or-oil, just before setting out
on its daily amble, with the children (in panniers) on its back. It
did not appear to relish the treatment, as it instantly broke loose,
and was found, five miles off, in a village pound, while the children
were landed in a neighbouring ditch. I am writing to Messrs.
MACDOUGALL, to ask for particulars of how the oil is to be applied. I
am sure it is an excellent idea, if the animals could be brought to
see it in the same light.

Yours, experimentally,
DARWIN EDISON GUBBINS.

***

MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,--SMITH Minor, who is staying at our house for part
of the holidays, said what good fun it would be to try the MACDOUGALL
plan on my Uncle from India. He is always cold and shivering. We
waited till he was having a nap after dinner in the arm-chair, and we
coated him over with butter that SMITH Minor got from Cook. (Cook
never will give _me_ butter.) When we got to his hair he unfortunately
woke up, so that is probably why the plan did not succeed. We thought
he would be pleased to feel warmer, but he wasn't. Uncles are often
ungrateful, SMITH Minor says. And it _did_ succeed in one way, because
he seemed awfully hot and red in the face when he found what we had
been doing. Perhaps we ought not to have tried smearing him on his
clothes, but how could we get his clothes off without waking him?
SMITH Minor says it's a pity we didn't drug him. N.B.--I have been
stopped going to the Pantomime for this, and SMITH Minor is to be sent
home!

Your dejected TOMMY.

***

SIR,--I want to bring an action against Messrs. MACDOUGALL, of Mark
Lane. I tried their smearing plan on a horse in my stable that had a
huge appetite, and was always getting cold if left out in the wet. I
used paraffin, and at first the animal seemed really grateful. In the
night I was called up by a fearful noise, and found that the horse's
appetite had not got at all less owing to the oil; on the contrary, it
seemed to have eaten up most of the woodwork of the stable, and was
plunging about madly. The paraffin caught light, and the stable was
burned, and the horse too. In future I shall feed my horse in the
usual way, not on the outside.

Yours, TITUS OATS.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE THIN BROWN LINE.]

["Decidedly the most gratifying feature in the accounts of
these engagements which have reached us, is the proof which
they contain of the