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"PLEASE 'M, HERE'S FIDO BEEN A ROLLIN' OF HIMSELF IN THE 'KETCH 'EM ALIVE, O!'"

ENGLISH CONVERSATION.

MR. PUNCH has read in some book or other, that "Conversation is a difficult Art." Like most things in most books (except a series of volumes of which this is the twenty-ninth) the statement is ridiculous. Conversation is perfectly easy. In England, especially, the art is carried to the utmost pitch of perfection. You have only to listen to what takes place in the omnibus, or on the steamboat, or in the next box at the opera or eating-house, or as you come home from church, or in the railway train, or in any other place where people talk publicly, to be convinced that English people talk remarkably well-that their conversation is easy, precise, pointed, full of information, instructive but not pedantic, lively but not flippant, bold but not audacious, serious but not didactic, and a great many other things but not a great many other things, and, in short, that the British Public talks admirably.

Eager for the honour of his native land, Mr. Punch has been taking notes of a good deal of Conversation which has lately reached his immortal ears. And in proof of the justness of his eulogium, he subjoins a specimen of a brilliant dialogue which occupied and amused the estimable individuals who delivered it, all the way from the Nine Elms Pier to Blackfriars Bridge. He took it down in short hand, and his notes may be seen on application at the publisher's.

SCENE-After-Deck of the "Bride" Steamer.

Enter, embarking from the Pier, MR. BROWN, a well-dressed, florid, fussy, pursy lady's man, of middle age, and some rotundity; MISS JONES, a highly-dressed spinster, of a certain age, with rather a made voice and simper to match, and her friend, MISS ROBINSON, of the same pattern. The ladies were unacquainted with the gentleman, but they met at the pay-place, and the plot of the drama is that the man who gives the tickets thought for a moment that the three were one party. Mr. Brown (bustling aft, and smiling). Ab, ha! Ha, ah! [Waits. Miss Jones (following). Hee-hee-bee. [Takes her seat. Miss Robinson (fainter). Hee-hee. [Takes her's. Mr. Brown. Ha! Ha!

[The Ladies being seated, MR. BROWN sits. They all smile for some time.

Mr. Brown (with a more subdued laugh). Ah-ha!

Miss Robinson (volcanically). Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.

[Boat moves off.

Mr. Brown. I am bound (emphatically, and with action) to say, ladies,

that I do not think he meant to be impertinent.

Both Ladies. O dear No! O DEAR no.

Mr. Brown. Mistakes will occur, you know.

Both Ladies. Just so, just so.

Miss Robinson (eagerly). Especially when they approach his box at the same moment.

Mr. Brown (delighted at her quickness). Precisely so-precisely so. Miss Jones (jealous of her friend's laurels). Of course, if a person deposits the money for one ticket only, he is not likely to mistake.

Mr. Brown (considers this problem). No-no. At least he is less likely to do so.

Miss Robinson (evidently an administrative intellect). Except that sometimes in a party every body agrees to pay for themselves.

Mr. Brown. Yes, and that avoids confusion. Besides, in that case, it would not matter what he thought, because he would give but one ticket to the person presenting the money, you see.

Both Ladies (crushed by the masculine grasp of the subject). Just sojust so. [They bump Lambeth Pier. Mr. Brown. I did not for a moment consider that he meant to defraud. Miss Jones. O, certainly not.

Miss Robinson. I should think he was an honest person. Mr. Brown. He looks so, but then we mustn't judge by looks, ladies, ha! ha! [They all laugh. Miss Robinson (timidly). But-but, it is a place of trust. I think I have heard that the men are obliged to give-securities-is that the word. Mr. Brown. I have no doubt they do. I say, most distinctly, that they ought to do so. I say so as a man of business. Were this Company under my direction, I should feel it my duty, and most assuredly one from which I should not be tempted to swerve, to demand security from any person who received the Company's money.

[The Ladies muse over this statement-perhaps think what worlds of other Companies are under MR. B.'s direction. They bump Westminster Pier.

Miss Robinson (whose subtle brain is perfectly GLADSTONIAN). He did not like to give me the three-penny piece, at first, though. Mr. Brown. Few people like parting with money. Ha! ha! Miss Jones. True. Yet what is the use of money, unless spent ? Miss Robinson. Money is the root of all evil, they say. Mr. Brown. Still it makes the mare go. Ha! ha!

[Great fun for some minutes. Miss Robinson (bent on the solution of her new problem). But his trying to keep back the three-penny piece would not show that he was dishonest towards his employers, but only to the public.

Mr. Brown (solemnly). My dear lady, I have always remarked, in my progress through life that-(They bump Hungerford Pier). Dear me, there is always a mess at this pier. O, all right. I was going to say, that I have always remarked, in my progress through life, that a person who will be dishonest towards one person will be so towards another. Miss Jones (determined to go in for honours). CertainlyMiss Robinson (forestalling her friend). Because there is nothing more to make a person honest in one case than in another.

Mr. Brown. Precisely. Except the fear of being found out. Ha! ha! Miss Jones (who has something in her, after all). Fear of detection is a low motive to deter from the commission of wrong. Mr. Brown. Very just, very just. It is so.

Miss Robinson (rather a failure this time). Persons should know their duty, and do it.

Mr. Brown. Very true, very true. So they should.

Miss Jones (pursuing her advantage). But if everybody did what they ought to do

Mr. Brown (the masculine vigour re-asserting itself). We should not want those majestic buildings to remind us of what is proper and right. [Points to St. Paul's, as they bump Waterloo Pier. The Ladies gaze upon the Cathedral, as if seeing it for the first time in a new light. Miss Jones (giving way to her enthusiasm). It is indeed a fine structure. Miss Robinson (devotional feeling having overcome her rivalry). Is it not? And how well you can see it from the river.

Mr. Brown. It was built, you are aware, by SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
Both Ladies (thankfully). O, SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
Miss Jones. I always forget the name.

Miss Robinson. I think of a little bird, but then I forget which bird. Mr. Brown (facetiously). Perhaps, if the man had kept the threepenny piece, he would have spent it in paying to go in and see St. Paul's. [The Ladies are convulsed, until they bump Blackfriars' Pier. Mr. Brown. "Ha! Ha! I wish you good morning, ladies. I am going to get out here.

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Both Ladies. Good morning.

Mr. Brown (as he ascends the pier). Very nice, lady-like women-full of intellect and appreciation. [Exit.

Miss Jones. What a very well-informed man, dear. Evidently an Miss Robinson. Or banker, perhaps his manner is so superior. [The "Bride" proceeds on her perilous way.

Mr. Brown. You are aware that he must see a great many persons in influential City merchant. the course of the day.

Miss Jones (thoughtfully). I suppose he must.

Mr. Brown. Yes. And some of these persons come alone, while others come, perhaps two, perhaps three, perhaps even more together. Miss Robinson (apprehending). Ah! Exactly! Yes.

Mr. Brown. Well then, it is difficult, unless he is told, for him to know whether one person belongs to another's party, or not. Miss Jones. It must be, of course.

The Right Man in the Right Place.

MR. GAVAN DUFFY, Irish Patriot and Parliamentary flunkey to his Holiness the POPE, has signified his intention to transport himself to Australia. MR. GAVAN DUFFY is a good judge.

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STREET NAMES.

AMONG the numerous benefits which London will derive from the new Act for the Government of the Metropolis, is a revision of the system of street nomenclature. The mass of King Streets, Queen Streets, Victoria Streets, Albert Streets, and the like, will have to sort themselves. To each King Street will be put the Shakspearian question, "Under which King, Bezonian?" and the Queens will be expected to be equally explicit, and to apply to MISS STRICKLAND for separate christening. Victoria Street (and Punch Street) will be names restricted to the very highest order of thoroughfare, morally, socially, and architecturally considered; and the Albert Streets, with perhaps a couple of exceptions at opposite quarters of the town, will be told off into Consort Street, Hat Street, Night-light Street, and other titles which, preserving affinity, may avoid confusion.

Equal justice will be meted out to the plebeian localities. SMITH and BROWN will not be allowed to stud districts all over with Smith Streets and Brown Terraces, nor will it be held sufficient reason for having eleven Mary-Ann Places in one suburban parish, that eleven respectable and uxorious builders have wives of that name. As for John Street, James Street, William Street, Alexander Street, Henry Street, Edward Street, and all the other streets with mere prænomina, they must prepare to take less ridiculous appellations. A Christian man may be entitled to be called a brick, but bricks are not entitled to the Christian name of a man.

A register is to be opened, and every street is to have its own name recorded, and no street to take that of another. Why, indeed, should it? What is the use of an alias to a street? It can always be identified if it gets into disgrace; and though one street often runs into another, it is sure to be caught. We hope, therefore, that all decent streets will hasten to obtain their own distinctive names.

Some difficulty, it is thought, may arise in the selection of the new titles, and inhabitants who have settled placidly down under the nomeaning names of Pleasant Row, Prospect Terrace, the Paragon, or the simply declarative River Terrace, Thames Bank, or Parliament Street, may rebel against any title which may have more definite associations. But, while respecting this English feeling, let us remind such persons that no vow of allegiance is at present held to be implied by residence

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THE IMPASSABLE PARK.

PRINCE ALBERT is Ranger of St. James's Park. He has a fine view of it from the front of Buckingham Palace. The prospect of the busy multitude of foot-passengers, diversified by nursemaids and hoop-trundling children, must be pleasing to his Royal Highness of a fine morning, when, full of benevolence and breakfast, he surveys that scene from one of the windows, with a serene countenance, and his hands bebind him under the tail of his dressing-gown. But he must observe one deficiency in the spectacle. He beholds his Royal Consort's foot subjects, but not HER MAJESTY'S horse. The comfortable carriage and convenient cab do not cross the field of his vision. The look-out is pretty enough, but deficient in the Hansom. PRINCE ALBERT being, as aforesaid, Ranger of the Park, has the power, and doubtless only wants the hint, to do the handsome thing by conceding a carriage way across it to the cabs.

in a street with ever so specific a name. Living in Wellington Street does not compel you to go about in Wellington boots, residing in Grosvenor Row does not pledge you to the Sunday Trade Bill, chambers in Regent Street do not make you an admirer of GEORGE TURVEYDROP, a house in Gordon Square does not constitute you a worshipper of LORD ABERDEEN, and you may dwell in Wood Street and yet join the rest of your fellow creatures in considering the First Lord of the Admiralty no very great statesman. Did a house suit Mr. Punch, were there hot and cold water to the top, no black beetles or church bells to be seen or heard, and the taxes reasonable, he would not hesitate to live therein, even though the street were called after MR. DUFFY or MR. CALCRAFT.

A Commission, with Mr. Punch at its head, will probably issue for the allotment of names, and literature may be enabled to render some assistance in the business. He is not inclined to forestal his work by publishing his whole plan, because in that case Government would probably steal it, and give him no money. But he will furnish a specimen of his notion. He would divide London into districts, and by means of his own immense topographical knowledge-not that he would not be glad of the co-operation of his friends PETER CUNNINGHAM and JOHN TIMBS-he would decide what feature gave worthiest historical, social, or other characteristic to the prescribed locality. Settling this, the feature in question should give the key to the nomenclature. Suppose, for instance, that the district included the New Palace of Westminster. This is, evidently, the key required. Parliament Street exists. Add to it Lord Street, Commons Street, Throne Street, Speaker Street, Mace Street, Bauble Street, Green-Box Alley, Black Rod Passage, Lobby Street, Order Street, Bill Street, Vote Street, Count Street, Bore Street, Bribe Street, Profligate and Unexampled Expenditure Street, and so forth. Observe the great advantage of this system. It would make no second title necessary. Who hears the word Bore or Bribe, and does not instantly think of Westminster?

Take another instance. Suppose Drury Lane theatre were the feature of the district whose streets required names. Preserve Drury Lane. Add Kemble Street, Kean Street, Young Street, Siddons Street, O'Neill Street, Macready Street, Vestris Street, Braham Street, Malibran Street, Stanfield Street, Grieve Street. Or, if it would not be too humiliating to a respectable locality, even the names of authors and

composers, who have in some humble degree contributed to the success of the stars, might be ROBINSON's-that part being precarious. They used for the back lanes and by-ways, as Shakspeare Court, Ben Jonson Alley, Beaumont cried out on the monstrousness of taxing an Passage, Fletcher Lane, Sheridan Corner, Rossini Row, Balfe Buildings. One would not income which, long before the call of the colbe severe, and suggest titles which, though they have no connection with any of the above lector, might have ceased to come in. They honourable names, might hit elsewhere, as Rant Street, Stamp Street, Quack Street, Puff cried, not indeed to deaf ears, but to callous Street, Gag Street, Clique Street, and other appellations that might occur to the malicious. hearts. The iniquity was admitted: the answer Or, finally, suppose the district to be named included Mr. Punch's Office. How the corner was, that they must grin and bear it. This is of the streets would sparkle with one constant illumination. Punch Street, Judy Street, the language of cool unprincipled Force addressToby Street, would be the grand titles, and despite what has been said about non-allegiance, ing the helpless. Most people obey such a the rents would go up fearfully from the moment those names went up. Happy too would recommendation as far as they please, and no those lucky householders be whose destiny should plant them in Almanack Street and farther than they must. They grin; but instead Pocket-Book Row; happy the dwellers in Caudle Street, Titmarsh Street, Struggles Street, of grinning and bearing the injustice, they grin; Pips Street, Briggs Street, Comic England Street, Violet Street, Honeymoon Street, Bib and, if possible, evade it. They grin, and evade Street, Bashi-Bazouk Street, with those in Wit Street, Humour Street, Wisdom Street, Schedule D, and the Income Tax Cart breaks and the other streets which would derive their names from all the Virtues formerly resident down. with BISHOP BERKELEY, but now far more comfortably installed at 85, Fleet Street, London.

THE CUMMING MAN.

Tell men to grin and bear the confiscation that you are able to enforce at the point of the bayonet; but don't be so silly as to give that advice to persons whose own conscience is the OWEVER profitable to his to extortion. What verdure a statesman must instrument by which you mean to subject them publishers, it must be, imagine that he sees in the eyes of a people, or it ought to be, very whom he expects to afford the information which painful to DR. CUM- he asks for, avowedly in order to bamboozle MING to be made the them. It is wisdom almost worthy of MR. subject of the numer-MERRYMAN to propose to swindle any person, ous and various puffs with the knowledge of that person, by means of which are circulated

concerning himself and questioning him upon his honour. To question his works in the differ- thumbscrews. It may be the duty of the unany one for such a purpose, you should use the ent newspapers. We fairly-taxed victim to be an accessory to the are beginning to be al- fraud which Government seeks to practise on most as familiar with him. If an incorrigibly insolvent rogue, whom the name of CUMMING you do not wish to offend, asks you if you as we are with those of have five pounds about you, with a view to borHOLLOWAY and a few row the money, the rule of strict veracity may others, who will go require that you should answer in the affirmative, down to posterity in if you cannot, in accordance with fact, reply in the supplement to the the negative. But except our noble selves, and Times, or the advera very few others, frail mortals appear to be tising sheets of the incapable of such exalted morality-and so we Quarterlies. It no have a break down of the Income Tax Cart. doubt answers the pur- Very lax, very lamentable, perhaps a sad pose of the pious pub- bluntness of moral sense may be evinced in lishers who wish to sell meeting imposition with subterfuge, instead of a few extra copies of yielding to it with simplicity. A truly conscienthe Voices of the Night tious man, perhaps, would rather be a party to or of the Morning, or of the Afternoon, or of cheating himself than cheat the Government, if obliged to do one or the other. The generality any other hour that of people under such circumstances give themmay be thought suited selves the benefit of the doubt. This is human to the taste of the day, nature, in the face of which Chancellors of the to render DR. CUMMING notorious in newspaper paragraphs; but to the Reverend Gentleman Exchequer must not fly: if they do, Tax Carts himself it must be-or it ought to be-most distasteful to have his "reputation kept alive," as break down. Indeed, how is an unrighteous tax the commercial phrase goes, by continual puffing. The latest instance we have seen of this ever to be got rid of, but by making Governments kind of thing is a puff for one of DR. CUMMING's Sermons, which is said to have been preached discover that it will not answer? Let us have a before SIR J. CAMPBELL, previous to his leaving for the Crimea, which Sermon is said to have new Tax Cart-one that will go-rolling along made him "ready to die as a Christian," and he accordingly "fought and fell like a hero." Of course the inference is, that the Reverend Gentleman's Sermon was the cause of the found out that mortars are the best means for equitably. Our admirals and generals have just Christian heroism of the unfortunate, but gallant General, who we have no doubt would have a bombardment. Perhaps Ministers may, by manifested all the noble qualities he evinced, even if he had not attended the Chapel in Crown deep study, arrive at as great and as simple a Court, Covent Garden, before proceeding to Sebastopol. We hope we shall hear no more of discovery in taxation. What if an increase in gallant officers having been preached to death by DR. CUMMING. the Inhabited House Tax would furnish a satisfactory Tax Cart? Wanted, a tax which cannot be evaded, and which there would be no excuse for evading if it could. At least, a man's house affords a truer revelation of his means of living than any confession likely to be extorted by the rack of a fiscal inquisition.

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BREAK DOWN OF THE INCOME TAX CART.

WE have to announce a break down of the Income Tax Cart, whereby the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER has been thrown out, but no one as yet appears to have been seriously injured. The accident was owing to a defect in one of the wheels, known as Schedule D, which moves on the swindle, or unequal pressure principle.

The Times, in commenting on the occurrence, observes, that Schedule D does not yield what it ought to do, and illustrates this remark by the statement, that there are only 805 persons in Great Britain returning between £900 and £1000 annual profits from trades or professions, and that the number of those who return between £1000 and £2000, from the same sources, does not exceed 5,350. That the Income Tax Cart should have thus broken down will not surprise those who long ago foresaw that the vicious principle on which Schedule D was constructed would sooner or later insure its failure.

66
French Welcome."

THIS has been a difficult word for our neighbours to spell rightly. However, they managed to do it with due significance in the bon accord they gave to LORD MAYOR MOON; for, over his Hotel, blazed in oil lamps, the letters"Veal come!

A SHAME AND A SNUFFLE.

No doubt this is a bad job, and our leading contemporary has reason in urging that the Tax Cart must be got to go, if the War is to be carried on; and that the War must be carried on, or the Cossacks will triumph over us. Of course, it is a great plague to Government that the public will not pay up and grease the unlucky wheel of this fiscal vehicle. It is In order to name, correctly, the Court of natural that every Minister should have "complained very bitterly" of that shortcoming, inquiry in the Crimea which virtually tried MR. But then, how bitterly did the industrious public complain of Schedule D! They complained BAKEWELL for calumny in his absence, it is nepiteously of the shame and the wrong of taxing the whole sum of one man's earnings, cessary to catch a cold. The tribunal in quesand the interest only of another's capital; the entire property of JONES, and merely a part of tion was a Court Partial.

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OUR ARTIST GOES TO ALDERSHOT TO MAKE A SKETCH IN THE CAMP, AND MEETS WITH AN

ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION.

THE TREADMILL FOR A TRIFLE;"

OR, A HARD CASE FOR CATNACH.

"TIS of a case of hardship as you shall quickly hear, Of cruel prosecution and punishment severe, Related by JOHN COLLIN; his age is fifty-two,

Of his two sons sent to Chelmsford Gaol for attending a Review.

The one is THOMAS COLLIN, the other GEORGE by name;
GEORGE COLLIN is a married man and THOMAS is the same.
GEORGE COLLIN he has one child and THOMAS he has five,
Whom a Reverend Beak for fourteen days of their fathers did deprive.

JOHN COLLIN'S deposition, sworn to and taken down,
Declares that he and his two sons were at work for JOSEPH BROWN,
Of Roydon Hamlet, Essex-a sheep-jobber is he-
And likewise a small farmer of petty mean degree.

'Twas on the fourth of August these two young men did say
To MR. CHURCH, BROWN's foreman, that they wanted half a day,
To see the Essex Yeomanry review'd on Nazing-mead,
Whereto the foreman neither objected nor agreed.

Upon the following Monday, JOHN COLLIN said and swore,
That he and his two sons got up as soon as half-past-four,
Which was before their regular time, their master's work to do,
So that they shouldn't wrong him by their going to Review.

On Tuesday and on Wednesday they work'd as they were wont,
On Thursday MR. JOSEPH BROWN call'd them unto account,
Before a reverend magistrate, GEORGE HEMMING is his name,
Who gave these poor men fourteen days' hard labour. What a shame!
On the REVEREND GEORGE HEMMING did FARMER BROWN prevail
To give these honest young men a fortnight in Chelmsford gaol,
Along with rogues and scoundrels of base and wicked lives,
To work upon the treadmill torn from their families and wives.
In vain did MAJOR PALMER their hard case represent;
The Home Office would not remit their cruel punishment.
Inquiry on the subject having been, by SIR GEORGE GREY,
Of PARSON HEMMING made, to hear what he had got to say.
Three groans for PARSON HEMMING and three for FARMER BROWN;
And I think I see three scarecrows paraded through the town;
Then in a bonfire blazing, with a smell of pitch and tar,-

A Parson, and a Farmer, and his Majesty the CZAR.

Bad luck to every wretched hunks and all unhappy screws,
That would discourage fine young men from going to reviews,
Likewise to every Justice, whether clerical or lay,
That backs them up in putting any hindrance in their way!

Abyssinian Progress.

Or all the crowned heads of the present day, that of the KING OF ABYSSINIA appears to contain as large a quantity and as good a quality

They work'd till one o'clock, when CHURCH bade them to cease to of brain as any. His African MAJESTY has prohibited slavery, re

mow,

Then THOMAS unto Nazing-mead immediately did go,
GEORGE COLLIN follow'd after in about another hour,

Not thinking of curmudgeons, nor of Jack Priests in power.

nounced polygamy, and banished the Jesuists. Three almost equally fine things to do!-what other existing monarch or state has done them all Africa is not only distancing Europe and Asia in civilisation, but gg a-head of America too.

Frinted by William Bradbury, of No. 13, Upper Woburn Place, and Frederick Mullett Evans, of No. 19,en's Road West, Regent's Park, both in the Parish of St. Pancras, 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 Loudon.-SATURDAY, September 8, 1855.

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"Now the people of the City of Corinth were ex

ceedingly wicked people, for they were idolators, and
indulged in evil and idle sports; and the people of
Chelmsford would be equally as wicked as the people of
the City of Corinth, if they (the people of Chelmsford)
were all like the Militia."

The calf then, says the MILITIAMAN, "proceeded with his Sermon, wherein he again expressed himself as follows upon his own responsibility:-"

"That the people of Chelmsford were tired and disgusted with the Militia, and that they (the Militia) were a perfect nuisance to the town; that the people of Chelmsford wished them away; that the Militia were going headlong to Hell-nay, every day deeper and deeper."

Sensible, no doubt, of the likelihood that these assertions would encounter general incredulity, the "MILITIAMAN" does not call the calf a calf, but names it the REVEREND MR. WILSON. But, surely, it is more easy to believe that the language above quoted proceeded from a calf than from a clergyman. Yes-beyond doubt, if the words were uttered at all, the tongue that spoke them might be an ingredient of mock-turtle, and the possessor of that organ must be one of the Essex Calves.

MRS. DURDEN'S ANNUAL TROUBLES.

WELL! Here's my plagues come back again-the usual torment of the season,

Them nasty good-for-nothing flies-I can't think what can be the

In course such things is sent to try and punish us for our transgressins! To think that books-oh! all my eye-is wrote to prove the varmint blessin's!

Bother your nasty snails and slugs, and what you call your Recreations
In Natural History, fleas and bugs, and insects and their habitations,
Inhabiting our ticks and beds, where there's no means of getting at 'em.
What can there be in people's heads to like such nasty things? ab,
drat 'em!

Your cockchafers, and grubs, and worms, your palmers and your
caterpillars,

And what's the use of Latin terms for good-for-nothing moths and
millers?
Which in the candle always flies, and serve 'em right, although they
suffers;
But then it gutters whilst they fries, and so I kills 'em with the snuffers.
Their homes and haunts, indeed! I know too well what places they
infestes;

They burrows in my brockilo, and in my cabbage makes their nestes.
They winds their ways, and lays their eggs, and frets, and ferrets, and
deposits
Their nits in clothes on all my pegs, in all my trunks, and drawers, and

Bluebottles, I am quite aware, about my safes and larder buzzes,
Left open by the want of care of inattentive thoughtless hussies.
Blackbeetles on the kitchen floor, and cockroaches, all night are
sprawling,

From underneath the cupboard door, or from behind the dresser
crawling.

A hole somewhere behind the grate, I take it, is the cricket's quarters,
Where they goes on at such a rate a-chirruping at night-the Tartars!
In windows and on ceilings both the daddy-longlegs fix his station,
And is a sign of shameful sloth whichever is his situation.

I know that mites inhabits cheese, and hams is where we meets with
hoppers,

I know likewise that straw breeds fleas; thatch'd cottages is full

whoppers;

VOL. XXIX.

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ASTONISHING THE "BROWNS."

THE Laureate says that we are fools to trust "a tradesman's ware or word," but we hope that we may be permitted to recognise his politeness. The remark is forced from us by observing the exquisite mode in which the West-End traders now return us our very small change. Before us lies the sum of two-pence, which, with a bottle of soda-water, we have received from a Pimlico chemist, in return for a sixpence. The coppers" are enclosed in the neatest little square scented envelope, on which is embossed a charming wreath of lilies and roses,-the latter coloured rosy red,-and this legend is intertwined with the flowers"The Change-with Thanks.' Can politeness go farther? Echo answers in the affirmative, for we understand that other tradesmen have even blander phrases engraven on their packets. One hands you the change, inscribed, "What a lovely day!" Another, with an eye to business, says, " With hope to see you again," and a third, "Would you recommend our articles?" The Spaniards used to perfume their money. The Englishman does this, and more-he gives you perfumed money and fair words. He may cheat, but even if he does, it is a case of "stealing, and giving odour."

A Nice Dinner for a Nice Party.

IN the knapsacks of the Russian prisoners were found bread made of unsifted flour and rape-seed; a piece of raw suet "which appeared to have been cut out of the belly of a dead animal, and a small bag of salt." Mr. Punch proposes that Manchester should invite its peacemongering members to a banquet, and serve up to them the above rations. As they have such bowels for the EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, let them, if they may, digest the creature comforts he provides for his Muscovite children. What is good for the Cossack is surely good for MILNER GIBSON.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.-One of the assistants in the reading-room of the British Museum has published a pair of new boots, that are making a deal of noise just at present in the literary world.

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