EXAMINATION FOR TURFITES.

(Derby Day, 1872.)

WHEN is it necessary to
apply the Spur of the Mo-

ment?

2. What are the chances in favour of the Derby favourite winning "the River Plate"?

3. In a family of fourteen, with the youngest two years' old, what will be the average bill for Nursery Steaks?

4. Draw map, showing in what part of Wales the Welchers live.

5. If a gentleman whom
you have never had the
pleasure of meeting before,
offers to bet you a hundred

to ten against anything, on
condition of your giving
him three sovereigns down
to bind the bargain, and
supposing the horse which
you have backed wins, what
are the odds against any
one, or two, or all, of the
three following events
taking place, namely: (1)
Your ever seeing him again
to speak to; (2) Your ever
receiving the hundred and
three pounds he owes you;
(3) Your ever receiving the
three sovereigns which you
invested as aforesaid ?

6. As an instance of the
effect which English Racing

has even upon foreign ecclesiastical matters, give the name of the where a Prior scratched a Cardinal. Explain which Prior and what Cardinal.

7. Which is the Derby Day? (N.B. The answer that "It is, of course, JOHN DAY of Danebury," will not be allowed by the Judges.) Has the Moon anything to do with its fixture, or is it, like a PicNic, a "Movable Feast?"

8. What is the receipt for the Ascot Cup? Is it cooling or exciting? Is it a good thing for a heat?

(i) Because you have set your heart on going, and therefore it's no use saying anything against it.

6. What is your notion of a Ring-man? [N.B. To be answered by any unmarried lady.]

No further questions will be asked, and Mr. Punch wishes you many happy returns of the (Derby) Day.

SLUMBER BEFORE SOCIETY.

UPON my pillow, of a night,

As I do lay my head,

When, having first put out the light,
I've got me into bed,

I often think within my mind,
To slumber ere I fall,

O now how many of my kind
Are dancing at a Ball!

And some as yet not there, perchance,
Will from the Opera go

And do no better thing than dance
On tip of restless toe,

In costly tailor's trim rigged out,
And milliner's array,

To caper, waltz, and wheel about,
And turn night into day.

Young people like it, I am told,
And so it seems to be.

I have been young, and now am old;
'Twas ever grief to me.

For supper's self, past midnight's chimes,
To care I little used,

Did always like to sup betimes,

Then toddle off to roost.

O how I do bepity men

Who, charged with daughters grown,
Are sitting up at parties when
Repose at home's my own.
Rest they no less than I require,
But I obtain much more,
Since when they go forth I retire;
They yawn whilst I do snore.

O let me sit and smoke my pipe
Each evening of my life!
Whilst they, compelled by daughters, ripe
For marriage, and a wife,

Their bed-time far remote from view,
With heavy groans and sighs,
Are pulling their dress-waistcoats to,
Or fumbling at their ties.

A FIRST-CLASS TWELVE.

SNOOZLE.

IN looking about for recruits to the Jury List, SIR JOHN COLERIDGE has overlooked a most eligible sort of persons, who, when he

1. What coloured gloves do you prefer? Which is the best glove-is on his legs as an advocate, are under his nose. These are the shop? State your reasons.

2. Did you ever lose a bet?

3. Did you ever pay?

4. Are you very careful with whom you bet?

5. Are you providently making arrangements for being taken to Ascot and Goodwood this year. Remember you have such excellent reasons for insisting upon being taken to Goodwood this year,

because

to see.

(a.) You've never yet been, and it's a thing one really ought
(b.) Because one can get there so easily, by just running down
to Brighton, Lewes, or Chichester, where you can stop for a
few days, and then merely getting a trap and driving over.
(c.) Because the scenery is so lovely.

(d) Because it is quite a ladies' race.

(e.) Because the SMITHSONS are all going, and they go every year.

numerous Briefless Barristers who sit in attendance at every Court of Assize, with nothing in the world to do but to note what is going on. They might, without the least inconvenience to themselves, and very much to the advantage and relief of others, be transferred from the circumference of the green-baize table, under which they kick their heels, to the jury-box, wherein their legal knowledge would especially qualify them to sift evidence, and to apprehend aright the directions of the presiding Judge, whilst by their forensic training they would, when harangued by counsel for either side, be enabled duly and properly to understand, and appreciate, at its just value, the conscientious eloquence of their learned friends..

Wonders Will Never Cease.

THE mutilated statue of Leicester Square disappeared the other day. On asking what had become of it, we received the astounding (f) Because you will meet- (but this is a private and par-intelligence that the equestrian figure so long immovable had "gone ticular reason). at last, and had fetched sixteen pounds!" It is probable that having fetched this sum he will be spending it foolishly about town. Remembering the awful Commendatore in Don Giovanni, it would not surprise us to read of the appearance of this Unhappy Cripple in one of the police courts, either for disorderly conduct on the Derby Day, or for reckless riding in Rotten Row. We shall look out for him along the road to Epsom.

(g.) Because, my dear JOHN, it really will not be expensive, and you'd spend much more if you went alone, without us, I mean without the girls and myself. If you leave it to me, I'll manage it.

(h.) Because, though it cost much more than we expected last year, yet this time we can arrange a great deal better.

"Merry Scotland," quotha Where is merry" Scotland now, when such things are done in the land of Scots as the thing hereunder related in a piece from the Morning Post?

"No MORE CAKES AND ALE.-A curious time-honoured custom

defeat of any Bill you may be invited to enact in order that any one of those pleasant lanes yet existing may be abolished by the speculative or any other builder.

A PLEA FOR A FEMALE PARLIAMENT. EXCELLENT MR. PUNCH,

Skimming recently the cream of a provincial newspaper, I came across this paragraph, which possibly may interest some of your fair readers:

"In the seventeenth century a law was in force in England that 'all women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, that shall from and after this Act impose upon, seduce and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's male subjects, by scents, paints, cosmetics, washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the laws against witchcraft, sorcery, and the like, and the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void."" I know not if this singular old law has been repealed, though I presume it must have been so, or what work for the police there would be daily in our parks and other places of assemblage! Beauties without paint there are doubtless still to see, and straightway fall in love with: but how many a tinted Venus shows her roses at our flower-shows, and how many a high-souled lady adds a high heel to her stature! As for false hair, that is now so commonly displayed, that lovers rarely venture to ask for a true love lock: and though iron stays have been improved into steel corsets, the progress of two centuries has not yet abolished the practice of tight-lacing.

has been put down by the police, aided by FORBES MACKENZIE, in the village of East Kilbride. For many years past it has been looked upon as a kind of use and wont' practice to supply the church-geing people from the country round East Kilbride with scones and 'yill' during the interval of public worship on Sacrament Sundays. The police, about the end of the year, went round and warned all the publicans that they would not be allowed to entertain the country people as usual on the Sacrament Sundays after that time. One pub-produce some useful legislation. Or, as the admission of feminine lican ventured to disregard the prohibition on Sunday, the 28th of April, and on Monday was fined at the Hamilton Justice of Peace Court."

If Scotland is still the land of cakes, it is the land of cakes without ale on Sundays. It will soon, perhaps, be without ale on any day. Viva la libertà! Freedom for ever in merry Scotland, merry as free! Never so merry since when it answered to the report in Macbeth:

"Alas! poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be called our country, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile."

How can any one smile in a land of slaves? What but a land of
slaves is a land subject to the tyranny of a FORBES MACKENZIE'S
Act? An Act of Parliament may be just as tyrannical as the edict
of a tyrant; and an Act, empowering the police to prevent the
people of Scotland from being served with ale on a Sunday, is.
Scots, wha hae wi' WALLACE bled," indeed! What is the good of
having bled with WALLACE, or BRUCE either, if that is what they
have come to? "EDWARD, chains, and slavery!" never could have
been worse than that; and the descendants of those who were ready
to "lay the proud usurper low," tamely submit to it. Instead of
"Freemen stand or freemen fa","

THE following extract from a Times' leading article on the holiday of Whit Monday, is noteworthy :

"Holiday-makers yesterday were everywhere domestic in their enjoyment. The father had not gone out for a day's revel leaving his wife and children at home, but whole families, with the babies in arms, were strolling through the lanes of the suburbs. It was surprising to notice the extreme enjoyment which was evidently afforded by this very simple pleasure."

Note, therefore, that the preservation of the suburban lanes is a matter of importance to other people besides the suburban population. The importance of those lanes is just the same as that of the Parks. Please bear this in mind, Honourable Gentlemen, as many of you as may have any opportunity of contributing a vote to the

As, then, fashions still exist, which, two hundred years ago, were prohibited as witchcraft, it can hardly be alleged that the fashionable world has materially advanced in the matter of its clothing. Nor, apparently, has sumptuary lawmaking proved of much avail in checking feminine extravagance. The case, however, might be different, if women had the making of laws affecting women; and since many ladies now are wishful to have votes, and perchance, too, seats in Parliament, here surely is a subject on which they might M.P.'s might possibly derange our present representatives, it might perhaps be well to start a female House of Commons-or, shall I rather say, Uncommons?-wherein such matters as the fashions might be properly debated. When one reflects upon the time which ladies waste in dressing, and the monstrous heaps of money which they annually spend upon their personal adornment, the fashions hardly can be deemed an unimportant subject, and it is certainly one suited for feminine debates. These being reported pretty fully in the newspapers, would be read with lively interest by womankind at large, and would tend gradually to free them from the thraldom of the dressmakers, to whose influence we chiefly owe the fooleries of fashion and the costliness of clothes.

I vote, then, for a House of Ladies to decide the shape of bonnets and the way of wearing the back hair; and I would humbly recommend that the first rule of the SPEAKERESS be that not more than six Members be allowed to speak at once.

THE LIBERTY OF THE LETTER-BOX.

AN Englishman's house is his castle, is it? But how about his letter-box? A castle calls one back to the fine old feudal times. Conceive the "King Maker" at home, and bothered by cheap circuNow, imagine BARON FRONT DE BOEUF pestered by prospectuses! lars! How would the temper of those Britons have borne the daily, well nigh hourly, bombardment of their doors, to which we Englishmen who live in our own castles are now subject? Invest a shilling in a bank, or any other public company, and straightway you are pounced on as a sheep that's fit for fleecing. Prospectuses of railways to the pole, and mines to the antipodes, and tunnels to America, and telegraphs to the moon, are showered down upon you by every passing postman, and your life is made a burden by the banging of your door-knocker. Then come the tradesmen's circulars, the puffs of Begum Pickles, and Wagga Wagga Waistcoats, and Reversible Shirts and Envelopes. Then, too, come the notices of pretended sellings off of swindling bankrupts stock, whereat what is chiefly sold is usually the purchaser. And then in shoals innumerable come the charity appeals, and the parsons' beggingletters, which you are kindly to return, if you cannot even spare so trifling a donation as a shillingsworth of stamps. That this is a free country one clearly cannot doubt, while people are permitted to make free in this manner with other people's property; for, after all, a letter-box is surely the property of the person who puts it on his door, although any other persons seem to think themselves at liberty to do anything they please with it.

A A