ure of
some senior clerk, still echoing in their ears--they are GENTLEMEN. They
are desired to be such by their mother and sisters, and so they talk about
cool hundreds--and the points of horses--and (on the strength of the
dramatic criticisms in the _Satirist_) of Grisi in _Norma_, and Persiani
in _La Sonnambula_--of Taglioni and Cerito--of last season and the season
before that.

We know not how far the readers of PUNCH may be inclined to approve so
prosy an article as this in their pet periodical; but we have ventured to
appeal to them (as the most sensible people in the country) against a
class of shallow empirics, who have managed to glide unchidden into our
homes and our families, to chill the one and to estrange the other.
Surely, surely, we were unworthy of our descent, could we see unmoved our
lovely English girls, whose modesty was wont to be equalled only by their
beauty, concentrating all their desires and their energies on a good
match; or our reverend English matrons, the pride and honour of the land,
employing themselves in the manufacture of fish-bone blanc-mange and
mucilaginous tipsy-cakes; or our young Englishmen, our hope and our
resource, spending themselves in the debasing contamination of cigars and
alcohol.

* * * * *

CONDENSED PARLIAMENTARY REPORT ON THE MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES.

Vide _Examiner_.

MR. WILLIAMS--objected--
SIR T. WILDE--vindicated--
SIR R. PEEL--doubted--
MR. PLUMPTRE--opposed--
MR. VILLIERS--requested--
MR. EWART--moved--
MR. EASTCOURT--thought--
MR. FERRAND--complained--
LORD JOHN RUSSELL--wished--
MR. AGLIONBY--was of opinion--
MR. STEWART WORTLEY--hoped--
MR. WAKLEY--thought--
MR. RICE--urged--
MR. FIELDEN--regretted--
MR. WARD--was convinced--

* * * * *

TAKING THE HODDS.

On a recent visit of Lord Waterford to the "Holy Land," then to sojourn in
the hostel or caravansera of the protecting _Banks_ of that classic
ground, that interesting young nobleman adopted, as the seat of his
precedency, a Brobdignag hod, the private property of some descendant from
one of the defunct kings of Ulster; at the close of an eloquent harangue;
his lordship expressed an earnest wish that he should be able to continue

[Illustration: GOING IT LIKE BRICKS--]

a hope instantly gratified by the stalwart proprietor, who, wildly
exclaiming, "Sit aisy!" hoisted the lordly burden