"Sir FRANCIS KNOLLYS is desired by the Prince of WALES and the Duke of YORK to thank Mr. PULITZER for his cablegram. They earnestly trust, and cannot out believe, that the present crisis will be arranged in a manner satisfactory to both countries, and will be succeeded by the same warm feeling of friendship which has existed between them for so many years. Sandringham, Dec. 24, 1895." Huntsman (having galloped over rotten bridge, spanning deep drain, and kicked a large hole it). "HI! KEEP OFF IT, YOU BEGGARS! IT WON'T BEAR YOU!" [Has hounds all to himself-the acme of bliss! STUDIES IN MODERN JOURNALISM. No. III.-DORINDA'S DIARY. Wednesday.-"Where did you get that hat ?" wrote SHAKSPEARE, and the question was repeated to me a dozen times at a fashionable luncheon-party to-day. How stupid people are, to be sure! For, of course, no one except Madame MODISTE, of 320A, Bond Street, could have created it. Indeed, I and all the other bestdressed people in London deal with her. TOMMY PLANTAGENET, my noticed a charming costume, worn by a lady in the row of stalls next thirteen-year-old cousin, came in to tea. He told me that he had to him at the Pantomime. I hasten to give the details of it, for the benefit of my readers. (Paper patterns of it can be obtained for six stamps from the office.) The dress is made of magenta-coloured The bodice is composed of white fichu, draped round the hips with sequins, embroidered with miroir velvet and piped passementerie. blue nainsook, and the arms are looped up above the basque with scarlet tulle, while the skirt is trimmed with yellow revers, edged with chiffon. The lining is of reseda-shot satin, with accordionpleated buckles gathered very closely round the tunic. One could not easily imagine a more charming design. Monday.-Oh dear! JEMIMA is such a nuisance! She has called three times in the last two days to implore me to spend next week at Twiddledum Towers. It is all very well for her to say that her husband-the Duke, you know-will be heart-broken if I refuse; but I put it to you, dear reader, how can I do as she wishes, and at the same time keep my solemn promise to the Countess of PENTONVILLE? The Countess would never, never forgive your poor DORINDA if she disappointed her. By the way, the Countess's new boots are not at all a success. But, as I told her, how could she expect them to fit well unless she bought them at Messrs. LACE AND LEATHER'S well-known shop, three doors off the Monument ? By the strangest coincidence, this excellent firm has a full-page advertisement on the cover of this number, so that you can find out all about their goods by referring to it. Tuesday.-I felt very dull and depressed this morning; but a cup of DIBBS' cocoa at luncheon quite restored me. (You must notice Thursday." Arma virumque," as HOMER says-which means, the trade-mark carefully when you buy it-there are so many of course, that all knowledge is useful. So, darling reader, I hasten spurious imitations of DIBBS', you know.) After luncheon, CHARLES to impart to you a fact which I was told to-day. And this is, that came in, and, since his tailor is SNIPS, of 540, Piccadilly, I need no one in London has such splendid crocodiles as Mr. SHADRACH, of hardly say that he was dressed in faultless taste. He took me off to Upper Holloway. This is worth remembering, as it is quite possible a very select At Home, where I was introduced to Lady SELTZER, that crocodiles may become favourite drawing-room pets before long, "Dear Lady SELTZER," I said, immediately, "what charming gloves and you could not offer your family a more acceptable Christmas Bother! that dull old you are wearing! And yet I can see they are not expensive. Do tell present. In fact, a certain Princessme where you got them, and how much you paid for them." Oh," Marchioness has called to take me for a drive, so I can write no said Lady SELTZER, with such a sweet smile, that's what every- more just now. one asks me! Why, I bought them at Messrs. SHODDY's winter sale-which, by the way, ends in a fortnight's time, so you should go there at once- and I only paid 28. 11 d. the pair for them." .. 64 A Grammatical Question settled under the Mistletoe. Now a kiss, dear," he said, "is a noun we'll agree, "Well, perhaps." she replied (to speak nothing loth), ROBING-ROOM RUMOURS. THERE is no truth in the report that, following the precedent about to be set by Mr. ASQUITH, in appearing before his fellow Privy Councillors, many of the Judges of the High Court are accepting retainers to represent either Plaintiffs or Defendants in their own Divisions. At least this extension is not likely to be carried out just at present. The proposed representation of "A New Pantomime," by the late Dr. KENEALLY, at Gray's Inn, will certainly not take place during the present Christmas. If the work is played at all, it will be without scenic accessories. It is asserted that, at the recent meeting of the deputation from the Bar Committee with the LORD CHANCELLOR, smoking was not permitted. As the proceedings, however, were of a semiprivate character, it is uncertain whether liquid refreshments were discussed with arguments of a less material nature. It is not improbable that, with a view to removing the block of legal business, that some of the railway companies will run, during the present year, "High Court Saloon Carriages," in which accommodation will be provided for the Bench, the Bar, the solicitors, and their clients and witnesses. If the matter of venue can be satisfactorily arranged, causes will thus be ready for hearing during transit. There is already a recorded precedent of a Judge granting an injunction from the front of his bathingmachine. Now that the qualifications for mem ROUNDABOUT READINGS. ON NEPHEWS-AND "HUCKLEBERRY FINN." Ir has been granted to me during the last few days to study a soaring human boy face to face. The abstract" my nephew" of whom I occasionally speak in passing has become the concrete "GUY, don't do this," or, 'GUY, don't do that." My study is littered with paper darts of all sorts and sizes; a clasp-knife is at this moment lying open on my favourite arm-chair, a catapult is on the floor (perhaps the safest place for it), and odd numbers of Chums are strewn about the house. The owner of these articles is dashing up and down the stairs, with a whole pack of dogs at his heels. GUY is an atom of humanity, tottering on the brink of his eleventh birthday. His fond mother consigned him to my care, together with a long list of instructions. His usual bed-time," she said, "is eight o'clock. Please, please see that he brushes his teeth morning and evening, and keeps his hands clean. When he goes out he must wear his overcoat and his little flannel comforter; and when he comes in you must always insist on his changing his stockings. Keep him out of puddles, and see that he does at least an hour at his arithmetic and Latin Grammar. He is weak in arithmetic; but in Latin Prose he got full marks at his last examination. Don't allow him to make himself a nuisance to you. If he does, give him a good book of adventures, and you'll find him as quiet as a mouse." These were the more important items in the compendium drawn up for the guidance of a bachelor uncle. So far I have done my best, but my best has stopped short of Latin grammar and arithmetic. I can remember how keenly I detested the genial old gentlemen who, on hearing that I had gone to school, asked me to decline mensa, and posed me with the perfect tense of fero, and in my nephew's case I satisfied myself with his personal assurance that he had been able to translate into Latin these memorable sentences:-"CAESAR marched into Italy with a large army," and We were seen by CAIUS, your slave." A boy who can do that, and obtain full marks for it, is obviously reserved for very great things. bership of the Inns of Court Volunteers have been relaxed, and others than counsel can be admitted to the famous corps, it is possible the parties concerned in Chancery proceedings will be accepted as recruits. It is argued that by this means the regiment will retain the services of wealthy litigants and their personal representatives-"it may be for years, it may be for ever." As nowadays only one or two rooms are used in the Royal Courts of Justice during term time, on account of the absence of most of the Judges in other places, it has been suggested to utilize the remainder of the building for the production of a grand realistic spectacle on the lines of the capital military entertainment at Olympia. If the idea is adopted, no doubt the initial item will be called "Fifteen Years of a Junior's Life; or, From Call to First Brief." HEY, PRESTO! A CABLE message from New York says: A fifteen-ton disappearing gun was mounted in the defences of New York Harbour this afternoon. Four more weapons of equal size and the same pattern will be placed in position next week. Which thing is an allegory, neatly and picturesquely typifying President CLEVELAND's famous message to Congress. For a moment, even for a day, there was the murderous armament, threatening the amity of two nations and the peace of Europe. People looked up again to see what further preparations were made, and lo! it was gone. It was a diplomatic, or more precisely, an electioneering, disappearing gun. For the rest, I found him fairly amenable. He jibs a good deal at his overcoat, and has contrived to lose his little flannel comforter; his bedtime has been extended to nine o'clock; I have utterly failed to restrain him from puddles (our country roads, by the way, are nothing but so many huge puddles); and I find it next to impossible to keep his hands clean, though he has immaculate intervals lasting for about three minutes at a time. But he brushes his teeth and he changes his stockings, so I feel that on the whole I have done pretty well. found interest in smoking and all that pertains to it. He goes Of course he collects postage-stamps. He also takes a proabout bristling with cigarettes so as to be ready to supply my needs at the shortest notice. He is never without a tray, into has just come in and has posted himself at my elbow. Whizz-bang, which he knocks the ash from my cigarette as I smoke it. He he has decided that I have finished my cigarette, he has seized it out of my mouth, hurled it into the fire, has jammed another between my lips and has struck a match and burnt the cigarette to a cinder before I have recovered from the shock. He has found a box of fifty cigars and clipped all their ends, and he has filled my ten pipes with tobacco so as to be ready for all emergencies. It is delightful to find a mere boy able and willing to make himself so useful. in the pantry busily employed in helping the butler to polish up the BUT his usefulness goes further. Only this morning I found him forks and spoons, and yesterday he was allowed, as a great treat, to take a hand in the manufacture of a plum-pudding. To-morrow he is to wait at table, a prospect which seems to fill him with unutterable joy. boy, with plenty of resources for his own amusement. One thing has On the whole he is really a very good and cheerful little struck me about him. He weighs about five stone, and his size, therefore, is not gigantic. Still, in his little knickerbocker suit, he looks quite big enough for his years. But in the evening he wears a full-dress Eton suit, which has the effect of reducing him to the merest scrap; the most diminutive shrimp, I warrant, that ever got full marks for Latin prose. I FEAR there is a lack of reverence about the nephews of the present day. This one-and I presume he is typical of the rest 64 will and friendship are sorely needed. That the countrymen of DICKENS and MARK TWAIN should fight about Venezuela is an idea so fantastic and preposterous that imagination boggles at it; and even the mind of the worst Jingo of either nation must revolt from it when it is fully realised. P.S.-A week or two back I asked about the National Pension Fund for Nurses, and expressed a wish to know the address of its Secretary. A kindly correspondent, signing herself "An Admirer BUT my chief surprise has been his keen and appreciative enjoy-information, which I hereby convey to my readers in the earnest of Mr. Punch of Fifty Years' standing," gives me the necessary ment of Huckleberry Finn. I gave it to him to quiet him, and he was soon deep in it. This evening he has insisted on reading aloud hope that the fund may benefit:-Royal National Fund for Nurses, to me the whole of that inimitable passage which relates how the 28, Finsbury Pavement, London, E.C. two old frauds, the King and the Duke of Bridgewater, pretended to be the brothers of Mr. Peter Wilks, deceased. At every other sentence that boy had to stop, convulsed with laughter, and, mind you, he laughed in the right way and at the right things. This is no mere piece of knockabout clowning such as one supposes would appeal to a small boy, but a bit of the most genuine and incisive humour ever printed. I am, therefore, forced to the conclusionstill assuming GUY to be typical-that the sense of humour amongst nephews of a tender age has become far keener and juster than it used to be. BUT, after all, what a great book is Huckleberry Finn. With how lavish a hand has MARK TWAIN scattered the riches of his humour and his observation and bis sympathy over every page. There is enough in it to fit out twenty ordinary books with laughter. There are bits of description in it which bring a scene before your eyes as vividly as if you had seen it over and over again and fixed it on your mind. Characters are hit off in a few incisive touches, and the man stands before you as he must have lived. TAKE this for description:-"It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked all dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest-fst! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree tops a-plunging about, away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the underside of the world, like rolling empty barrels downstairs, where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know." THE BEAUTYCIDES. "A THING of beauty is a joy for ever," Taste feels, through greed's disease, by no pill curable, "SOME OF THE BEST" OF REGULATIONS. (Prepared by an Expert after witnessing the new piece at the Royal Adelphi Theatre.) with neighbouring parsons, and their daughters, in undress uniform. ALL officers belonging to the Portsmouth garrison will take tea On such occasions the regiment of the subaltern, in attendance upon the Commander-in-chief, shall accompany their officer to the churches, belonging to said parsons, to the music of the fifes and drums. A lieutenant of Highlanders shall be told off to prepare the plans of the new fortifications at Portsmouth, in the absence of Royal Engineers qualified to undertake the duty. It shall be considered high treason if the lieutenant aforesaid takes the plans, he has himself prepared, from a safe with a view to acquainting himself of their contents, and imparting the knowledge thus guiltily obtained to an anonymous enemy of his country. When accused of the aforesaid crime, the lieutenant shall be tried by court martial, whereat ample accommodation shall be reserved for females in distress. The office of prosecutor at such a court martial shall be assumed by a general officer AND this:-" Colonel Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well-born, as the saying is, and that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the widow Douglass said, and nobody ever denied she was of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it too, though he warn't no more quality than a mud-cat himself. Colonel Grangerford was very tall and very senior to the Commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, and one who has been slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it any-permitted to retain his A.D.C.-ship after promotion from field rank. wheres; he was clean-shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk to deep like they seemed they was looking out of caverns at you as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders.... Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty pole, and the lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners-every body was always goodmannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around too: he was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned into a cloud-bank it was awful dark for half a minute and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week." THEN for simple, unforced pathos you have the runaway nigger, Jim, one of the finest and purest gentlemen in all literature. And for tragedy, can anything be more moving and terrible than the last stand of the Grangerfords, or the death of Boggs, with its sequel in Colonel Sherburn's imperturbable defiance of the cowardly mob, who propose to lynch him? But I have not space to dwell on all the great points of this Homeric book-for Homeric it is in the true sense, as no other English book is, that I know of. The prisoner shall be allowed practically to conduct the proceedings of the court martial, and shall have opportunities afforded him of taking part in several touching scenes, with the females in distress. On being found guilty, the lieutenant shall have his sentence read to him in front of his regiment, and undergo the painful and novel indignity of degradation to the ranks. During the execution of this newly-authorised punishment, the lieutenant shall be permitted to clasp his fiancée to his heart and to present her with the Victoria Cross. On reinstatement to his rank the lieutenant shall obtain the control of his regiment, and shall use his regained freedom to harangue his superior officers, to pardon his accusing and perjured witness and reconcile her to her father, the general commanding, and finally to embracing the young lady destined shortly to become his wife. The reinstatement of the lieutenant having been fixed to come off on the occasion chosen by the prosecutor at the court martial as one fitting for the presentation of new colours to the lieutenant's regiment, the prosecutor, in a neat speech, shall deliver the national flag to the ex-prisoner amidst the loudly expressed joy of all beholders. Lastly. After the reinstated lieutenant has received the National Flag at the hands of the prosecutor aforesaid, he shall give satifactory statistics regarding the crime of high treason in its relation to the commissioned ranks of the British Army. Having done this, he shall be at liberty to allow it to be inferred by all sufficiently fortunate to be present at the aforesaid interesting ceremony, that So I (and my nephew) send this message of goodwill across the it is the intention of himself and his bride to live honourably, and sea to our friend MARK TWAIN, at a time when messages of good-consequently happily, for ever afterwards. IT IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF DUCAL FOOTMEN TO CLEAN THE FAMILY BICYCLES. THE LADIES ERMYNTRUDE AND ADELGITHA HAVE TO DO IT THEMSELVES. A PROPHET TOO PREVIOUS. (To the Author of the "Hill-top Novel.') THE "Survival of the Fittest" we begin to understand, Many hundred years ahead of us, and yet "dumped down" to-day It is really quite "too previous" and the Fates must be at play When centuries get mixed up so, and there comes a saintly seer No. we don't want to catch up to him, and were he out of sight, But his spectre on the hill-tops-fills the timid with affright, It drives one to hysterics, makes the other dream strange dreams, AN UNPREDICTED STORM. A STORM of unusual violence, coming from the United States struck the British coasts on the 18th ult. The usual storm warning from New York had not preceded it. It was accompanied by loud thunder and blustering winds, and seemed likely to cause great damage. Happily a condition of great calmness prevailed over the British Isles, the cyclonic disturbance seeming to have little effect, unless to cause a temporary increase in the fog and gloom. Since then appearances give hope of greater clearness, with probably bright and settled conditions later. It is believed that this storm originated in a violent outburst of Mount Cleveland, a large volcano hitherto quiescent; and of Mount Olney, a smaller, but equally active, centre of fiery disturbances. Until recently they were considered quite harmless. The Irish newspapers state that both craturs had been for some days in a state of violent ebullition. Before this outburst the summit of Mount Cleveland was densely wooded, and produced a larger number of inferior planks, used in the construction of platforms, than any other headland in the United States. The present volcanic condition has, of course, entirely superseded the production of these inferior planks. "DR. BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS." JUST before the holiday time a drawing-master was summoned before Mr. HADEN CORSER by an indignant female parent for chastising her offspring. The master had merely anticipated the general season of gifts with a Christmas Box on the boy's ear. The mother," observed Mr. HADEN CORSER, with a staccato touch of HADEN's surprise in his tone, "is within her right in complaining," and so HADEN the Politer-never "the Corser"-fined the drawing-master three guineas, for which he had to draw a cheque, and bound him over in five pounds to come up for judgment when called on. HADEN the Politer well and wisely remarked that it was aggrieved parent would have taken had her son been a public schoolbeyond his powers (as a magistrate) to imagine what course the boy at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, or Winchester, where the birch, in some form or other, and on some form or other, or some part of it, was the rule of punishment, where the boy would be swished, and where the head-master's swish over-ruled the parent's wish. At Eton, and at any other public school, the boy could take it (the swishing) or leave it (the school)," and would be only too glad to accept the "post hoc propter hoc" instead of having to retire from public (school) life. Every boy ought to know how to take his whack and be glad of the chance. Also, on certain occasions, he should be able to return the whack with interest. Mr. HADEN CORSER is the Solomon of the Bench, and had he reminded the sensitive mother of that wise saying of the Wise King as to the sparing of the rod and the spoiling of the child (though in this case, it may be admitted that the rod was not in question, but only a handy mode of chastisement), it would not have been amiss. The "Block System" at public schools is a good one. Floreat! |