MRS. BROWN ON MODERN HOUSES. HOUSES indeed! I calls 'em regl'ar ram-shackle nutshells, run-up rubbish, where you can't drive a nail with safety nor hang up a picter with comfort. Certainly they was elegant outside, with their white fronts and 'andsome windows to look at; but I never see such glass to look through, as made things seem that drawed out as you didn't know the postman from the pot-boy.

As to anythin' a-fittin', there wasn't a window-frame, as didn't shake like earthquakes with me only a-walkin' across the room, and as to the BUTLERS, as lives next door but three, they give a evenin' party as brought the floor in.

They invited me and BROWN, as didn't wish for to go, bein' one as don't hold with no goin's out through a-takin' of his pipe quiet in the front kitchen, as is a pretty room, bein' meant for a sittin'-room, not as ever I fancied it, havin' a mouldy smell, and bein' frequent overflowed in the spring tides.

Why ever they calls them spring I can't think, for we was very near floated out twice the week afore last, and November no one can't call spring.

I'm sure the shock as that MRS. GIDDINS give me I never shall forget, as is a wrong-headed woman as ever I had in my house, though I will say clean and honest. Not as I holds with her officious ways, as led to her washin' away every bit of my mock turtle, as I'd been two days a-makin'. For BROWN says to me as he'd got a calf'shead cheap, as is a thing as a little goes a long way in my opinion, though with a bit of bacon he relished for his supper. So I makes the rest into mock turtle, and the forcemeat I was proud on, and puts it out to cool in a picklin'-pan in the back kitchen.

It was the day after that gal left as I'd give warnin' to, through her a-sayin' as she'd rather starve than eat cold mutton, as was good enough for me.

So I had MRS. GIDDINS in for half-a-day to tidy up the place ready for the young woman as was a-comin' that evenin'. When I come down after a-puttin' on my cap for tea, I see that picklin'-pan washed up clean. So I says, "Where ever have you put my soup?" "What soup?" says she. "That as was in that pan," says I. "That muck," says she. "Why, I've throwed it down the sink," through her ignorance, not a-knowin' what it really were.

I was that wild as I could have throwed her down after it, but as she didn't go to do it I said no more.

I said to her a little later on, "MRS. GIDDINS, I want you to go up into the lumber-room," as is over my bed-room, a sort of a cupboard in the slant of the roof, as I'd put away some boxes in, "and pull me out a black portmanty, as I wanted to get somethin' out on." Up she goes all of a bustle.

I says, "Tread light," through a-knowin' as there wasn't no floor but lath and plasters to that cupboard. "All right," says she. So I hearin' her a-rummagin' and a-pullin' the things about calls out, "Can't you find it?" She says, "If you'd come and hold the candle I could get it out," as was jammed and crammed tight in the

corner.

Up I goes and takes the candle, and there we was a-standin' in that cupboard, as is nothin' but beams. I was standin' on a beam, and MRS. GIDDINS in front on me, a-haulin' at that portmanty like mad. Well, she gives it a pull with all her force as made it come out all of a sudden like.

The jerk as she give it throwed her back agin me, as tipped me off the beam on to the lath and plaister, and through I goes with that crash as made me think the house was all about our ears.

I struggles natural, as any one would, and, ketchin' hold of MRS. GIDDINS pulls her through too.

Well, there we was through the ceilin', with our legs a-danglin' in my bed-room, and that caught as we couldn't get up, MRS. GIDDINS a-screamin' like wild as she was murdered, with the candle knocked out, and we might have been there till now, only as luck would have it BROWN come in earlier than I expected. But, law bless you, he could do nothin' for ever so long for laughin', and when he did draw us up if he didn't say as MRS. GIDDINS were a old fool and me another for not knowin' better than to tread on lath and plaster, as is a downright disgrace for floorin'.

If you'd seen my bed-room it was a perfect wilderness for bits of mortar, and why it didn't all come down together I can't make out. I never shall forget the way as them walls wouldn't hold a picter of a aunt of BROWN's, as left us the bit of property as we're a-livin' on. A beautiful picter it was, as her good gentleman paid three guineas for to have painted by a painter as had done QUEEN CAROLINE in a low-necked dress, with a pink hat and the cheeks to match, as had a bird on her finger.

The trouble as I've took with that frame a-keepin' off the flies in

summer with yaller calamancer nobody wouldn't believe, and so I did ought to, for it cost thirty shillin's second-hand, lovely gold shellwork at the four corners.

Well, we hung it up in the front parlour over the mantel-piece, where I'd got some beautiful wax fruit underneath a glass cover, with a peach stone, that nat'ral as you'd a-took and cracked it, and it looked downright noble. We hung it up, as I was sayin', just afore supper MRS. GIDDINS and me, with a nail that long as I thought it would go through the next door, for it went in that sudden with only two blows of a flat iron.

Just as I was a-helpin' BROWN to a bit of pickled pork and greens there come a crash as if heaven and earth had come together. I looks at BROWN, and he looks at me. "Whatever can it be?" says he. "The picter," says I.

Up I rushes, and of all the sights it was that picter, for if it hadn't pulverised my wax fruit, and split the marble chimly-piece, and, wust of all, it had ketched agin the corner of the fender, as MRS. GIDDINS had been that foolish for to leave a-standin' on the rug through a-movin' of it for to put the steps nearer when we was a-hangin' of the picter up, and if the corner of the fender hadn't gone right through her cheek a-tearin' away a bit of the nose.

The walls was that rotton all over the house. As to the kitchendresser it was a-startin' right away from them, and the plates and dishes in constant jeopardy, and the draught round them skirtin' boards was enough to blow your legs off: there wasn't a door as would shut, and as to the cockroaches and beadles as made that free that the kitchen floor was black with them; not for to mention things as was in the bed-rooms as defied soft soap; and turps didn't take no effect on, and all the satisfaction as I got was to be told as they was in the woods as come from America, as I can easy believe, for in my opinion them 'Merricans is capable of anythin', like all those niggers as I remembers well was 'mancipated along with the Catholics many years ago; not as ever I could a-bear them blacks, nor fancy moist sugar as they mauls about with their hands and feet; a-butcherin' of women and children as is their savage natures; but if they'd have kept their beastly woods to theirselves I shouldn't have cared, as has caused me many a sleepless night, and my four-post took down three times in five weeks, for rest I can't with the thought of them in my head, and shouldn't have minded so much if the landlord hadn't give me his impudence, a-sayin' as his house was built for ladies and gentlemen, as didn't go a-tearin' about like mad bulls.

So I says, "If you are alludin' to me in mad bulls, I'd thank you for to remember as you're a-talking to a lady; and as to your house I only hope it will hold together till our year is out, and then catch me a-stoppin' in your place, as is a mean dusthole."

"Day Decreased-Six Hours, Fifteen Minutes."
"How the days begin to shorten"-it's a common-place remark,
Once at eight we lit the candle, now at four it's growing dark;
The world's the same, no doubt, but yet it somehow seems to me
The days are all much shorter now than once they used to be.
I know I grow

Towards sixty-five or so,
But I think some alteration has been going on below.

I call to mind the length of time when I was only ten,
That passed between the pantomimes-my holidays were then;
An age appeared to intervene 'twixt that day I went down

To school and that long-wished-for night when next I saw the clown.
And so, I know

The days passed slow,

Although the days were sunny ones that kept my heart a-glow.

They quicker went in manhood;-when I courted Carry B.,
The months flew by like magic,-it was wonderful to see;
A little chat and music, with a tender word or so,
And then I had paternal hints about the time to go.
Heigho! I know,
Those bright days go,

With a fleetness and a sweetness that before they didn't show.

But now how quick the years roll round, how fast new dates arrive,
I've hardly written "sixty-four" before it's "sixty-five;"
And just got used to numerals, the look of which I know,
When "sixty-six" comes spinning up my dates to overthrow.
Just so, I show

How quick days go

When the heart gets less of sunshine and the head has more of snow.

FROM WELLINGTON BARRACKS.

An officer in the Grenadier Guards writes to us to enquire whether, if, in countermarching, he finds it necessary to cross a ditch, he can be said to be counterjumping? How the dickens should we know?

IN THE MATTER OF FAIR PLAY. BEING A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

MY DEAR JABEZ,-You are an excellent fellow. You are always ready to devote a large proportion of the Mammon of Unrighteousness that you have acquired by judicious dealings in the flour trade, to philanthropic purposes. You are a constant subscriber to the funds for providing the inhabitants of Central Africa with respirators, the natives of Greenland with penny ices, and the aborigines of the Nicobar Islands with Tidman's sea-salt, the whole conducted on extremely Evangelical principles. You have pretty little societies for promoting universal peace, and for abolishing slavery. They never do any practical good; the most efficient emancipationist being GENERAL GRANT, and the only means of abolishing slavery, war. But still they are eminently respectable; and if they do no good to any one else, they enable you to pay a salary to a person of whom you are remarkably fond, I really don't know why-MR. CHAMEROVZOW.

But, my dear JABEZ, you have your little faults, and one of them is a passionate preference for negroes over whites. The African is, I am informed, a man and a brother; I am not particularly proud of the relationship myself, but, physiologically, I dare say you are right. To shoot my black connexion, to hang him or to flog him, is a disagreeable task, but it is one from which I should not shrink if he attempted to murder myself, and MRS. FUN, and our charming babes. In such a cause, Sir, I would even hang MR. CHAMEROVZow or yourself. Another little peccadillo of yours, my dear JABEZ, is a tendency to misrepresent the actions and to malign the motives of English gentlemen. Flour-dealing, banking, bill-discounting, are excellent occupations in their way, but they are not positive proofs of infallibility. I submit that even a Quaker is liable to err. And I submit, also, that he probably does err when he accuses a gentleman of being a coward and a butcher.

I think, JABEZ, that in all the chronicles of missionary heroism

UTOPIA.

THERE is just one slight change in existence,
Which would certainly startle mankind,
And, I fear, meet a world of resistance,
Before it acceptance could find;
Yet, really, with life our relations
Would be from perplexity freed,
If people, on certain occasions,

Would take but the will for the deed!

Par exemple: when requested for payment
By SNIP, a most excellent man,

For various items of raiment

I reply, I will pay when I can:

But my answer appears not to please him,
For he still will insist on his need;
From what trouble my words would release him,
If he took but the will for the deed!

Quite lately, some friends in the city,
On business I need not now state,
A meeting arranged-'twas a pity-
To my grief, I was ten minutes late!
Frowns met me and dissatisfaction,

When excuses I ventured to plead"Twould have spared them a deal of distraction Had they taken the will for the deed!

I long to perform the glad labour

Of him who succeeds when he tries-
I should like to do good to my neighbour-

I fain would be wealthy and wise.

It would vastly befriend one's ambition-
The point, doubtless, all will concede-
If the world would accept this condition,
And take but the will for the deed!

DE HERETICO COMBURENDO.

A CORRESPONDENT, referring to a paragraph in our columns a week or so back, suggests that the £200 a year possessed by certain City parishes to defray the expense of faggots to burn heretics, should be applied to the purchase of coals, wherewith to burn out that arch-heretic "Cold," who persecutes the poor until he shakes their belief in Providence even. This would be adding fuel in a way that would remove a burning shame-the condition of the poor in this wealthy city.

and really noble chronicles many of them are-you will find nothing grander than the conduct of a gentleman named EYRE, who struggled for a thousand miles through the most frightful desert on the earth, with Murder dogging his footsteps, and who never lost heart or hope, but prayed fervently in the wilderness to the One who could aid; never lost faith in Him, never doubted His power or infinite loving-kindness. Also, I think, that if you will take the trouble to read for yourself the whole story of that man's life-you can get it at a bookstall for ten or twenty shillings-you will find that no one ever more fully comprehended or more nobly performed the duties of civilised man towards black savages. I have read that book, sir, with feelings-strangely mingled, you will say of reverence and rage; of reverence for the man's pure heroic gentle nature; of rage at the treatment he receives from you, sir, and your friends.

Rage, JABEZ, is the word; I don't say that it is not mixed with a little contempt; but for the moment the sensation is mainly that of fiery wrath at your infamous unfairness.

I don't discuss politics in these columns, and I have my own opinion as to the wisdom of some of GOVERNOR EYRE's proceedings, but I will give you a sample of the stuff that makes me so indignant.

I quote from your favourite paper, the one that published the famous "Lying List" of Confederate Bondholders-the Morning Star, and I invite you to mark the animus of the words:

MARAT. He may have professed philanthropic principles; so did ROBESPIERRE. He may never have travelled on the North London Railway; neither did THURTELL, GREENACRE, CARTOUCHE, nor MRS. MANNING."-FUN.

CORRESPONDENCE.

SIR,-Here is a pretty song. It is supposed to be sung by a timid and retiring village maiden to a noble tenor whom she secretly adores. She wishes to let him know that she loves him, but yet she will not overstep the bounds of maidenly reserve. How does she manage this? See:"I DO ADORE THEE!"

Oh EARL AUGUSTUS WILKINSON, Tra, la, la!
The blush of bashfulness upon Tra, la, la!
My maiden brow. Tra, la!

Forbids that I should e'er reveal, Tra, la, la!
The passion that for thee I feel, Tra, la, la!
Or tell thee how

CAN any one indicate the point of the following joke, clipt from a contemporary?—

"FINNYANS.-There is a county in Yorkshire which can boast of real Finnyan inmates of a clerical character, as the rector is named Duck, the curate Drake, and the schoolmaster Swan."

As neither Duck, Drake, nor Swan possesses fins, it is not easy to discover what is intended. The creatures alluded to are web-footed, as the author of the paragraph, being himself a goose, should have

known.

A PRE-ADAMITE.

OUR own charity boy says that BISHOP COLENSO is right, and ADAM was not the first man, because though he is mentioned at the beginning of Genesis, the "1st Chap." comes before him.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

THE British public is indebted to MESSRS. CASSELL, PETTER and GALPIN for an introduction to works of real genius in the drawings of GUSTAVE DORE, for they were among the first to make his illustrations popular in England. One of his finest works, DANTE's Inferno, is now published, with CARY's excellent translation-a capital text if not a highly poetical one. Of the playful fancy, the grotesque imagination, and the grand eye for effect, evinced in these drawings, it is needless to speak. We might select a few for special commendation, but the whole series is so even in merit that we should probably select only personal favourites, and our readers might fairly make a totally different choice. The volume is a splendid one, in every respect, paper and print being worthy of the illustrations.

MR. HOTTEN publishes the Hatchet-Throwers, and he and MR. WADE, whose name is a guarantee for the best of typography, have done their utmost. But the title might fairly have been selected as a delicate allusion to the style of engraving that a woodcutter, who, with becoming remorse, has not revealed his name, bestowed on the spirited drawings of M. GRISET. All the "go" has been hacked out of them, and the character lost even the correctness of anatomy which distinguishes M. GRISET's pictures, is occasionally destroyed. Still it is impossible quite to extinguish genius, and the artist's humour and power are discernible by those who know his style. Mr. GREENWOOD tells the stories with a raciness and quiet fun that are really refreshing. It is difficult to say which of the stories is the best, so we will leave it to our readers to choose for themselves, taking it, for granted, that when we seriously recommend a book, it is a well ascertained fact that it is good.

An apparently "big lot for the money" is a volume of Pictures of Society; but considering that it is a reprint from London Society, and therefore not an inexpensive book to produce, the public does not get as much as it should do for its guinea. And if its production was inexpensive, its editing must have cost nothing; for a selection of cuts on the principle of the old game of " Fright," and an arrangement no more complicated than the shaking-up of them in a hat appears to be all that has been done in that way; if we may except an ignorant altering of titles, most unfair to the publishers, as leading the public to suppose they are re-ticketing old goods to make them look like new, and most unfair to authors, whose care is stultified by the incompetence of the person acting as editor. We trust that another year a similar volume may be produced under proper supervision; for, after this haphazard selection, there are still many cuts and many articles in London Society that we should be glad to see reproduced.

Answers to Correspondents.

W. H., Wellington Road.-Pardoned in consideration of punishment. You wanted an autograph probably-and you got it. Another time don't interfere in matters you don't understand.

INO.-You know what we required, see last number. Epitaphs have been done to death.

A READER.-We have seen the letter you refer to, but cannot waste our reader's time and our own in advertising every small tragedian who doesn't like to hear the truth. It would be too cruel to ask our

readers to go and judge for themselves of the keyind of pronunciation.

P. F. K., Birmingham.-To perfume your notepaper till it smells like a Musk-ovite will not insure its Rushin' into print. We have received, and declined, the contributions you scent.

W. C., Brompton.-We cannot do you "Brown," he is not fresh enough.

W., Sandgate.-We will, as you request, insert the lines in FUN next weak"-not until then.

W. C., King's Cross.-We regret that we can give your lines " On Chili" only a cold reception.

W., Wisbeach.-We are sore-ry to have to put your "Inflamed Nose" out of joint, but we don't see the point of it. We wood if we could.

R. C., Everton, is a living example of "Cut and Comb again wish he wasn't.

-we

D. R., Manchester.-You send us an M.S. for our "magazine -we should have to be as big as all the magazines to contain as many ells as go to make up "the Lamentable Lamentation of the Late Lamented LL." Besides it lacks one very necessary "1"-the element of

fun.

[Since the commencement of the New Series one or two impudent attempts at imposture have been made by persons who write to claim remuneration for articles and drawings that have been contributed by our staff. A person at Woolwich was under the impression that he had written an article about the authorship of which the editor could be in no doubt, having written it himself. Another person in Manchester sent in a modest bill for a drawing in the Almanack that he had no more to do with than ADAM. We wish it to be understood that any future attempts of this sort will be exposed.]