their limited number and great
advantages, that they did not present a practical refutation of the
charges of their enemies.

_A Voice._ Hear him! Vy, he could buy up streets full of Christians as
easy as I'd buy a net of oranges. (_Blandly._) D'ye happen to vant any
fine oranges, SIR HAIRON? Proud to vait upon yer at yer ouse--knows it
vell. Not a Lord in the land--not the DUKEY VELLINTONS himself has got a
finer. Now.

PROFESSOR BERESHITH dwelt with much earnestness upon the contemptible
character of the greedy and avaricious man, and upon his inevitably low
station in the scale of society; but his speech was interrupted by MRS.
BEHEMOTH, who insisted on forcing her way to the chairman, in order to
get him to buy a ring which had come into her hands rather
promiscuous, and was just fit for his finger. The horrible clamour which
the energetic matron made, on being put forth from the meeting, tended
to bring matters to a conclusion. Other speeches were delivered, in
which the Hebrew gentlemen expressed their sincere desire to improve the
condition of their humbler brethren, but the latter did not seem very
grateful or much inclined to co-operate. A resolution of thanks to
_Punch_, and of hope that he would continue his exertions for and among
the Jews was carried, and the meeting was broken up.

* * * * *

A WASTE OF SYMPATHY.

[Illustration: P]

Punch has seen that much generous sympathy has been excited for an
unfortunate Cab-driver, "said" to have been sent to prison for a month
for the offence of not having five shillings in his pocket. One story is
good till another is told; but unfortunately the police reporters tell
so many stories, that it is almost impossible to keep pace with them.
After several columns of indignation--more or less virtuous; after the
expenditure of a rivulet of ink, having more than the usual quantity of
gall in it; and after a little energetic questioning in the House of
Commons, the plain truth comes out that the Cab-driver never said a word
about "not having five shillings," and consequently was not sent to
prison at all for his poverty, but because he was convicted of an
overcharge, and because he declined the test of actual measurement which
was offered to him.

We make every allowance for a reporter whose province it may be to
exaggerate gooseberries, and give undue enormity to cauliflowers for
paragraphical purposes, but it is rather too hard of