men to preach better sermons; and if the very proper answer be made that you cannot expect 20,000 gentlemen to be all clever, the replication should be, that we do not, but that as most clergymen can read, those who are not gifted with the art of composition may desirably select discourses from the vast treasury to be found in the works of older divines. "What" SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY's chaplain "did, and ADDISON approved, cannot be wrong.'

"

Then did the Government get, not a victory, but a decided beating. This was mainly drawn down upon them by MR. GRANT DUFF, who, in resisting a motion by COLONEL SYKES for further investigation into an Indian military grievance, spoke in an unkind and unjust manner about the officers who had lost their regiments in the mutiny. The House was indignant, and MR. GLADSTONE Sought to soften down its anger, but on division it was decided by 113 to 92, majority against Ministers, 21, that the QUEEN should be addressed on the subject. MR. GRANT DUFF is an exceptionally clever man, but he made this terrible blunder by not being clever enough to manifest a feeling which we have no doubt he possesses. Englishmen are not Gushers, but they resent the semblance of heartlessness.

Wednesday. The Commons sat in Committee on a most valuable and important Bill, one for regulating the doings of Life Assurance Companies. In the course of the debate, it was declared that the word Actuary cannot be defined. Who says "cannot" to Mr. Punch? The name is derived from the Latin actuarius, which simply means qui acta describit veloci stylo, eaque descripta deinde recitat. Put that into the Bill, and leave the Judges to interpret it. If you want to know where Mr. Punch found the description, he will tell you, for he scorns small secresy. In DR. ADAM LITTLETON'S "Latine Dictionary" (1703), which he bought in Tottenham Court Road for two and sixpence, and a little boy carried home for twopence-also the child had a cup of tea and some bread-and-butter. Is there anything else that the Many-Headed would like to know? "Tis fit the ManyHeaded know all," as MR. TENNYSON says, with another word which Mr. Punch omits, he being of excessive politeness. MR. RYLANDS (Liberal), formerly Mayor of, and now Member for Warrington, moved the Second Reading of a Bill for closing Public Houses on Sunday. MR. BIRLEY (Conservative Member for Manchester) seconded. MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCE opposed, until the hour of adjournment. This Bill shall not pass. Mr. Punch hates, detests, execrates, and abominates drunkenness, and there you have his faith in monosyllable, dissyllable, trisyllable, and quatersyllable, and he would punish an offence committed in liquor (or against liquor, ye adulterating fiends) with a double punishment. But nobody, with Mr. Punch's leave, shall prevent thirsty men, women, and children, from getting a drink of beer in the course of a hot Sunday walk.

MR. RYLANDS, MR. RYLANDS,

Heaven sends moisture to the dry lands,

Though the day bears scarlet letter;

MR. BIRLEY, MR. BIRLEY,

You must get up precious early

Ere Punch owns your plan a better.

No, Gentlemen. You mean so exceeding well, and there is so much to be said about British drunkenness, and what it produces, that it is not pleasant to fight you for the key of the public-house; but fight we must, if you want to lock out decent folks because others abuse the gifts of Nature. Punch bears you no malice, but get your hands up, for this Bill SHALL not pass.

is especially prized by the native Indians; and LORD WESTBURY pointed out the injudiciousness of neglecting them. The rich, Indian whose well-tutored mind sends him to his Queen's home tribunal for justice, deserves all consideration. The LORD CHANCELLOR promised a Bill to rectify matters.

Like Debrett, the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill is "Under the Revision and Correction of the Nobility," and Punch hopes that they will attend to the above titles as carefully as they do to the record of their own in the said Golden Book.

MR. STANSFELD explained that high-class costs had been allowed in the case of the poor little Welsh Fasting Girl, because the public mind had been excited, and high-class lawyers had been employed. A fair answer; but ought not the best kind of law to be used in all cases, even if it be the dearest? SHERIDAN gave a man a bad shilling for conveying him in a bad coach; but this is not a precedent for Governments. Is it needful to say that Education "brought up" the rear of the week's history? We might say, with MR. ROBERTSON's kind permission (unasked) that School and M.P. are having a tremendous simulthe latter play is stuck as full of smart things as a tipsy cake is of taneous run. And, "as we have introduced the subject," we add that almonds-and it is strictly within the Essence (and if it weren't, do you think we should care?) to say that there is the spirit of true liament."I should so like to hear you Called to Order." comedy in Mrs. Bancroft's reason for wishing to see her lover in Par

POACHED EGGS AND THEIR POACHERS.

THE Agricultural Journal, under the heading of " An Egg Poacher," narrates an exploit of a gamekeeper who, in the neighbourhood of Camborne, Cornwall, after several ineffectual attempts to catch a harrier hawk, too cunning ever to come within shot, by means of a gin baited first with a rabbit, then with a bird, and next with a weasel, finally succeeded in trapping it with the bait of an adder, which he had killed, coiled up as though it were living. Aha! and so the eggpoacher was caught at last, thinks MR. BENJAMIN BOWBELL. Not exactly so, BENJAMIN; the egg-poacher was the mere vermin used for a bait, and not the reputed vermin, but really in a great measure useful creature which it allured, and whereby it would have been killed and eaten if alive. It is a pity that gamekeepers are generally actuated by a zeal which is not at all according to knowledge, but is, on the contrary, according to ignorance, the grossest, of natural history. Beneath its influence they shoot down, under the name of a hawk, every one of the Falconida without mercy and without discrimination. Harriers and buzzards live chiefly on mice and reptiles, and the same may be said of the kestrel, which many a clown, no better than a cockney, confounds with the sparrowhawk. They are very beautiful birds, and not only ornamental but useful, especially the harrier hawk that destroys such egg-poachers as adders. When a gamekeeper shoots a bird like this he makes much the same mistake as that of shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow, or rather shooting at the crow and killing the pigeon. Even sparrowhawks, and other really destructive birds of prey, should be kept under, but not exterminated. If they are of no good in a state of nature, of what are they in the British Museum?

Penny readings have become popular institutions in the rural districts. Could not some of the resident gentlefolks, by way of a change from reciting, for the instruction and entertainment of rustic audiences Thursday. The Lords considered a Bill for amending the mode in the poem of the Chameleon, for example, or the fable of the Hare and which Solicitors are paid for conveyancing business. This reform, the Tortoise, occasionally enlighten their minds by a familiar account of come when it may, will be due to Mr. Punch, who, some years ago, the various birds and other animals, with whose sight they are familiar, exposed the vices of the existing system (which is hard upon the high- but about whose habits and manners the majority of them know nothing, minded and artistic conveyancer) in so masterly a way by an illustra- and entertain a variety of absurd persuasions? The idea of teaching tion of its working in the case of a Work-Table, that the Profession your gamekeeper anything on the subject of eggs ought to be as absurd would have sent him a Testimonial, but that (he supposes) they thought be might not like it. He respects their scruples, but they may send it and at any rate gamekeepers might be expected to know all about as that of instructing your grandmother in a method of eating them; now-he promises not to be offended, if the article be handsome poached eggs; but few of them probably are aware that adders poach enough. A Medical Act Amendment Bill also made progress. It them, and that in killing a harrier hawk they are destroying their own gives power to the Medical Council to declare a Quack "infamous" ally against egg-poachers. and "disgraceful," which is well; but it should include a clause for flogging him at a cart's tail if he dares to bring an action against a newspaper for publishing the fact that he has been branded on his dirty forehead. There are scores of Quacks whom the journals would scarify next week, but for the state of the law, which gives the most THE EX-QUEEN OF SPAIN suggests to the Spaniards a King called ALFONSO. AS MR. DICKENS wrote, "If ever there was an ALFONSO despicable creature the power to put the most respectable newspaper who carried in his face plain BILL" (dynastically speaking) this is the to a heavy expense. Let it be enacted that no action shall lie for any publication of the Council's declaration, or for any comments there- young gentleman. upon. Will the LORD SALISBURY please see to this when the report comes up?

Education again, till nearly two in the morning.

Friday. LORD WESTBURY called the attention of the Lords to the choked-up state of the Judicial Committee, the Grand Court of Final Appeal for the Empire. The other day there were 370 appeals waiting

What Says Prim?

SUGGESTION FOR SPAIN.

SPAIN wants a King, lets MARSHAL PRIM
Rule her, and might as well crown him.

ILLUSTRATION FOR A COPY-BOOK.-Procrastination picking Time's

to be heard, and 150 new ones are coming from Bengal. This Court pocket.

BOBBY NOT ON HIS BEAT.

W

A CASE OF GREEK CONSCIENCE.

A BRIGAND lately executed in Greece wrote a letter of dying wishes to his brother. From a translation of this document, originally published in the Phos, the writer appears to have been brought to some sense of his situation. As thus::

"BROTHER NICOLAKI, I salute you. My brother, I enjoin you to give 50 drachmas to the church of St. Paraskeyi, in the village of Limogarthi; also to St. John of Palcochori 30 drachmas; give a gallon of oil to the church of Neochori, and a gallon of oil to St. Nicholas of Divri. Give a gallon of oil to the Virgin of Xeriotissa, and when you return to our native place give to the poor all you choose for the salvation of my soul."

These injunctions are not followed by reference to any fund out of which the expense of executing them was to be defrayed, except the following:

"Do what you like with the cows that I have at Divri."

It may be surmised that this legacy was hardly considerable enough to meet the charges of fulfilling the pious intentions above specified, and sundry others whereof the detail follows:

"Make a garland, write my name upon it, and with it crown the head of St. Nicholas in our church. Do not quarrel on account of the disputed cattle with Yannaka Founta, or else his curse will follow me, but take for settlement what he chooses to give you."

Besides practising moderation and forbearance by posthumous proxy, he proposes likewise to perform expiation :—

"When I was a lad I robbed from the church the holy books of FATHER VETA, and he cursed me; therefore, you must find a priest, and bring him to my grave to bless it, otherwise I am afraid that my body will not be changed.", This clerk of St. Nicholas-a saint to whom, by the way, it may have been noticed that he bequeathed a special offering out of his brother's pocket-had, in his education, evidently enjoyed religious teaching, of sort, combined with secular. However he had been impressed with some idea of the obligation to provide for his own-still at the cost of

a

his brother:

If you do not intend to return to our birthplace, take care of my child and treat him as your own; and execute faithfully all that I command you here." He recognised the obligation of almsgiving; by the same means :"When you meet ragged beggars, receive them, and assist them as much as you can, otherwise God will not permit the salvation of my soul."

EDNESDAY morning, in last week, and between the hours of 1 and 2 A.M., thieves undisturbed, at their leisure, bent apart two bars in the grated window-shutters of a watchmaker's shop in Cheapside, and cut a disc of glass out of one of the panes. They had just hooked out a chain, which, unfortunately for the daring and ingenious fellows, had dropped between the shutters and the window, when their noise aroused the watchman in charge of the premises, and caused that Argus to raise an alarm, which put them to flight in safety. These particulars are gathered from a newspaper, which mentions, besides, the watchmaker's name. That is omitted here, because the possibility that Punch could publish, or be let in to Qui facit per alium facit per se was his economical maxim applied to copy, a covert advertisement, must not even be suspected. But, of good works. They were necessary, in his view, but could be done by course the operators who trepanned MR. HYPHEN'S window were deputy. He gave his brother a power of attorney to be charitable to genuine thieves. Then this is the second operation on plate-glass which the poor, and to himself also. Had that brother, however, been a artists of that denomination have been able to take their time in per- perfect stranger, and had he met him in a mountain pass near Marathon, forming, since the other day, in the midst of a chief City thoroughfare. or on the highway, could he have more coolly charged him with any How can these facts be accounted for, except on the supposition that commission than with one such as this:there are tares in the City Police corn? Can that generally fine and trusty body of men contain any members of the dangerous classes who have crept into it in disguise? Is it possible that the civic authorities have set thieves to catch thieves unwittingly, and not according to the proverb? Was the leisurely perforation of windows in Fleet Street and Cheapside practicable by connivance of accomplices in blue? These questions will perhaps engage the attention of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. There is something so rotten in the state of their police arrangements, that if scientific housebreaking continues to be practised in open gaslight within their boundaries, people will soon begin to say that the Mansion House is as bad as the Home Office.

The Drought and the Jolly Farmers.

Homegreen (on top of hill shouting over intervening valley to Hawfinch on hill opposite). How all the countree's burnt up along o' this here drought!! Hawfinch. Ees. The land everywhere now about I calls the same stuff as the leases on 't. Homegreen. As how? Hawfinch. Parchmunt.

GREATLY GALLED.

THE other day a well-known Economist was found by his friends in tears. Asked the cause, he pointed to the return obtained by MR. CRAWFORD, showing the cost of writing fluid in our public offices, and said emphatically-Hink illæ lachrymæ !

FORE AND aft.

WHO designed the new helmet for our police? Whoever it was, he must have done it in a fit of pique.

"I left my watch with MR. RIZOLI-MANOLI. Go to him and give 28 drachmas. Sell your own and take mine as a keepsake."

Doubtless this remarkable specimen of a penitent thief regarded his own particular brother only with a higher degree of the same fraternal affection as that which he had always cherished for his brother man; for mankind at large. He subsisted by putting his hands into their pockets during life, and he thought to buy salvation by putting them

after death into his brother's.

Most people have seen the photographs of certain lately executed Greek brigands' heads in the picture-shop windows. Nothing, one would think, can be more probable than that one of those heads belonged to the subject of the preceding remarks.

Just Worth Mentioning.

THE Saturday Review advises MR. JAMES GRANT (of the Advertiser) to do what another gentleman did a great many years ago "in the case of Punch." That is, to retire from a periodical because it assailed the POPE. We do not know whether MR. GRANT (ultraProtestant) would think such a cause sufficient to justify the course suggested; but that is his affair. Ours is, to express no sham regret that the Saturday Review permits either ignorance or spite to blotch its pages, which do habitual service to literature and to morals.

FARMER GILES (electrified into sudden [brilliance). ." INJY; AN' BACK IN VIVE MINUTS!! LOR' A MASSY!!!—EH LASS, MAYBE THEE 'LL TELEGRA-A-APH TO S'N SWITHUN, WULL 'EE ?-TELL UN TO TURN ON A GOODISH DRA-AP O' REEN VOR MY POOR TURMUTS!"