nitary measure of great
importance, as the mortality from small-pox had long been greater in
England than in any other country in Europe.

On the 16th of December LORD PALMERSTON resigned his office of Secretary
of State for the Home Department, but he was subsequently induced to
resume his position in the Government.

On the 20th of August the Parliament was prorogued by commission, and a
Parliamentary Session of an unusually protracted and laborious character
brought to an end. The year had been generally very prosperous, but the
scanty harvest, and the unsettled condition of the labouring classes,
who resorted to the desperate and suicidal agency of "strikes" for
bettering their condition, added to the probability of a war with
Russia, brought it to a gloomy close, and it was as much as _Punch_
could do to sustain the nation in moderate cheerfulness.

* * * * *

NOTES.

THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM.--The July of 1853 was particularly wet.

THE CAMP.--A fact.

FANCY PORTRAIT.--Need we say of MR. CHARLES KEAN.

A GENTEEL REPROOF was really required to check the somewhat indelicate
curiosity of lady-visitors to the camp.

POISONOUS PUFFS still disgrace many provincial papers and a few
metropolitan ones. Newspaper readers have the remedy in themselves by
adopting the advice given in this article.

A STARTLING NOVELTY IN SHIRTS was barely an exaggeration in 1853.

A DETERMINED DUELLIST.--See Note to p. 39.

THE NEW ACT.--The Cabman is the picture of a man then about town, and a
member of a very respectable family, to annoy whom he drove a Hansom
Cab.

A GOOD JOKE.--See _Introduction_.

ANOTHER POTATO BLIGHT, &C.--MR. SERJEANT MURPHY, of facetious memory.

MORNINGTON'S CHALLENGE.--LORD MORNINGTON, formerly MR. WELLESLEY TYLNEY
LONG POLE, recently challenged LORD SHAFTESBURY, who declined the folly.
_Pop Goes the Weasel_ was the name of a popular tune.

EAST INDIA HOUSE.--MR. HOGG was a distinguished director of the East
India Company and M.P.

THE AMERICAN CUPID.--MR. HOBBS, the celebrated lock-picker, to whom
reference has been frequently made in preceding Volumes.

LOGIC FOR MR. LUCAS.--See Notes to preceding Volumes.

EFFECT OF THE CAB STRIKE.--About this time the Cab Proprietors of London
struck against the new Cab Act, and London for a day was left cabless.

WANTED, A NOBLEMAN.--An EARL OF ALDBOROUGH was advertised as a patron of
HOLLOWAY'S Pills, for whose real value, se