together? Is it to curse one another by their gods? to issue
forth on _premieres_ to damn a new play? What fearful language would
be just audible, curses, not loud but deep, during the progress of
the Foot-ball Match over which the Marquis of DUFFERIN is to preside!
It is all over by now; but the result we have not seen. We hope there
is no Cursing Club in England. There existed, once upon a time, in
London, a Club with an awful Tartarian name, which might have been a
parent society to a Cursing Club. Let us trust--

[*** The Editor puts short the article at this point, being
of opinion that "Cursing" is only a misprint for "Coursing;"
or, if not, he certainly gives _Le Figaro_ the benefit of the
doubt. Note, also, that the match was to be played on "Cursing
Club Ground," lent for the occasion, and was not to be played
by Members of the "C.C."]

* * * * *

THE LAY OF THE LITERARY AUTOLYCUS.

(_SEE CORRESPONDENCE IN THE TIMES ON "LITERARY THEFTS."_)

_Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing._

When books and magazines appear,
With heigh! the hopes of a big sale!--
Why, then comes in the cheat o' the year,
And picks their plums, talk, song, or tale.

The white sheets come, each page my "perk,"
With heigh! sweet bards, O how they sing!--
With paste and scissors I set to work;
Shall a stolen song cost anything?

The Poet tirra-lirra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! he _must_ be a J.--
His Summer songs supply my wants;
They cost me nought--but, ah! they _pay_.

I have served Literature in my time, but now Literature is in _my_
service.

But shall I pay for what comes dear,
To the pale scribes who write,--
For news, and jokes, and stories queer?
Walker! my friends, not quite!
Since filchers may have leave to live,
And vend their "borrowed" budget,
For all my "notions" nix I'll give,
Then sell them as I trudge it.

My traffic is (news) sheets. My father named me AUTOLYCUS, who,
being as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up
of unconsidered trifles. With paste and scissors I procured this
caparison; and my revenue is the uninquiring public; gallows and gaol
are too powerful on the highway; picking and treadmilling are terrors
to burglars; but in _my_ line of theft I sleep free from the thought
of them. A prize! a prize!...

Jog on, jog on, the foot-pad way,
In the modern Sikes's styl