f you that
are advertisers, be you publishers, men of business, authors,
masters seeking servants, or servants seeking masters, refuse to
appear any more in such company, and let it be known at the
newspaper office why you withhold your patronage."

The above paragraph is extracted from the prospectus of a society which
has been formed for the special purpose of suppressing this villanous
pufferty. The association is entitled "The Union for Discouragement of
Vicious Advertisements;" and we hope it will succeed in closing a
channel of communication which has all the qualities, except the
utility, of a gutter.

* * * * *

THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUCTION MART.

"DEAR PUNCH,

Going the other day into an auction-room in a large commercial town,
with the view of purchasing a small fancy business, I found that having
already disposed of it, and of a cheesemonger's good-will and stock, the
auctioneer was endeavouring to sell a _church_, on whose merits he was
expatiating much in the following terms:--

"Come, Gentlemen, pray give attention
To the Lot I'm now going to sell;
For it don't want a poet's invention
Its manifold merits to tell.
If a gift, or of praying or preaching,
In any one present has shone,
He may further exemplify each in
The church, _now put up_, of St. John.

It is not some old weather-worn building,
Clad with ivy, and mouldering and grey,
But as fresh as paint, varnish, and gilding
Could make it, 'twas made 't other day;
And if any, who hear me, are pinning
Their faith some one order upon,
I can tell them they'll find a beginning
Of all orders and styles, at St. John.

"It is held of the Town Corporation
For a term, at a peppercorn rent,
And will surely reward speculation
To the tune of some fifty per cent.
The fixtures are mats, stools, and hassocks,
And (as second-hand garments to don
Is the fashion with curates) the cassocks
Of the late worthy priest of St. John.

"If the sittings (not counting the free seats
Which are placed in the draught near the door),
Be computed, I think there must _be_ seats
For nine hundred pew-renters or more;
Then the district quite swarms with young ladies,
And the tenant who's recently gone,
From the slippers they worked him, quite paid his
Clerk, sexton, and choir of St. John.

By the bishop its licence was granted;