Epsom's, Grand Strand, Wednesday, 31st May, 1865. 4.15 p.m.

HOURRAH! Hourrah!! Hourrah!!! With a ouhip, ouhip, ouhip, hourrah!!!!

It is done then, oh ye insularies? The blow, has it struck you? Tingle your cheeks? Ha, ha! O gay!

Of the champagne, boy-by bottles, by dozens, by oceans! I carry a toast:

"TO THE GLORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE, EQUESTRIAN AND AUGUST!" The spectacle it was magnificent, it was superb! My faith, these blonde misses of the brumous Albion, they have a certain charm, seductive though ingenuous, which insinuates, pierces, and subdues. The men themselves-if they have not the alert vivacity and the graceful ease of France-are, as animals, creditable to their choppes and stiks. If it is the problem of Humanity, the riddle of the Sphinx, secular and always recurring; if it is the mission and the destiny of Man to have red cheeks and a stomach of the most obstrusive, behold here the problem solved, the riddle answered, the mission accomplished -behold the fat and rosy sons of the Great Britain!

But, to win the Holy Derbi, such qualities will not suffice! We need, for that, the ingenuity and the energy of France.

Oh moment for ever memorable-moment of passion, of tumult, of suspense-moment when the nerves vibrated like the strings of an Eolian harp to the harmony unintelligible but supreme of the embalmy wind; oh moment of agony, of terror, of doubt; oh moment of victory, and of triumph, and of joy!

"The Frenchman wins!"

Yes, messieurs the aristocrats! Yes, mesdemoiselles the blonde misses! The Frenchman wins. Is it that you wonder? To the French, victory is an atmosphere-triumph an ordinary attendant upon common life-and the glory, it is our inheritance to us all, we others. We had but to apply ourselves to the turf to surpass at a stride your vaunted sportsmen of the most exclusive.

Believe not that we shall border our victories here. No, the year shall not be over before French yachts shall float in the waters of the Solent and challenge your effeminate dandies to an Ocean cruise! I will myself accompany them-although I do not love the Sea, mysterious as Eternity, infinite as Space, and disagreeable when rough!

We will meet you, man for man, at the Lord's Oval, St. John's Wood, Kennington-your chosen arena for the crickets. Ha, ha, we too can be agile, we others, and strike the little ball high up in

the air!

Here's a Jolly (C)lark!

notion. We identify it with a buoyancy of spirit, an unwonted mental Or enjoyment as a grand sum total, we all have a sufficiently vivid miseries of others with the knowledge that we at least are happy. If elasticity, and a general disposition to console ourselves for the we stood in want of anything to tell us when we are enjoying ourselves to the full, we should find it in the impatient irritability with which we listen, under those circumstances, to a tale of horrible distress, and the indignation with which we regard a hopelessly crippled beggar who has ventured to bring himself under our notice. So much for the sum total. But when we come to the items we find that no two are entirely agreed as to what they are. Five and five are ten, but so also are seven and three, and so are eight and two. It is so with the constituents of enjoyment. We are all agreed as to what it is, but we none of us fully agree as to how it is to be attained. In one case it may mean an artillery ball, in another pipes and beer, in a third it may even signify the middle of Drury-lane pit in a hot June, during a performance of Henry the Eighth and Comus. But there exists a source of enjoyment whose existence we never should have suspected. We gather it from the subjoined advertisement, which refers to a suburban tea-garden:

GARDENS.-Dancing every evening.-Here congregate all the junior clerks in the Government offices, from the happy recipient of an allowance of £50 per month from the governor,' to the dashing acceptor of a salary of 30s. per week from a highly respectable house in the City; and all are equally happy and delighted with H's good fare. Two grand galas on the Derby and Oaks nights. Trains from Epsom to - gardens at five minutes to seven."

There's an attraction! What more appropriate termination to the rollicking festivities of Epsom could you devise than lying lazily on the new grass and watching the sportive gambols of junior Government clerks? There is a barrowful of tranquil joy in the very notion. Let us make a suggestion for the decoration of the tea-gardens. Tea-gardens are nothing without statues. What does the spirited proprietor say to the following designs for plaster of Paris? 1. Clerks at play.

2. Junior clerks at the bath. 3. Senior clerk and nymph.

4. Clerk fleeing from nymph, changed into a laurel.

5. Clerk startled at the bath, changing a nymph into a stag. 6. The Three Clerks, the apple of discord, and the judgment of

TROLLOPE.

7. MR. JOHN CLARKE fleeing from Bacchanal.

8. Torso of War-office temporary clerk, from the Get-Vat-i-can. There you are! There's a gallery of sculpture ready-made. We charge nothing for this suggestion, beyond the price of the number.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

[IT is quite impossible for us to reply to the numerous letters addressed to us; but as we don't mind showing that we can do an impossibility when we like, we, for this once only, respond to a few communications.]

POETA wishes to know whether we want some lines. If we did we should apply to the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company (Unlimited).

PROSY writes to inform us that he has sent a few jokes on approval. We have looked through the manuscript, but have failed to find them. Perhaps, as the parcel came by book-post, they may have slipped out at the end. He had better inquire at St. Martin's-le-Grand."

"WISER AND BETTER" has forwarded us some bets drawn on the Downs last week, in hopes that we may avail ourselves of them as illustrations, as they are of no use to him. We beg to decline the offer with thanks.

Moosoo, to whom we are indebted for "A Poesy of the Victory of Gladiateur, in the English," is respectfully informed that the English has got so broken in its transit through the post that we can make nothing of it.

MELANCHOLY, who has sent us "An Ode to the Nightingale," should a-know'd better. If he had favoured us with a personal call we could have informed him (in confidence) that ours is a comic paper. A SUBSCRIBER (Kensington).-Yes! But if you had no choice botween that block and your own head, you would appreciate a head-itorial difficulty.

DECLINED WITH THANKS.- "An Essay on the Effects of BANTING," by a reduced gentleman. "An Epic (leptic), in several Fyttes." "A Thousand and One Lectures on Anything in General," by an art critic. "That Slang! Hear we must again!" a new and entirely original comic song, &c., &c., &c.

ACCEPTED WITH PLEASURE.-A case of champagne. Three boxes of prime cigars. Two phaetons and pairs. A villa standing in its own grounds. Numerous invitations from nobility, British and foreign. A season-ticket for whitebait at Greenwich, &c., &c., &c.

we can make them out.

Our KING CHARLES' Spaniel (descended from one in the possession of SAMUEL PEPYS) makes the following entry in his Dog-diary:

"MONDAY.-Towards Islington by road, with my wife. Pretty to see the carriages, but nearly run over, which maketh me to think how uncertain is our life, and yet how we do snarl and bark at one another. My wife looked, methought, mighty pretty; but, good LORD, how changeable is her temper! For near the Angel Tavern, as I stopped for a moment to salute my friend little Flo-who did look extraordinary fine, with a new piece of riband round her neck-my wife to grow jealous and to talk of divorce, saying Flo to be an artful and designing- But it is mere foolishness of my wife. Gave her part of a bone which I picked up, and she to call me her dear old hubby and a darling! (Mem.-To find out little Flo's address!) And so to the Agricultural Hall, where a poor show-good in numbers, but inferior to that of last year in quality. Some of the Farmers seemed strong and healthy, and there were a couple of Dissenting Ministers, pretty to see; but, dear, dear, the fine old British Gentleman breed is, methinks, dying out. Some of the Female specimens, good; but these pestilent iron hoops that they do wear hurt me in the ribs, and my wife to laugh loudly, whereon a kind of keeper to threaten her with his whip, and I to show my teeth, but it was my wife's folly. And so home to dinner, very merry after all. (Mem.-To be at the Angel to-morrow!)

Our Whitechapel Bull-pup makes a statement which, divested of some unnecessarily strong language, runs as follows:

"Vell, I never see sich a lot o' duffers, not since I fit agin old oneeyed Bob, a year and a 'alf come Michaelmas. There ain't scarcely so much as a ankle among 'em, let alone a calf, as 'ud tempt a dog of sperrit! And wot with their baggy trousers, yer never knows vere

yer are, vich I got a good 'old, as I reckoned, on a young cove, and ven I took my teeth off of him, blowed if my mouth wasn't full of sixteen shilling trousers and red woollen socks!"

Our Chinese Dog writes as follows, and we are promised a translation by SIR JOHN BOWRING:

'Li tsin hang kwow, chow chow, le le, kee kee, li, bow, wow!" Our Scotch Terrier, who appeared very anxious not to commit himself, observes:

"A-weel, a-weel, it's just a queer warld, wi' dogs and men baith, the noo! Eh, mon, but it's a wise chiel that kens its ain father, and ye needna' fash yoursel' sae muckle wi' your pedigree-though I come mysel' o' a gude old Galloway house, that was far kenn'd and weel respeckit. And I'm just twal pennies the poorer, and the mair fule I! They that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar, but ye'll no find Sandy Macfarlane pay anither bawbee to glower at a host o' twa-legged bodies wi' never sae much as a bark amang them a'. Eh, but BURNS was richt: "The king may keep a spaniel fine,

Wi' riband, sash, and a' that; The collar's but the guinea stamp, The dog's the gowd for a' that! For a' that, and a' that,

Your plates o' milk and a' that; A terrier dog's aboon his power, Good faith, he canna fa' that!"

In conclusion, we regret that we cannot publish a report from our French Poodle, who has not yet recovered from his terrible run along the course at Epsom. He had, however, the consolation of witnessing the victory of "Gladiateur."

Sambo and the Duke.

"I SAY, POMP, why for dey scratch him Duke, eh?" "Cos him owner wos tickler uncumfable about him!"

"THE PECULIAR FAMILY."-The BUONAPARTES.

IN THE WRONG BOX AT THE OPERA.

THE MALEDICTINE BRETHREN.

A FARCE.

Where down Pall Mall

Dundrearies saunter;

My salary's small-but, ah! for more

Some years I must be still a panter!

What chance of marriage

Her father, failing in the city, Died, paying tenpence in the pound,

And left her penniless and pretty.

Her uncle JOHN supports her now
(I'd like to see him in a pond ducked),
And makes her feel acutely how

Extremely generous is his conduct!

Yet she's with everything supplied,

With all the fashion that is France'sWith flowers, and songs, and hacks to ride, And goes to concerts, drums, and dances. She's dressed in all that's rich and smartMoves in society the foremost

In fact she's in the Marriage Mart;

'Tis that which makes my heart feel sore most.

I think she loves me! In the Box

When music's charm is overpowering, And that young puppy, ALBERT KNOX,

Stands close behind us glum and glowering; When fond AMINA's taper burns,

Or sad MEDEA's love's revilèd,

To me for sympathy she turns,

While gentle tears bedew each eyelid.

We mingle sighs for lovers' woes

We smile to see their bliss made certain;

And so the happy evening goes

Till envious Fate lets fall the curtain.

She'll let me press her hand a bit;

And with me-though her aunt glares finely

At parties on the stairs she'll sit.

She's told me that I waltz divinely!

But what's the use? Heaven save the mark!
Our wooing ne'er can lead to wedlock.
She's poor-and I'm an ill-paid clerk;
Matters would quickly come to dead-lock.
Unions are now secured by rents.

In lieu of those rare perfumes olden
God HYMEN's torch sheds ten per cents-
Love's chains are eighteen-carat-golden.

So, she goes her way-I go mine!

Our love is vain, though for the best meant, And we see clearly, I opine,

That marriage is a mere investment; And we must let this mad world wag, And bow to Fate's decision ruthless. Well! I shall wed some wealthy hagAnd she a dotard, rich as toothless!

A Better-class Riddle.

IF "ponies" could speak at this time of the year, what Greek prince would they name ?-MENELAUS, of course.

Time-a very pretty time of night. Enter two of the Maledictine brethren.

Opening Duet.

Oh, we won't go home till matins, We won't go home till matins, We won't go home till ma-a-tins,

Let's do another beer!

[Exeunt reeling. A policeman is seen watching them in the distance. SCENE SECOND.-The grand oratory of the Maledictine brethren fitted up as a peep-show with glasses for spectators. FATHER DIGNATIUS discovered 'monishing the brethren. Choristers in bed-gowns ringing large hand-bells.

INDIG. For this offence, O my beloved, hear ye the meet and fitting penance. For three weeks ye must neither eat, drink, sneeze, nor wink, but solemnly repeat, from day to day, the title page of the Life of the Saintly Bopsius. Ye shall wear thistles beneath your robes, and thrice each night flagellate yourselves with the nettle. You shall

ORRIDGENT.-Oh, I say-nonsense. You don't mean to say that you're in earnest? This is carrying fun a little too far.

BOGUS.-Suppose we won't?

INDIG. Then it will be my sad task to pronounce the sentence of ex-com-monkeyation. Moreover, if ye fail to perform the penance enjoined ye shall be cursed.

BOTH BRETHREN.-We'll be cursed if we do, so it comes to the same thing.

INDIG.-In that case wait till I put on my swearing tackle.

[Exit, with choristers. BOGUS.-Oh, let's be off. I can't stand him any longer. ORRID.-No, no; wait a bit, and let's see what he's after. Re-enter INDIGNATIUS, with his face and hands black-leaded. Also choristers, burnt-corked, holding each a rushlight covered by an extinguisher, and singing in solemn chorus,

Fiat cum curâ,
Turpis mistura,
Ter in die capienda

Et noctaliter sumenda.

INDIG.-Forasmuch as it hath pleased our beloved brethren-whom blank, and dash, and asterisk for all time-to offend us greatly, not by the offence of drunkenness, which we regard not, but by the heinous crime of disobedience to ourselves, let them now hear their doom. May they have warts on their nails, boils on their bones, chilblains on their eyelids, and bunions at the roots of their hair. May turnips infest their joints, and parsley sprout from their knuckles. May their feet become like even unto those of pickled eels.

While he pauses for breath the choristers chant:
Response.-Vir bonus est quis.

INDIG.-May they be dratted, bothered, confounded, flummoxed, flabergasted, shampooed, and be-devilled.

CHORISTERS.-Mihi est propositum, in tabernâ mori.

INDIG.-May they fall on their noses when they wish to walk, and tumble out of the bed on the wrong side when they sleep. May their teeth drop from their feet, and their toes come loose in their heads. May their shirt-buttons fail them, and their sandals turn into mustard poultices.

CHORISTERS.-Frigidum sine, aut calidum cum.

INDIG.-May their food be jerked beef, and their drink warm penny

sherbet.

CHORISTERS.-Horum horum, sunt Divorum.

INDIG.-May they be smuggled for guys, hissed at for geese, chivied for pickpockets, and poor-law-boarded for casuals.

CHORISTERS.-Et est pauper.

INDIG.-Whack them, smash them, kick them, and smite them, O ye faithful among the people. May their razors be blunt for ever, and their whiskers be carrotty.

CHORISTERS.-Omne adjectivum cum substantivo concordat. INDIG.-May all their money be bad, and may they catch the measles once a week. May they see nothing by day and bogueys by night.

CHORISTERS.-Ipse dixit-ipse tipse.

INDIG.-Let the congregation depart, greatly edified, but horribly frightened.

[Exeunt the two Maledictine brethren, grinning.

CURTAIN.

FROM OUR STALL.

T

HE Honourable Samuel

Slingsby, brother to the famous Lord Dundreary, is the sort of young man very often met with in society, at clubs, and on race-courses, and seldom anywhere else. He is patrician, or he is nothing. Take from him his advantage of birth, and he is a waiter on fortune of not the most respectable sort. Sam lives upon his uncle, a plebeian, named Rumbelow, and his latest artifice to extract money has been to write to his uncle to say that he is married. Rumby, as his nephew calls him, comes down with remittances, but, to Sam's horror, sends word that he shall come down himself to kiss his nephew's wife and baby. Sam, like Othello after the death of Desdemona, has "no wife," and, of course, no baby. What is he to do? He is impudence itself, and what does it matter what a man of family does to low people? If a man of family wants money, you know, and that sort of thing, the low people must be in fault; the thing's as clear as gaslight, daylight, moonlight-what is it? Sam coolly proposes to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Trimbush, who have a villa at Scarborough, to let him invite Rumby there, as if the place were his own, and also that Mrs. T., during his uncle's stay, should pass for Mrs. Sam, and-snowy crest of Arctic impudence!-that the baby, only son of Mrs. Trimbush, and Adolphus, &c., be handed to Rumby as the only son of the Hon. S. S., &c. The Trimbushes yield the point about the house, but in re Mrs. T. and the sacred infant, they say, "Never!" Mrs. Trimbush's unmarried sister Alice (all agreeable married women have a single sister to deal death among their husband's bachelor acquaintances), who has cast an eye of affection upon Samis not Sam the brother of a lord, and a very worthless fellow, and is he not therefore a man invented to be loved ?-volunteers for the position of honorary wife, and the good-natured Rumby is deceived. For the complications arising from this deception until five minutes before the fall of the curtain, we must refer our readers to the Haymarket Theatre. Seats can be secured two months in advance. We may say, however, that eventually Sam espouses Alice-the lucky villain (Alice is played by MISS NELLY MOORE)-and Rumby forgives everything and everybody. What were stage-uncles made for?

MR. SOTHERN'S Brother Sam is quite a creation. He is a lighthaired, easy-going sort of "plunger" who has gone through drill and a great deal of billiards. He would look well in pink, or at a steeplechase for gentlemen riders only. It is an extraordinary performance, and suggests how admirably MR. SOTHERN Would play Jim Harthouse in DICKENS'S Hard Times.

For the piece of Brother Sam-it is a thoroughly theatrical piece, and has been very well done by MR. JOHN OXENFORD. It is almost a pity that so real a personage as Brother Sam should have made his appearance in a comedy so dramatically artificial. There is an odd sort of no-man's-land familiar to the stage-side of the footlights, and the constant dwelling therein makes actors dubious as to the existence of

an actual world.

Brother Sam is capitally acted. MR. BUCKSTONE exhibits all his good-natured English geniality in Uncle Rumby, and looks in his white wig and grey whiskers very like LORD PALMERSTON. MR. COMPTON acts the easy-going conventional country gentleman Trimbush to the life. MISS SNOWDON, or I should say MRS. TRIMBUSH, is an elegant, stately matron, who treads her Turkey carpet and wellrolled lawn with the proud consciousness of power, and a baby in the nursery. She is as a graceful arch-necked swan, wearing green silk in the last act. Excuse this confusion of imagery, but there are certain subjects upon which word-painting is absolutely essential.

It is now about eighteen months ago-don't be alarmed, we are not about to bring out chairs to the centre of the stage, and inform you in polysyllables how under exceptional and extenuating circumstances we murdered our twin-brother and dearest friend-it is now about eighteen months ago since we fell in love with MISS NELLY MOORE. It is a charming name, NELLY, so soft and liquid-charming to write, to speak, or to hear. Well, MISS NELLY MOORE, as Alice, is all that a man's sweetheart should be-fresh, artless, innocent, confiding, and caressing, and with just that soupçon of a will of her own, which makes fair girls still more adorable, because you had not supposed temper compatible with flaxen hair. And àpropos of hair, let us say

that in Brother Sam MISS NELLY MOORE's hair is-well, yes-magna est veritas, &c.-auburn.

It is one of the penalties of success in novel-writing that the successful novelist shall undergo the pain of seeing his work in a dramatic form. To the sensitive author who has taken pains with his plot, and who has almost taught himself to believe that the creations of his brain enjoy an independent existence, this must be a fearful shock. To say nothing of the mutilation of his plot, it must be a terrible thing to find his characters bereft of their special individuality in order to meet the resources of the theatre at which the dramatised version is to be produced.

MISS BRADDON's novel, Eleanor's Victory, has been roughly handled by MR. OXENFORD. The novel is not by any means well fitted for stage purposes, and MR. OXENFORD has probably adapted it as well as it could be done. But still there is a disjointedness (if we may be allowed the expression) about the play which it is impossible to overlook. MISS HERBERT, as Eleanor Vane, played very charmingly, and, of course, looked extremely ladylike. She appears to have lost much of that "wavy" action which, a year ago, constituted her principal defect, and her performance in Eleanor's Victory really left nothing to be desired. MR. H. J. MONTAGUE played the disagreeable part of Lancelot Darrell in a quiet, gentlemanly manner, and gave evidence of an appreciation of character which will do much to raise him in his profession. MR. ROBINSON'S Bourdon was simply a conventional heavy villain, and calls for no notice. MR. and MRS. FRANK MATTHEWS, as Major and Mrs. Lennard, wandered aimlessly through the earlier acts, interchanging remarks utterly pointless in themselves, but given so artistically that one overlooked the nonsense they talked in admiration of the manner in which they talked it. The piece is capitally placed upon the stage, and was extremely well received.

GOOD NEWS FOR PAGANS.

THERE is a peculiarly offensive class of advertisers who derive considerable incomes from a judicious investment of a floating capital of conventional Christianity. If they want an engagement they invariably insist that it shall be in a Christian family, as if Pagan families were the rule in England. They can do nothing in advertisements without lugging in Christendom neck and heels, and a large proportion of them consider that no announcement is complete unless studded with "D.V.'s." They pass their lives in saying one perpetual grace-not in the spirit, which is right and proper, but orally and with a great deal of sounding brass, which is hypocritical and contemptible.

But the following advertisement would seem to suggest that the advertiser has tried Christianity and found it a failure:

TO the NOBILITY.-A highly educated gentlewoman, who has had (for the last family, finds it does not answer, and wishes a RE-ENGAGEMENT in a nobleman's eight years) a few young ladies to educate on the plan of a private Christian family as GOVERNESS or CHAPERONE.

for in an advertising Christian, especially a Christian whose sense of There is a candour about this which we should hardly have looked gentility will not permit her to discharge her Christian functions in any but a nobleman's family. An advertising Christian is the very long as she was in a position to identify herself, if only as a chaperone, one of all others who would be likely to despise the baronetage as with dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons. We are not Sorry to hear of the failure of a Christianity which is recorded by its votary simply as a speculation which "does not answer." Vishnu, Siva, Brahma, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and Virorum have inBy the bye, we understand that Mahomet, Confucius, Buddha, terchanged cards of congratulation.

Kilt Entirely!

Of course it would be too Hibernian to say that a Scotchman has made an Irish bull, but we must be permitted to express an opinion that the following paragraph is a Kyloe variety of that well-known animal:

"Before the PRINCE OF WALES visits Dunrobin Castle in the autumn, the whole of the Sutherland Volunteers are to be divested of their trousers."

Instead of calling the castle Dunrobin, we should think, under the circumstances, it ought to be designated Begun-unrobin'.

A PRIVATE INQUIRY.-Why is a soldier who attends to the command, "Prepare to receive cavalry," like his own weapon ?-Because he's abeyin'-it.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

BELGRAVIA.

HAVING now, by the brilliant success of all his prophecies, raised your organ to what I may call a Sportive Pinnacle, NICHOLAS will seriously enter upon his editorial duties, which is to impart information regardless of age or sex. There is no racing fixture which he considers worthy of particular mention just at present; added to which, ever since that horrible rain on the Oaks day am racked with rheumatism that would move a flint, and as hoarse as the Scotch raven mentioned by SHAKESPEARE in Macbeth, and having been myself in Scotland, where it rained perpetual, should imagine that a Scotch raven was very hoarse indeed, SHAKESPEARE saying as much, and the swan of Avon being amongst the most intelligent men of his time, and therefore not likely to be wrong. As for anticipations of Ascot or the Ledger, you shall have them all in good time, and is much mistaken if I do not pull off both events as successfully as Epsom. It is well said by the poet KEMBLE

"Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
Which coming events casts their shadows afore!"

Yes, Mr. Editor, the old man is, as he may say, declining into the Vale of Years. He have had his ups and downs, which if all his experience were to be wrote down in a book the reader might exclaim, with TITUS ANDRONICUS, "O Truth, thou art stranger than Fiction! and will readily back it for interest and variety against the field, bar none. And some day perchance will communicate to you a few chapters from my authorbiography.

Fond as NICHOLAS may be of equestrian competitions-or, as a man might say, horse-racing-he knows that there are other pursuits to which the youth of his native land (Britannia the pride of the ocean, the home of the brave and the free, the shrine of the patriot's devotion, as it says in the well-known song) are addicted. In many of those games, it would not be consistent with the figure of your prophet, nor with his time of life, to take an active part, having always had a slight tendency to corpulence, and which the sight of a white-haired elder a-taking of a header at a swimming baths for a silver cup would make younger people only look contemptuous; but can play at croquet, and it is pleasant in the evening of one's life, after vicissitudes, to moon about a lawn in a fatherly manner, like what NICHOLAS would expect in a Rural Dean with a balance at the bank; and, in fact, shall go into society a good deal this year. Why not?

I shall always give special prominence to every subject connected with

THE TURF.

My own career is a sufficient refutation of the absurd prejudices against betting and betting-men. I have shown, I trust, that honesty, mingled with good private information, may lead to fortune through the paths of speculation; and as to gentlemanly manners am second to none, never having eaten fish with a knife since I came into my present house, no more I ever will.

THE RING.

The manly art of self-defence will occasionally form the subject of a bright and graphic article, modelled upon them which have appeared in the columns of the daily press. And though now too fat for sparring, not to speak of his years, NICHOLAS fancies he could still put one or two of the young ones up to a trick or two; and would lift up his hands even now if he saw any one ill-treat a woman.

CRICKET.

Of this noble sport your Prophet is particular fond; and when there is no great racing meeting on, you may see the old man a-sitting quietly on a bench at Kennington Oval or LORD's, though not so often the latter, owing to his having been meanly blackballed when he put up as a member for the Marylebone, with his honest pot of porter on the ground beside him, though well able to afford sherry wine if it wouldn't look so ostentatious. NICHOLAS will soon have something to say to the professional players.

HUNTING AND COURSING

Will be attended to, as the season may require, though you don't catch a man at my time of life a-riding recklessly at five-barred gates like MR. ANTHONY TROLLOPE in the Pall Mall Gazette.

FISHING

Shall never be neglected, for as the twig is bent the tree's inclined, and although your Sportive Editor was not particularly fortunate in Scotland with the salmons, yet is always game to make one in a punt, and shall never forget my happiness the first time as I caught a eel. Added to which, fishing will enable me to describe scenery, and show

THE variety of ways in which a journey can be accomplished in these days is almost endless; but we must confess to a little surprise at discovering one mode of travelling, hitherto unheard of, mentioned in an off-hand manner in the following advertisement:

Good Small Investments.-A neat Five-roomed Detached Cottage, with good
Gardens, 5, -street, road. Let at £18 4s. Ground rent £2. Also, a
Desirable Six-roomed House, 18, street, Park. Let at £20 168. Ground
Rent £210s. Term over 90 years.
BROTHERS will SELL the above, at GARRAWAY'S, Cornhill,
June, at One o'clock, by direction of the vendor, who is leaving
London in Separate Lots. Particulars, etc.

MESSRS.,

On behalf of the timorons and nervous we entreat the railway companies to keep an eye on this eccentric vendor. Imagine the terror of an unprotected female on finding a ghastly "separate lot" of dissipated vendor in the same carriage with her! But the railways will probably look after him on their own account, because if any of the lots were mislaid-say, the trunk, for instance no doubt he could proceed against them for lost luggage.

CONCENTRATED ESSENCE OF THOUGHT.
BY OUR OWN EPIGRAMMATIST.
ADVERSITY.

Adversity is a sharp thimble that is never so near individuality as when it is bowled over by the thin thread of research.

MATRIMONY.

Matrimony resembles spring peas-it puffs wildly for a century or two, and then settles down into a contemptuous Committee of Ways and Means.

HAPPINESS.

What is happiness but the charity of the many eliminated by the dandy-grey-russet of the few?

CONSOLATION.

The philosopher said that no one ever yet saw the inside of an adverb. How much more truly might he have remarked that no one ever yet beheld the outside of a preposition!

BEAUTY.

Beauty is, after all, but a manly interior covered by the gambroon cloak of contemptuous individuality.

The Chancellor's Hinton-ation. WE learn from a fashionable contemporary that,

"There is no foundation for the report that the Lord Chancellor has taken Hinton House, the seat of EARL PAULETT."

We thought as much! It was evident from the way in which he treated the report of the EDMUNDS Committee, that his lordship was not the sort of man to take a Hint-on any subject.

IN-CHOIR WITHIN.

WE are assured by the editor of the Papermaker's Journal that the reason why no cathederal is considered complete without a couple of dozen choristers in white surplices is that there must always be twentyfour sheets in a quire, or place where they sing.

EMIGRATION EXTRAORDINARY.-In consequence of the extreme heat of the weather, all the Coolies have gone to Chili.