T IMPERIAL MAJESTY,

Your with-satisfaction-received letter has been to my wife
communicated. She desires me to assure you that she is your Imperial
Majesty's obedient subject, (Signed) D. VON H.

IV.--_Extract from the "Reich's Anzeiger."_

"Frau ANNA ANSELMA VON HAMMELFLEISCH, having last week given birth to
a girl in contravention of his Imperial Majesty's Supplementary Decree
(No. 10. Proportions of Sexes), it is our painful duty to announce
that the Herr Doctor DUMMWITZ VON HAMMELFLEISCH has been dismissed
from his post as K.K. Ober-Hof-Rath, and will immediately be
prosecuted for the crime of _lese Majeste_."

V.--_Extract from the "Reich's Anzeiger," a month later_

"The prisoner, HAMMELFLEISCH, was yesterday condemned to twenty years'
solitary confinement in the fortress of Spandau. The wretched man
acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and begged others to take
warning by his fate."

* * * * *

LADY GAY'S SELECTIONS.

_Mount Street, Grosvenor Square._

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Most delightful weather favoured us last week at
Gatwick and Sandown, and most of the horses I mentioned as worth
following either finished nowhere or were not there at all, which I
think is a fair average record for a Turf prophet! I heard at Sandown
that sweeping reforms are to be expected in Turf matters next Season,
but I will not harp too much on this string, as more able pens than
mine have undertaken it--though how a "pen" can harp on a string I
don't quite see--or _hear_, it should be.

I certainly think _Brandy_ would have won the Gatwick Handicap, but
I suppose the bottle is getting low, and is being reserved in case
the Cambridgeshire is run on a cold day! And that brings me to the
consideration of this great race. I do not propose to analyse the form
of all the horses, but will devote my attention to a few of the likely
ones--who should feel complimented thereat (I suppose a horse; can
feel a compliment just as well as it can a whip)--from which might
spring the winner. First and foremost, then, _La Fleche_ has, in my
opinion, enough weight to carry, even if the jockey is included, as I
believe is the case--and I was told by Sir CHARLEY WHITELEY, that to
win the Newmarket Oaks she had to be "bustled up"--a fashion which I
thought had quite gone out!--anyhow, many people think she is "not the
same mare she was"--though how they can have changed her I don't quite
understand, but it would n