a cook or a
housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton
chop. If so, I apprehend that Mary Stedman or any other scullion will be
found fully equal to cook for or manage the establishment of the Queen
of Beauty.--I am, your Ladyship's, &c.,

"ELIZABETH COUCH (not Pouch)."

"Odd men," quoth Bishop Thorold, "write odd letters," and so do odd
women. The original of the following epistle to Mr. Gladstone lies
before me. It is dated Cannes, March 15, 1893:--

"Far away from my native Land, my bitter indignation as a _Welshwoman_
prompts me to reproach you, you _bad, wicked, false_, treacherous Old
Man! for your iniquitous scheme to _rob_ and overthrow the
dearly-beloved Old Church of my Country. You have no conscience, but I
pray that God may even yet give you one that will sorely _smart_ and
trouble you before you die. You pretend to be religious, you old
hypocrite! that you may more successfully pander to the evil passions of
the lowest and most ignorant of the Welsh people. But you neither care
for nor respect the principles of Religion, or you would not distress
the minds of all true Christian people by instigating a mob to Commit
the awful sin of Sacrilege. You think you will shine in History, but it
will be a notoriety similar to that of _Nero._ I see some one pays you
the unintentional compliment of comparing you to Pontius Pilate, and I
am sorry, for Pilate, though a political time-server, was, with all his
faults, a very respectable man in comparison with you. And he did not,
like you, profess the Christian Religion You are certainly _clever_. So
also is your lord and master the Devil. And I cannot regard it as sinful
to hate and despise you, any more than it is sinful to abhor him. So,
with full measure of contempt and detestation, accept these compliments
from

"A DAUGHTER OF OLD WALES."

It is a triumph of female perseverance and ingenuity that the whole of
the foregoing is compressed into a single postcard.

Some letters, like the foregoing, are odd from their extraordinary
rudeness. Others--not usually, it must be admitted, Englishmen's
letters--are odd from their excess of civility. An Italian priest
working in London wrote to a Roman Catholic M.P., asking for an order of
admission to the House of Commons, and, on receiving it, acknowledged it
as follows:--

"_To the Hon. Mr. ----, M.P._

"Hon. Sir, Son in Jesu Christ, I beg most respectfully you, Hon. Sir, to
accept the very