Town Talk.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

LULL, which by the time this is in the hands of the reader, will have changed probably into an unmistakeable row, has pervaded the world of politics at St. Stephen's. A truce has been proclaimed since the re-organisation of the Ministry, and will be kept until the Ministerial Reform measure is before the House. In the comparative repose of the Commons, some few useful measures have in the interim been making progress, and none of them deserves a good word more than Mr. LEEMAN'S bill for regulating the transfer of Bank Shares. There is the usual outcry against it, that "it stops trade." Well, if by trade we are to understand the sort of gambling by which the "bears" overthrew the AGRA and MASTERMAN'S Bank, to the ruin and misery of hundreds, why the sooner "trade" is stopped the better. The argument brought against the bill, that a dealer in shares ought not to be called on to name the shares he means to sell, any more than a dealer in corn should be expected to name the exact sacks he will supply, is fallacious. The number of shares is a fixed and ascertainable quantity. If the supply of corn were limited in the same way to a small number of sacks, no legitimate trader-no man who really wanted the corn, and did not want merely to gamble, would purchase any, unless he knew that the man who proposed to sell to him had the sacks to supply. I see the Economist is strongly in favour of the measure, which will be keenly discussed in committee, no doubt, and will then have to pass the Upper House. I wish it success, even at the expense of "trade," when "trade" plays duck and drakes with the savings of old soldiers, widows, and orphans, as it did in the case of the bank I alluded to just now, as ruthlessly as if it had been a member of the great firm of STRAHAN, PAUL, and BATES.

THE Fenian disturbances have given rise to great anxiety, and have done much injury in Dublin. But they will not do more, unless it be that they will get a few foolish young men into trouble. Americans account for the outbreak by pointing out the large number of Irishmen discharged from their army at the close of the civil war-with all their fighting blood up, and no peaceful business to return to. This seems a very plausible solution of the matter. This spirit has been carefully utilised by those sons of the horse-leech who have appointed themselves Head Centres and receivers of money. It is very unfair to denounce the Irish-the real Irish people-for an outbreak due to malcontents from the other side of the Atlantic. If you want to see how the Irishmen are behaving, look at the conduct of the police, men who are the sons of small farmers, and are Catholics. They have behaved admirably, holding out against odds with splendid pluck. It is a pity they cannot be formed into a flying column, to pursue the flying Fenians, for the troops seem to be absurdly distanced by the fleet, barefooted fugitives, on the tails of whose coats they can't manage to put salt-much less tread on them.

I HOPE, whenever a new Copyright Act is contemplated, that some steps will be taken to place illustrations on something like the same footing as contributions to a periodical, i e., to prevent their being used for other works after having done service in that for which they were drawn. An artist nowadays has no protection in the matter, and is liable to see his name paraded as doing a drawing for a book he has never heard of, or does not care to be connected with. The public, too, are deceived by such dodges-they buy a new book to find that its illustrations are familiar to them, or they find the name of a wellknown artist appended to very inferior work, issued as new, to the injury of his reputation, but being in reality some early and tentative effort. I have been led into these reflections by the Thousand and One Gems of Poetry, issued by MESSRS. ROUTLEDGE, the illustrations to

which are, however, really excellent, though they are old friends, so that the objection to them is confined to the injury done to Art by this chewing of the illustrative cud. The book is admirably selected and arranged by DR. MACKAY, is well got up, and is a marvel of cheapness. But I regret to see MESSRS. ROUTLEDGE cooking up old blocks; they publish some of our best Art books, and should be more careful of the interests of art. They can afford to leave the hash-up of old cuts to firms which are notorious for the practice.

Ir ever there is excuse for Englishmen talking about the weather, it may be admitted to hold good now. There never was such a time. We have gone up and down the barometer like a young lady practising her scales. Perhaps we shall have a spring such as we had last year, with snow up to the beginning of April, and then a sudden burst of warmth and sunlight, bud and blossom. If so, the sooner April begins the better. I fear the late frosts must have injured the fruit-blossom in some parts where it was forward. If it has not, we shall have, if we may believe the promise of trees, a splendid fruit year.

CORRECT SOLUTIONS OF ACROSTIC IN No. 95, RECEIVED 13TH MARCH.-Knurr and Spell; Owdashus Cuss; High Roads; R. B. H.; The Swarthy Moslem; Pompa dour; Ginger; Tommy Traddles; Pipehop; F. J. P.; Sciatica; J. H. B.; Lambkin; J. Jumbles; Oldfields; Snuffbox; Ye Manne of Bengaule; Bumblepuppy; A. W. Y.; Clef; Gobbles; Paravassa; Erod; Snooks; Mike: Warming Pan; Gyp; Lawson; Ruby; M. Noswad; Benhill; Lley; A. W. H., Alloa; Nanny's Pet; II. L. J.; Pluff; W. C. B. O.; "Right I Am;" Latchford; Beef and Baked; W. E. W., Lloyds; J. R.; Hop round the Ness; Poeta Nascitur; deus; Cemented Brick; C. W. S.; Portobello; The Little J. J.; Young J. W.; West Linton; Llahtyrt; One Suffolk Punch; Hemel Hempstead; Scissors; AsmoKiss Polly Twice; Ferret; Herbergergoss.

N.B. Those answers alone are considered correct which give the exact words of the acr stic, and those only, without any second guess. Answers giving "Yuletide," for example, or "Oratorio or Obligato," cannot pass.

Typographical.

How does a mother obtain a first impression of her baby?-By setting it up in "small caps."

ON THE WINNER OF THE GRAND NATIONAL.

So, Gentlemen, Cortolvin have won, such being the Prophet's own anticipation that he would do so, though I did not like to make it too public for fear of encouraging the young DUKE OF HAMILTON to be more extravagant than ever in backing of the good and gifted animal; and, as far as I can see, the DUKE does not stand in need of any encouragement in that direction, but is having what I may call his Highland fling, regardless of expense, and I daresay as I should be quite as prodigal myself if I were at the same period and had not been better brought up. The remarkablest thing though, brother Sportive men of England, is that the French claim this as a national victory along of young H's. being a "Duc" as it is called in the Gallic peerage, and than whom I do not think much of them in general, having long ago met with a very seedy young cove which was said to be a Marquee, and did NICHOLAS out of four quid when in liquor. However, some of them-like my noble friend, the COUNT DE LAGRANGEmay very possibly be the soul of honour and quite incapable of anything shady on the Turf, and which I will only say that if our lively neighbours were so precious fond of the Duc as to keep him all to themselves, there is many an Englishman as would try to bear up during his absence, and am sorry to see him making Ducs and Drakes of the property.

ON THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN AFFAIRS.

It is said by a writer in a daily contemporary under the signature of "ASMODEUS" (which I have some reason to believe as it is a fictitious name), "that he would be the last to speak ill of the dead, but there is a peculiar moral in the fact that last week a bookmaker died who was making a £5,000 book on the Derby, and now it transpires that the deceased had not enough capital to defray his own funeral expenses!" Now, my dear young Friend, it is exaggerative in "ASMODEUS" to say as he would be the last man to speak ill of the dead, for NICHOLAS would be laster still; but the event, my dear young Friend, is calculated to make us all reflect how mutable we are! Do I blame the bookmaker? No, sir, and I will tell you why. I have been pretty much in the same position myself-not meaning that I ever died without leaving enough to pay my funeral expenses, for you would not believe me, even if I were to swear it, but I have made a book for never you mind how many thousands, at a time when a five-pound note was an article which the Prophet seldom saw, and never touched. Sir, I won! Thanks to my ingenuity and enterprise, I potted a heap of money-and, as you know, have since become one of the Leviathans of the Turf, wallowing in riches and in the respectful admiration of my fellow-man. Suppose, however, I had happened to lose?

Sir, in that melancholy event, the form of NICHOLAS would not for many weeks have been distinctly visible to the naked eye, like the recent eclipse-at any rate, not on this side of the English Channel. A melancholy, but still handsome old Bird, so to speak, would have been observed to alight on a foreign shore at Bolong, and perhaps to wing its way to some "hay-stamina," as the French call a house of refreshment, just as if it was a feed for horses; the old Bird in question might probably have had a pair of blue spectacles fixed across my beak; but to the children of Britannia, my dear young Friend, and especially to all those Sportive men of merry, merry England with whom he had any pecuniary transactions, NICHOLAS Would have been "non est"-and although the Poet (than whom I do not think much of him, he often making the most deceptive and ridicolas remarks) observes that "a non-est man's the noblest work of God," yet NICHOLAS is still inclined to doubt whether such would have been the general Bride Lane, opinion of the Prophet's conduct, whether at Tattersall's, or the Ruins.

But, my dear young Friend, do not let us all be a set of canting humbugs! If you say that a betting-man who incurs liabilities which he cannot meet-who makes bets, in fact, entirely on the basis of credit-if you say, Sir, that such a man is only one step from a Be honest, my young Friend; Swindler, then I say you are harsh. speak the plain truth; say that he is only one step from a Railway Financier and NICHOLAS, with a blush that ever he should have fell so low, will sorrowfully own that right you are.

All I ask, Sir, on behalf of self and other gentlemen of the same profession, is this: Tar us all with the same Brush! I have done some queer things in my time, as, perhaps, you will believe; but I never created fictitions capital to the extent of a million, and thereby robbed the widow and the orphan. I never had the chance!

NICHOLAS.

P.S.-I think it is just as well for the widow and orphan that I

had not.

LORD DERBY'S LAMENT. A CLASSICAL FRAGMENT.

I.

ALL is confusion now-it was not so

Eight calendar months and some odd days ago!
Then, with an eager and a cheerful mind,
For RUSSELL had resigned,

I sprang, I seized the helm, to navigate
The Ship of State;
And gaily round me pressed my jolly crew,
Clad in the truest, Tory-est of blue!
With military zeal,

Outlaughed the jocund PEEL;
Yea-at the sight we wondered for a while-
The acrid CRANBORNE Was observed to smile!
Then GATHORNE HARDY'S strident voice,
Shouted aloud, “Rejoice, rejoice!"

Whilst gentle NORTHCOTE's accents clear
Sweetly charmed the listening ear,

And PAKINGTON, albeit he might not sing,
Blew his enormous nose, that made the welkin ring!
II.

All is confusion now- -it was not so
Eight calendar months and some odd days ago!
Nor quickly did our jollity abate;

Reform, we knew, could wait,
And BENJAMIN, the son of ISAAC, vowed
He wasn't proud,

But would prepare, at need, a toothsome bill,
Or gild, to say the least, the bitter pill.
Vain is DISRAELI'S charm

To check the wild alarm!

Oh, wherefore, jolly mariners, oh, why
From cozy berths and pleasant quarters fly?
A frenzy urges PEEL along;
CARNARVON feels the sense of wrong;
The bitter CRANBORNE will not stay,
But wags his head and walks away;

And vainly PAKINGTON, who fain would sing,
Blows his enormous nose, that makes the welkin ring!
III.

All is confusion now--it was not so

Eight calendar months and some odd days ago!
Ah! me, my father kept, at Knowsley Park,
A sort of NOAH'S Ark

For every animal, or great or small,
He loved them all!

More trouble than those brutes e'er gave my sire,
Menageries of Ministers require!

Sick of the whole concern,
For private life I yearn:

To lettered ease the Muses still invite,
Far from the broad-brimmed Boanerges BRIGHT;
From CRANBORNES far, and far from PEELS;
From POTIER far, and far from BEALES;

And BENJAMIN's despair forlorn,

And classic GLADSTONE'S cruel scorn!

That sound again? SIR JOHN, in act to sing, Blows his enormous nose, and makes the welkin ring!

A "Bust-Up."

17

The sweetest thing in tourists' suits (Alas, that it must be confest,

Handcuffs would suit his two-wrists best); His hat was French, its brim was wide,

He wore it slightly on one side

(Alas, his style caused the mishap, oh,
I to the chapeau of this chap owe);
And he had clothed his digits neat
In perfumed gloves from Regent-street-
(Alas! although the fact be hid,
His visit, like his gloves, was "kid.")
To judge him from his style of dress
He was a swell, and nothing less,
One of those very nice young men
Belonging to the "Upper Ten."
But, ah! his gentlemanly shows,
Alas! they ended with the clothes.
In counting him some swell unmatched

I reckoned on my chicks unhatched.

He came; and then my eggs were addled! He took the hall-clock and skedaddled!

Of Course Not!

THE Hebdomadal Council at Oxford have declined to take action upon the memorial presented to them, praying that the honorary degree of M.A. should be conferred on MR. ROBERT BROWNING, in order to qualify him as a candidate for the Professorship of Poetry. Very consistent and proper of the Council, too! MR. ROBERT BROWNING is only a poet and a scholar,-besides, he would probably deliver really valuable lectures on a subject he knows so much about as poetry, and that would never do. What would the other Professors say to such an innovation?

An "Evening " Performance.

THE County Times, under the head of Egham, informed us the other day that "During Lent, service will be held daily in the parish church at 5.30 m., and on Friday evenings at 10 a.m." The people of Egham must have a few odd hours a day more than most people, or they must egg'em on in some strange way, so as to extend Friday evening into the next morning.

The Home of Tragedy.

WE learn that MADEMOISELLE CORNELIE, an artiste of real merit, is declaiming the finest passages of RACINE and CORNEILLE at the Eldorado, one of the cafés chantants of Paris. The monopolising managers of London may make this a plea against the licensing of music-halls for dramatic purposes. But their objection will not be valid. The parallel of the French case would be the recitation of SHAKESPEARE, and as SHAKESPEARE is never played in England except as a spectacle, the use of his dialogue would not injure the English theatres. It is not likely that any modern plays will be declaimed at the music halls.

A FREE TRANSLATION.-BY ONE WHO HAS LOST A SUIT. De minimis non curat lex:-"The law does not stick at trifles."