e of the Government that has so long, and so
strangely, and (some say) so maliciously overlooked him.

* * * * *

CON: FOR THE CONSIDERATE.--Why is Happiness like an Act of Parliament?
Because you can never tell its value until it is passed.

* * * * *

ALL IN PLAY.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,

[Illustration]

This year has been a great one for America in London. The Exhibition
in West Kensington, with its Wild West Show, has attracted its
thousands, and at this moment two dramas (both from the United States)
are very popular in the Strand and Oxford Street. A few nights ago,
anxious to save you the trouble of filling a stall with your customary
urbanity and critical acumen (to say nothing of your august person and
opera-glasses), I visited the Princess's, to assist at a performance
of _The Shadows of a Great City_. It was really a most amusing piece,
written by JEFFERSON, the _Rip Van Winkle_ of our youth, who you will
remember was wont in years gone by to drink to the health of ourselves
and our wives and our families at the Adelphi. The _City_ was New
York, and the most substantial of the _Shadows_, Mr. J. H. BARNES, a
gentleman who might be aptly described as one of the "heaviest" of our
light comedians. He played a fine-hearted sailor with an earnestness
of purpose that carried all before it. I cannot conscientiously say
that he gave me the idea that he was exactly fitted to take command of
the Channel Fleet, but after seeing him I retained the impression that
he would have felt entirely at home on the quarter-deck of a Thames
Steamboat. Mr. HARRY NICHOLLS, who has so often assisted to make the
fortune (as a jocular scoundrel) of a Drury Lane melodrama, was also
in the cast, and so was Miss CICELY RICHARDS, _the Belinda_ of _Our
Boys_. Then there was Miss MARY RORKE, a most sympathetic heroine, and
several other excellent performers, whose names, however, were less
familiar to me.

The play, admirably mounted with capital scenery, recalled a number of
pleasant memories. Here was a suggestion of _The Ticket of Leave Man_,
there a notion from _The Colleen Bawn_, and yonder ideas from _The
Long Strike_ and _Arrah-na-Pogue_. There is nothing new under the
sun, and _The Shadows of a Great City_ is no exception to the rule.
However, it is a thoroughly exciting play, full of murder and mirth,
wrong-doing and waggery, startling incidents, and side-splitting
co