of 8,000 tons of water," by setting fire to the
saloon chimney. Great as the consternation of the audience was in the
front, it was far exceeded by the alarm of the actors behind the curtain,
for they are so sensible of the manager's daring genius, that they
concluded he had set fire to the house in order to convert "the space
usually devoted to _illusion_ into the area of reality." The great Mr.
Freeborn actually rushed out of the theatre without his rouge. Little Paul
drank off a glass of neat water. Mr. John Sanders was met at the end of
Maiden Lane, with his legs thrust into the sleeves of his coat, and the
rest of his body encased in the upper part of a property dragon; whilst
little round Wilkinson was vainly endeavouring to squeeze himself into a
wooden waterspout. Had he succeeded he might have applied for the reward
offered by the Royal Society for a method of

[Illustration: SQUARING THE CIRCLE.]

* * * * *

THE CRIMES OF EATING.

[Illustration: S]Sir Robert Peel and her Majesty's Ministers have, we
learn, taken a hint in criminal jurisprudence from his Worship the Mayor
of Reading, and are now preparing a bill for Parliament, which they trust
will be the means of checking the alarming desire for food which has begun
to spread amongst the poorer classes of society. The crime of eating has
latterly been indulged in to such an immoderate extent by the operatives
of Yorkshire and the other manufacturing districts, that we do not wonder
at our sagacious Premier adopting strong measures to suppress the
unnatural and increasing appetites of the people.

Taking up the sound judicial views of the great functionary above alluded
to, who committed Bernard Cavanagh, the fasting man, to prison for
smelling at a saveloy and a slice of ham, Sir Robert has laid down a
graduated--we mean a _sliding--scale_ of penalties for the crime of
eating, proportioning, with the most delicate skill, the exact amount of
the punishment to the enormity of the offence. By his profound wisdom he
has discovered that the great increase of crime in these countries is
entirely attributable to over-feeding the multitude. Like the worthy Mr.
Bumble, in "Oliver Twist," he protests "it is meat and not madness" that
ails the people. He can even trace the origin of every felony to the
particular kind of food in which the felon has indulged. He detects
incipient incendiarism in eggs and fried bacon--homicide in an I