHN RUSSELL believes that the subjects of the POPE ought to be left to settle their own affairs with their Sovereign. The O'DONOGHUE says that PIUS THE NINTH is as popular a Sovereign as any in the world. What better plan then for maintaining the POPE'S Sovereignty can he imagine than that of allowing it simply to rest on the broad and firm basis of popularity? The withdrawal of all foreign troops, therefore, from the papal states, will as exactly effect the end desired by the O'DONOGHUE as it will answer the purpose of LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

THE SERPENTINE THROUGH A SIEVE.

our great fashionable pond is to be carried out, it will be necessary to consume the muddy remainder by some more expeditious means, if OME slight inconve- it cannot be sweetened by the aid of science. nience is likely to Let a sufficient number of ducks be provided to attend the ingenious eat up all the mud, a measure which every old plan for cleansing woman and every child knows will prove infalthe Serpentine advo-lible. The birds will soon pay their expenses: cated, and about to Bayswater will smell of nothing worse than sage be adopted, by MR. and onions; and SIR JOSEPH PAXTON will acknowFITZROY. If the Ser-ledge the mistake he made in opposing the grand pentine is to be fil-project for purifying the Serpentine.

tered, and there is
any filth in the Ser-
pentine, the filth must
collect on the filter.

evolve a few rather

Modern chemistry enables the perfumer

ONE HUMBUG THE LESS.

regu

If the filter is to WE are glad to state, that one little concession occupy nearly an acre has been paid to the British Press, by the removal of ground, a great of an absurd form that was of no legal, or moral, quantity of filth will good whatever. Formerly there existed a mock be deposited on a ceremony that imposed on a paper the necessity considerable surface. of making out securities to the extent of £300 or If this extent of filth £500, and the trouble consequent on that is to be occasionally lation was almost endless. Many a name of a exposed to the sun, respectable referee had to be given before the it will reek a little, punctilious official would be satisfied with his nasty gases in certain solvency. This exaction of security was all the more nonsensical, inasmuch as Somerset House quantities, and per- never by any accident gave credit. Not a penny haps engender some stamp would it advance, in spite of all your secufever. rities, unless the penny was previously laid down now informs us that this harassing process has on the counter for it. The Connaught Patriot to extract the sweet-been done away with; and we beg most unfeignest scents from the edly to compliment Somerset House on the wonfoulest dregs, dross, derful display of good sense that has prompted sediment, sweepings, the removal. It is so much the less red tape in rubbish, lees, refuse, and unspeakable orts. one of our government offices. All parties will move and breathe the more freely for being The residuary stuff relieved of the useless trammel. After all, the of gas-works, the real security of the press is in the truth, talent, nasty pitch and tar, and their graveolent kindred hydrocarbons, may, however, be men- and respectability with which it is conducted. tioned. Perhaps some profound chemist will inform MR. FITZROY of a process by which The public are the best judges and guardians for the mud of the Serpentine, collected on a filter, may be, not, indeed, deodorised, but trans- seeing that those conditions are always conscienmuted into an odoriferous substance, which may be carted away in the day-time, diffusing tiously complied with, and they know how to a fragrance like that of jessamine, violets, syringa, or otto of roses. First, however, catch your fish. Collect your filth-if the Serpentine contains any. MR. tenancing the paper that does not act up inflict the heaviest penalty by no longer counSTEPHENSON seems to think, not much :honourably to the spirit of them. A warning, far more effectual than any that could emanate from a minister's office, is a falling circulation.

"He was in the habit of riding almost daily by that river, and he must say that during the last three or four years he had perceived nothing so offensive to his olfactory nerves as to lead him to coincide in the outcry which had recently been raised. (Hear, hear.) He believed the outcry was entirely unfounded, because, whatever the state of the Serpentine had been, it was not now to the best of his judgment in an offensive condition."

Perhaps, MR. STEPHENSON, because, as Grandmother Shandy observed, "you have little or no nose, Sir." The Serpentine looks, at least, like soup, if it has no smell. MR. FITZROY, however, is catching his fish, according to the continued statement of our eminent engineer:

"Supposing, however, that the water was impure, the question was, how the nuisance should be remedied. The Serpentine was a stagnant lake (hear), and the other day, in riding along the banks, he observed that a quantity of lime was being poured into the water. The consequence of this proceeding was, that he saw dead fish floating on the surface, and occasioning the most offensive decomposition."

Thus, MR. FITZROY is turning the water of the Serpentine into limewater, and killing all the fish. So that he is catching his fish both literally and figuratively; he is poisoning the roach and dace, and creating filth in the Serpentine; dead fish, occasioning, as MR. STEPHENSON says, the most offensive decomposition," and doubtless exhaling a most ancient and fish-like smell." If there had been no filth in the Serpentine, there was no occasion to put any lime in it, particularly since the lime causes more filth than it cures. The same circumstance may be considered to render steam-pumps and filtering-tanks unnecessary. According to MR. FITZROY :

"Two questions which were quite independent of one another had been mixed up in this discussion, the first relating to the mud at the bottom of the river, and the second with respect to the water itself."

In discussing tea, two questions are, in exactly the same manner, mixed up, which are as entirely independent of each other as the water of the Serpentine and the mud at the bottom of it. The tea is mixed up with the hot water which is poured thereon, although the tea-leaves have settled at the bottom of the tea-pot. Infusion after infusion of hot water at length extracts all the goodness of the tea; and in the same way, MR. FITZROY appears to think, washing after washing will remove all the nastiness of the Serpentine. Some time may be occupied in this process, as the dirty bed of the Serpentine is to be washed by driblets, with its own filtered water.

In preference to filtering the Serpentine, MR. FITZROY might, perhaps, as well leave it alone, and, instead of throwing lime into it, stock it with eels. They would assimilate its organic impurities, which, in the substance of eel, might ultimately appear in the shape of stew, or spitchcock, affording abundant nutriment to thousands. But if the filtration of

A MILD COURT, MARTIAL. THE following, from the "Military and Naval Intelligence" in the Times, is a remarkable sentence. It is the sentence of a Court Martial on one HENRY PRESTON, a Sapper of the Royal Engineers, for desertion:

"The Court, in consideration of his former character, sentenced him to be marked on the body with the letter

D,' and to be imprisoned in Fort Clarence for 56 days."

Eight weeks imprisonment for desertion is a merciful punishment; and instead of having been merely marked with a letter on his body, Sapper PRESTON might have had his back scored with fifty lashes. He certainly had very lenient judges, the rather inasmuch as he was sentenced to be marked with "D" for Deserter, in consideration of his former character!

An Extravagant Notion. CIVILITY, they say, costs nothing, and yet looking at the Civil Estimates, and the enormous sums annually disposed of under them, we should say that it was a very expensive article. It is fortunate that they are "Civil," or else perhaps JOHN BULL would not put up so quietly with them. We have always noticed that when it comes to a question of spending money, what a remarkably Civil Estimate Ministers do take of poor old JOHN, to be sure!