Duke of Lancaster, came back from the Continent, he made his entry one. Our circus "fools" have frequently adopted this strange fashion, into London in a "courte jacques" of cloth of gold, cut "à la fachon without being aware perhaps that it had been devised by the wisdom d'Almayne." As another proof, moreover, of its German derivation, of their ancestors. Could the latter now be summoned by the aid of the "courte" or shortened coat is said to have been called "hanselein," Spirit-rapping, we can fancy with what horror they would see upon from the German "HANS," or "JACK," whence the garment became what shoulders their mantles had descended. We cannot think though, known in England as a "jack-et." The word "slop," as applied to an that our clowns are to be viewed in their stage-dress as greater fools than article of dress, occurs for the first time in the passage we have quoted, were their forefathers, for the latter set the fashion which is so ridiculous. and is probably derivable from the German schleppe, which signifies a The parti-colours sometimes had political significance, and like those something "trailing." Whether our cheap and n-not nice tailors, who worn at elections were really party colours. In an old illumination are commonly called "slop-sellers," have any claim to be considered representing JOHN OF GAUNT, who was the uncle of RICHARD THE of German derivation, is a question which debating clubs may argue if SECOND, gravely sitting to decide the claims upon his nephew's corothey like, but which we have neither space nor inclination to discuss. nation, the gaunt one wears a funnily grotesque appearance, by wearing But we may hint, that there is certainly some ground for the hypothesis: a long robe divided down the middle, the one half being blue and the for the word "British" we know is synonymous with "brickish," and other being white, which we all know were the colours of the House as slopsellers are never known to act like bricks, they clearly cannot of Lancaster. We think that great good might result were our M.P.s claim that their origin is British. to revive this curious old fashion, and to show by their costume what Mention has been made in the last preceding extract of the fashion party they belonged to. Were this hint to be acted on, not merely now of wearing "hose departed of two colours," and we find that would the House present a much gayer appearance, by the magpie parti-coloured robes were made to match-or rather, not to match black and white in it being turned to peacock hues; but there would would be speaking more correctly. Very quaint and queer were these be far less chance that Members would enter the wrong lobby, as in parti-coloured dresses, which must have looked as though their wearers the now expiring Session, has unluckily occurred. Unstable minds, had left half of themselves at home, and had somehow got a moiety of moreover, might indicate their waverings, by wearing rainbow pegtops some one else stuck on to them. The hose too being quite dissimilar, and coats of many colours; which with a variegated vest, and a tie of could hardly with propriety have been called a pair; and must have made neutral tint, would show they were in-vest-ed with the freedom of a men fancy that their right leg had by some mishap become a wrong weathercock, and could veer round independently of any party tie. UNDER CANVAS. In mud up to our knees While in the huts at Aldershott, Or on the Curragh bare. 'Neath the canvas damp, we curse the camp It's lucky we're free to swear! A campaign in the rain is a trifle, When glory's to be got: Who'd grudge to clean his rifle, When a foe it has sent to pot? But this marching out to flounder about, And afterwards march in, Till your arms show a crust of dirt and rust, And your company's wet to the skin With all complaining "it's always raining,"- When first I joined as Ensign, My heart it did aspire, In the mouth of a gun, at the word, to run, And stand no end of fire. But I certainly never bargained For water to this extent, Any pluck 'twould damp to live in camp, With a shower-bath for one's tent. The Camp campaigning duties, So day and night we have waged a fight, The command that gives most trouble, And is heard in every quarter Is "Tallow your noses-double!" And, "By the right-feet in hot water." It seems so inconsistent, This pitch to which we've got Feet in cold water every day, And every night in hot! Though honours fall but rarely, On Glory's laurelled path, Of one order, at least, we've had quite a feast- So I sit, and my teeth they chatter, And I mope like a half-drowned rat; And my feet are in a puddle, And my bed seems the bed of a stream, Where I dream that I'm dry, and wake to sigh, And find it is only a dream! From my Swamp, The Curragh, Ireland. THE TERRORS OF TABLE-TURNING. REALLY, if this Spirit-moving mania be carried on much further, it will be necessary for persons who are about to marry to take steps to secure themselves from buying haunted furniture, and from possessing chairs and tables which are themselves "possessed." When we hear of wardrobes "manifesting signs of the most lively emotion" on being approached by the mistress of the house; of sofas "undergoing throes" and swaying to and fro with "tumultuous energy" when invited by a Medium to join in a séance; of heavy easy chairs standing up on their hind legs, and wheeling about and turning about like so many JIM CROWS, when informed through the same means, that there were "sperrits" present; of tables rising unsupported some three feet in the air, and then descending to the ground with such a "dreamy softness" that it rendered their alighting "almost imperceptible;" of tables "rearing themselves up at an angle of 45°," without letting the vases and things placed upon them topple over; of tables clambering up ottomans and jumping into beds, and performing such “ strange antics " | with such "violent vivacity" as clearly showed they were "infected with a wild rollicking glee," and "inspired with the most riotous animal spirits;" when we hear, we say, of furniture behaving itself in this way, we cannot but consider that people should be careful how they run the risk of contact with it, and that great pains should be taken to avoid the chance of accidents resulting from its getting into an excited state. After what has actually been seen by living witnesses (at least if we believe their tongues, and they themselves believe their eyes, without using their other senses, common sense included, to test the “truths ” to which they testify), we should hardly think it safe to let a table cross our threshold without having some knowledge of its character and habits, and feeling guaranteed in some way that when a spirit moved it we need fear no ill effects. Having a wife and a large family of ten or twelve small children, from whom we daily are obliged by business to absent ourselves, it would never do to leave them at the mercy of strange furniture; which for aught we know might prove addicted to an intercourse with spirits, and be liable to get elevated, and suspended in the air, and alarm the household by the madness of its freaks. Obviously, therefore, some measures must be taken whereby the peace of mind of parents may be thoroughly secured, on the point as to how far their tables may be trusted, and their chairs and sofas left without being strictly watched. Upholsterers must be eyed as jealously as horse-dealers, and whatever article of furniture they sell will have to be submitted to most scrutinising tests. When they turn out a new table, they will have to guarantee it as being free from rapping, tipping, or any other vicious tricks; and no father of a family will think it safe to buy an old one without asking the shopkeeper what character he had with it, and whether it had ever shown a restive disposition, or had betrayed a tendency to back-jump, rear, or kick. Prudent persons will require that their easy chairs and sofas should be similarly certified; and unless they can be warranted as sound and safe from spirits, of course they will not be allowed to come into a drawing-room, where ladies, not strong-minded, might be frightened into fits. Nor, while the Spirit mania lasts, will such precautions be less needful with regard to bed-room furniture, which must equally awaken one's suspicion and alarm. After what has been detailed of tables jumping upon beds, and chests of drawers being seen to undulate and vibrate with emotion, and curtain-rods, for aught we know, to quiver with excitement and rotate with remorse, surely nobody would dream of purchasing a wardrobe without a proper warranty that it was all serene; or of suffering one's upholder to send one home a dressing table, which, being addicted to show spirits in the looking-glass, might shake one so while shaving as to make one cut one's throat. In fact, as spirits don't seem proud, but condescend to take possession of things most insignificant, the smallest household articles will be objects of suspicion, the while one fears there may be "sperrits present" in one's house. For ourselves, we frankly own, that as we have by nature a somewhat nervous temperament, we would never even purchase a second-hand perambulator without having a full knowledge of its parentage and pedigree; nor could we with any comfort use so small a piece of furniture even as a footstool, if we fancied that a spirit-hand had (in the dark) been seen on it. CAMPS AND DAMPS. A PROFITABLE LINE OF BUSINESS. WE read that a certain Railway pays its Lawyers £30,000 a year. This is very pleasant for the Lawyers doubtlessly, and must pay them remarkably well to keep up a running account of such an agreeable magnitude; but how about the poor Shareholders? We do not allude to the preference, or the preference preference Shareholders with their 6, 7, and 8 per cent. guaranteed interest, but to those who originally invested in the speculation? It strikes us (we are talking of Bradshaw generally, and not picking out any separate line) that many of the Shareholders have to starve in order that one or two favoured Lawyers may be fed. Of all Railway branches, and but few of them pay, the Legal Branch is the most expensive, and yet Railways are always running to law, and thousands have to be paid as the penalty of the numerous Railway collisions that are continually taking place in consequence in the Courts of Law. To no professional class, not even excepting the Engineers, has the establishment of Railways been so profitable as to the Lawyers. The Engineer finishes his line, and there to a great extent his interest ends; but you have never finished with your Lawyer. Once allow him to put his iron fingers on your line, and with the well-known tenacity that iron has for iron, he will not let go his clutch in a hurry. A mother-in-law in a household is not more difficult to be got rid of than a Lawyer who once gets his red-bag inside a Railway carriage. He is there, you may be sure, for life, and he takes the line in any direction he pleases, and, not only rides free of expenses but pockets every half-year the handsomest dividend that the Company pays. A cabman is not paid more than sixpence a mile, but a Railway Lawyer's fare, we should say, was cheap at the rate of a hundred a mile. The sooner the Shareholders put down such legal conveyances, or else keep a tight cheque-string on them, the better they will find it for their pockets. Our words for it, these furious-driving legal Phaetons, if not pulled up in time, will infallibly run away with all your money. Of all the paces, there's none like the Lawyer's pace for killing. In their time Lawyers have killed more than Railways. When the two combine, poor men must lose their own. In the meantime, the Railway axiom can safely be laid down, that Railways were established in this country for the special emolument of Lawyers and Directors. They take the first spoil; if anything is left (if), it is divided amongst the Shareholders. A dear child we often hear of; but a valuable child is something apparently new. The fact is, however, that JANE SMITH, the valuable little article which MR. JOHNSTONE and MISS ELLIOTT were accused of She being only five years old, her value consists in the attraction which purloining, draws large audiences by singing at various concert-rooms. she exerts on the more intelligent portion of the British public in the character of musical prodigy or phenomenon and infant wonder. For stealing a child of this value how would the indictment run? The accused might perhaps be charged with having stolen, taken, and carried away one child, value L1000, for instance. A singing baby is at least as valuable as a singing mouse; but if it were as dear as it is valuable, its friends would take care of it, and the way to do that is not to let it go about singing at concerts at a time when it ought to be playing at home, or lying fast asleep in bed. Valuable children who are allowed to ruin their health by excitement and want of natural rest are very apt to be lost, if they are not stolen. Is the punishment for stealing a child, whether of little or great value, as severe as that inflicted for stealing a sheep? The answer is not easy; for although numerous cases of kidnapping have occurred lately, the offenders, and especially the arch-offender, who stole the little Jew, appear all of them to have escaped justice. The Bonapartist Claque at Naples sing it with a great deal of warmth, but can get very few of the natives worth a song. to join in the chorus. Apparently the Neapolitans do not think Murat Ir seems that one can sing, as well dance, on a volcano. For inTHERE are grievous complaints of the state of the cavalry horses in stance, the Imperial claqueurs, in the pay of the Bonapartes, are trying the Curragh Camp. It seems as if some biped wanted a good curragh to get at Naples a new song, entitled, Murat pour la Patrie." They combing, as well as these poor starved out quadrupeds. A "French Soldier" writes to the Times, declaring that the people most to blame are the soldiers themselves, who have not the nous to drain their camp, and pave sloped standing-places for their horses. Perhaps there may be some truth in this; but are we sure that the soldiers have been permitted-much more taught-to set about such works? Let us take care, before we blame them, to be sure that we put the saddle on the right horse-even though the saddle be a Cavalry one, and the horse a Dragoon. A LATIN ROOT. WHY is an Irishman's dinner always ready? Because (says the spirit of MURPHY, speaking through a whiskey Medium) it's "Semper praties." PASSENGER (Rowin' Man). "I say, Porter, just look after my Luggage, will you?-Small Carpet-bag and Four-Oared Cutter-and look sharp, I don't want to Lose this Train!" DWARFS AND GIANTS. WHAT a blunder to talk of NAPOLEON THE GREAT! If the spirit that did, in the flesh, demon's work, I'd ask it, now glory's true worth it has known, I'm content with my cudgel and proud of my hunch, What a Fool he must be! A SMALL punster of our acquaintance who seems to know more of French history than he does of English spelling, says the battle which has recently been fought upon the Paper Duties, in some degree, reminds him of the famous Siege of Reams. A PINCH OF CURRAGH POWDER. CORRESPONDENTS from the Curragh Camp keep on painting their position in the wateriest of water-colours, and write as though their military ardour were quite damped by it. It seems, their tents are full of water, while their hearts are full of fire, burning as they are with the desire for drier quarters. As little, except sickness, can be gained by three months' soaking, we think the venue of the trial they have had might now be changed, and the heroes be allowed the chance of wearing a dry shirt, which is a luxury that lately they have not been indulged with. At any rate we think that while the soldiers have to soak, they ought to be supplied with an extra go of grog, which perhaps might counteract the evil of wet feet, and save the troops from catching influenza and sore throat. Could the old DUKE OF NORFOLK have been consulted in the matter, he would doubtless have prescribed a pinch of Curragh powder, as a means of giving warmth, and warding off the chills which even soldier's flesh is heir to. But a glass of grog "hot with" would better serve to keep the cold out, and would palatably raise the pecker of our troops. A soldier cares not for wet feet if he can but wet his whistle; but we think his thirst for glory is likely to be lessened, when the glory is presented to him as a doubtful sort of negus, consisting of a mixture of bad Tent and water. The Vatican in Leicester Square. WE understand that negotiations are on foot for purchasing the premises and building of the Great Globe in Leicester Square, in order to the conversion of that celebrated structure into a Palace for the POPE, who is shortly expected to emigrate from Italy, and, as we announced some time ago, take up his residence in this capital, and the above-named quarter thereof. The Great Globe will be just the place for his Holiness, as he will be able to get out in front of it over the door whenever he likes, and impart a benediction " Urbi et Orbi." WHAT IT MUST HAVE COME TO, IF THE RAIN HAD CONTINUED MUCH LONGER! "INQUIRER. A Word with Punch on the merits of his three Puppets, Sleekhead, Wronghead, and Thickhead, is, we believe, out of print. The exposures in it were certainly very damaging, but they answered the purpose. Punch never attacked MR. BUNN afterwards; perhaps the quiet intimation on the corner of the title-page, To be continued if necessary, made Punch discreet rather than valiant. You are right in supposing that Thickhead' is the present Editor of Punch." "Besides deterring you from saying anything more against Spiritualism, the foregoing reference to yourself ought to convince you of its truth. Surely you must see that the passage above quoted is a communication from the spirit of the late BARNARD GREGORY, sometime Editor of the Satirist. Expect more, and worse, from the same quarter, if you keep on making jests of Mediums and talking tables. Your ridicule of quackery will be met with personal abuse, the author of which you may call a dirty blackguard, but you will disdain to answer him, and he will go about boasting that he has shut you up. "The ribaldry with which you assail Spiritualism is nothing new. It is as old as Spiritualism itself. The Spiritualist and the Scoffer have co-existed from the beginning. Let me call your attention to evidence of this fact, contained in some lines of doggerel (much like the verses of your own contributors), with which an insidious naturalism, from time immemorial, has sought to poison and prejudice the mind of infancy: "High diddle diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Cow jumped over the Moon; "Let us analyse these despicable nursery rhymes, in order to expose their covert meaning. High diddle diddle.' This first line is commonly, but erroneously, supposed to be nonsense. It embodies a general denunciation of Spiritualism as delusion. 'High' means supreme; diddle is a familiar synonym of imposture or humbug. The repetition of the word 'diddle' is intended to intensify the force of it, so that diddle diddle' is as much as to say 'humbug doubledistilled,' or 'transcendent humbug.' The whole line amounts to a sweeping assertion that Spiritualism is regular out-and-out humbug. I shall make this statement clear as we proceed. "The Cat and the Fiddle.' This is ribaldry. It is just the same sort of ribaldry as that with which you attack the high and holy truths of Spiritualism. The words are intended to insinuate deception in the case of a spiritual performance on a violin. The fiddle was played by spiritagency; but the poetaster attempts to account for a phenomenon which he cannot deny by suggesting that the sounds were produced by a cat, that twitched the strings of the instrument with her claws under the table. "The Cow jumped over the Moon.' More ribaldry. As much as to say, the alleged fact of spirit-fiddling is as improbable as the legendary relation that a certain ruminant quadruped overleapt the satellite of this planet. a "The little Dog laughed to see such sport.' Ribaldry again. Of course a dog could not laugh; though the so-called laughing hyæna is brute of the dog kind, and such puppies as your Toby may laugh at humble women for inquiring, in the unaffected language of the lower classes, whether there is any sperrits present? By the sport mentioned in this line are intended Spiritual manifestations; and the pretended laughter of the little dog is an innuendo, signifying that they were so monstrously absurd as even to excite the derisive merriment of an animal of the canine species. "We now come to the last of the five lines which compose this piece of stupid scurrility. And the Dish ran away with the Spoon. This is the simple statement of an unquestionable Spiritual fact, which the preceding buffoonery is calculated to discredit. "You will live to believe in Spiritualism, if you live till you are a day older-as DR. LARDNER lived to see the Atlantic crossed by steamers. Spirits will, of course, immediately disclose the authors of the Road and Stepney murders. You have put them on their mettle by defying them to reveal anything whatever, and, though in eternity, they will lose no time in rapping out the names of the murderers by the alphabet. "Is there no sperrits-to borrow the homely language of commu nicants with the supernatural, and therefore supragrammatical, world-the mournful cavalcade proceeded across the yard to the place of execution, which is there no sperrits in all the sperritual world as is able and willing to is at some considerable distance." communicate them two very simple pieces of information? And, while they are about it, they may as well answer the long-pending and almost given-up question, Who stole the donkey?' "I am, Sir, your exceedingly disgusted Reader, "AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM." "P.S. The Dish ran away with the Spoon.' I know you will say that the subject of this Spiritual asportation was the Editor of Giles Scroggins's Journal." PROPRIETIES OF PENNY-A-LINING. N the report of a recent execution published by a contemporary, there occurs, immediately after the description of an attempt on the part of the prisoner to commit suicide, the following remark: "The prisoner appears to have conducted himself exceedingly well since he has been in Horsemonger Lane Gaol." The endeavour to destroy himself seems not to have appeared to the reporter an exception to the prisoner's good behaviour. In continuation we are told that "He attended chapel every day, and seemed to be very much please i with the religious discourses of the REV. MR. JESSOPP, and paid great attention to them." In a previous part of the narrative we find that MR. JESSOPP" exhorted him to tell the truth, and not go out of the world with a lie in his mouth." He, however, did go out of the world asserting his innocence. If it was really the fact that he paid any attention whatever to the religious discourses of the clergyman, that fact would suggest a shocking doubt of his guilt. But, to our relief, we are informed, not only that he paid great attention to those discourses, but was also "very much pleased with them." A man about to be hanged might be terrified or comforted by ghostly exhortations, but could hardly be likely to be "pleased" with a religious discourse; like a serious gentleman at large sitting under MR. SPURGEON. We may safely conclude that the attention paid by the convict to the discourses of his spiritual adviser was about equal to the pleasure which he derived from them. What a wonder that, in penning the passage next subjoined, the narrator did not think of instituting a comparison which it suggests to anybody who is in the least acquainted with LEMPRIERE'S Dictionary :"He conversed freely with the warders who had the charge of him, and upon one occasion, in reference to the punishment of death, he said he objected to it 'upon principle,' and said he did not think the law was justified in taking life for any crime." Equestrian tragedies have been performed in a theatre; but even ou the stage it is at least unusual for a prisoner to be led to execution in a cavalcade. SONG OF THE IMPERIAL PREFECT. These boots which I embrace, as if they were my sons, Yes, glory from that name as from bright Phoebus shoots, To him who wears them think how vast a debt you owe, For chains with garlands she is to that poplar bound, A Maypole decked with flowers, which she can dance around. So let us dance; but first remove the spots impure Of these Napoleon boots the radiance which obscure. What, is not Paris grand, almost indeed rebuilt? But most of all reflect on what a height we stand, See England all in arms; JOHN BULL up to his eyes Come help me then these boots-to polish shall I say? Of patent-leather formed, their stains removed, they glow: Lend me your hands? Ah no! These boots demand of us With blacking's acrid taste no palate will be wrung, This philosophical behaviour is really quite analogous to the conduct Hereditary Bondsmen who are Always Striking the First of SOCRATES in his last moments. We seem to have read the ensuing description, or something very like it, more than once before; indeed, very often. Like nearly every criminal, an account of whose execution for murder we have ever perused, the condemned man, having taken leave of his friends,— "Went to bed at the usual hour, and slept soundly till yesterday morning at seven o'clock, when he got up and dressed himself, and had his breakfast, which consisted of cocoa and bread and butter. He ate the whole of the allowance given to him apparently with great relish, and asked for an additional quantity, which was supplied him, and he finished the whole of that also." If the reports of executions in general can be believed, the last breakfast of a murderer is almost invariably a good one, and he seldom fails to ask for more; which is always "supplied him," in most cases "promptly" or "immediately." The items of the meal also, as in the present instance, are constantly specified. Somebody must be interested in this sort of detail, instead of being disgusted with it. We wonder if the chronicler of such particulars would be sensible of recording anything incongruous with the solemnity of the occasion in stating, if an eccentric malefactor gave him occasion for doing so, that the prisoner "expressed a wish for shrimps, which was instantly gratified," or "requested a bloater, which was at once supplied him." In the extract which shall conclude this anthology, however, there is one word, which, if not absolutely novel in the composition of such a narrative as that in which it occurs, may nevertheless suggest a new idea to thinking minds: Blow. MR. HERMAN LANG (the name reads like the German for LONGFELLOW) writes to the Times to state that a Volunteer Band, if good for anything, cannot be kept up for less than £1,000 a year. (Bosh!) We venture to say that the Pope's Brass Band, proficient as they are in blowing their own trumpets as well as those of their harmonious master, manage to keep themselves up for a much less sum than the above. We doubt if the poor fellows draw much beyond their own breath. The reward is certainly not great, tending to empty the rag-shop so many years for nothing, says it is the BEST Price that can chest rather than fill it, but then the POPE, who has not kept an old be GIVEN for OLD BRASS. Inhuman Attempt at the Floral Hall. A FRENCHMAN's love of the ridiculous exceeds even his love of the truth. An apology was made the other evening for MLLE. PAREPA'S The Frenchman, who was the unnatural parent of the above absurdity, absence:-"Ah! il parait donc que MLLE. PAREPA ne parait pas." was so proud of his misshapen distorted offspring, that he went about introducing it to every one he met. How true it is, that parents love their deformed children the best! POOR BEASTS!-It is decided that the Natural History of the British "The chaplain then commenced reading the imposing service for the dead, and Museum is not to go out of town this year. |