MRS. BROWN RETURNS FROM THE COUNTRY.

I DON'T think as ever I felt more glad for anythin' than when I see that pony-shay draw up at MRS. BUMBERRY's door Monday mornin', for to take us to the train, for I'd said to her, "MRS. BUMBERRY, mum, you will excuse me, but get into your shay-cart agin I will not was it ever so." She says, "MRS. BROWN, it's not my intentions for to ask you, seein' as you broke the springs a-comin' and the mare is

much knocked about."

I says, "As to your springs, they could not be much for to break like that; and I'm sure I never laid a finger on your mare, as is a wicious brute in my opinion, as will take human life some day with its wagaries, mark my words." She says, "I don't think as you knows much about horse-flesh."

I says, "Probable not, through not a-bein' in the cat's-meat line," as shet her up pretty quick, and seemed for to sour her like, for she wasn't pleasant no more. I heard her with my own ears a-sayin' to the man as I must go to the rail the time as suited her, for she wasn't goin' to have her cattle dragged to death for nobody. So off I was by a little after nine, for BROWN he would walk by the fields. I didn't break my heart to wish that old skin and grief good-bye, as I hopes my gal will get on with.

I never did see such a hill as we went up; it's lucky as it was dark when we come down it, for I'm sure I should never have got to the bottom alive. As to that I didn't think as ever we should get up it, been as a man as was ploughin' come and helped us out. I had to walk up nearly all the steepest part with a thick gownd, two shawls, and my velvet cape, let alone carryin' my bandbox, as had my new bonnet and cap in, as I couldn't trust in that shay, as everythin' kep' a-tumblin' out on, and that's the way as my umbrella come to be missin', for the way that pony took that shay up the hill were surprisin', he kep' a-walkin' zig-zag like and over heaps as turned everythin' out twice.

and I do believe as I should be there now stickin' in a rut if it hadn't

It's a mercy as I was walkin', or I should have been pitched out over and over agin on that hill, and there wasn't nothin' for to keep you from rollin' from bottom to top. I never see such foolishness not a-cuttin' it down, as is growed up out of all reason for a thoroughfare, but what can you expect from them poor half-starved creeturs with nine shillins a-week for eight to live on. Why, I calls it murder, and so it is, whatever they may say, and wonders the poor stands it, when I see some of them grand houses where the squires lives, with their 'osses and their 'ounds a-tearing all over the place arter a poor bit of a fox, as might be shot easy like a dog, and was nearly my death, as we come upon em in a lane in their red coats and shoutin' like mad, and them ounds like wild beastes, and a fellow come slap over the edge, 'oss and all, that mudded as was disgraceful.

I says, "Well, if you was to come over my place like that I'd make you pay for it;" for I was a-restin' by a gate just as they come on me all of a bounce just as I was a-sayin' a few words to a old party as was breakin' stones, though seventy-nine, not as I could make out much as he said through never havin' been taught to speak proper, as however could he in that outlandish place; but, bless you, he seemed to be quite pleased at the sight of them 'unters and their 'ounds, and begun a-shoutin' too.

It's a mercy as we wasn't both tore to bits, for however should them dogs know whether you're a fox or a Christian, as the sayin' is. When they was gone I was all of a-tremble for the pony, shay, and the boy as was drivin', but law, the boy if he didn't climb up a tree and keep a-watchin' them 'unters ever so far. So I says, "We shall miss the train." He says, "That you won't," a-grinnin'.

Well, we got on pretty well arter that to the station, and if we hadn't got a hour and a-half to wait, as I calls downright shameful in MRS. BUMBERRY, as the boy said did it a-purpose through wantin' of him back. You never see such a station; nothin' but a shed to set under outside and a thorough draft inside through the fire bein' between two doors, as was opened constant.

The boy he went back in course, and wherever BROWN had got to I couldn't think; it was only just ten, and the train wasn't till a quarter to twelve.

I don't think as ever I was so uncomfortable, for, though not cold, it was raw and damp, as my feet was likewise, through a-walkin' so much.

I asks the young man for the refreshments, as only stared and said somethin' as nobody couldn't make out. I'd enough to do for to keep my eyes on my packages, as I kep' a-fancyin' wasn't all right, and was that chilled I didn't know what to do.

It was just half-past eleven when BROWN turned up all of a-glow, sayin' as he'd had a delightful walk, and had fell in with the 'ounds. I says, "It's a mercy you're alive for to tell the tale; for I'm sure it would have been my death to have fell in with them, it was quite enough to see and hear 'em," as made MR. GILES, as is MRS. BUMBERRY's brother, bust out a-laughin', as he'd been and walked with BROWN for to show him the country, as I'm sure is plain enough for

66

As they didn't answer the bell I walks up the steps to the front door, and hears 'em a-singin' and a-stampin' like a madhouse. So I ups and gives a knock at the door that loud as soon stopped their singin', and then a voice says, "Who's there?"

says, "Open the door this moment;" but I only heard a scufflin'. So I says to BROWN, "Just see if that kitchen-winder's fastened," as it did not prove to be, so he throwed it up, and was in in a instant, and opens the kitchen-door for me. So I bustles up the stairs and meets MRS. WALLIS full butt, as was that far gone in liquor enough to knock you down.

I says,

"Whatever is the meanin' of such goin's-on ?" She only gives a scream and tumbles candle and all for'ard on to me, and if BROWN hadn't been a-follerin' close behind would have swep' me down the kitchen-stairs. So I gives her a shove as made her get out of my way, and walks into my parlours, as was a sight, for if there wasn't three fellars in clay pipes, and one layin' on the sofa, as was the pot-boy, and two other parties, one elderly, as the sayin' is, and MARY ANN, as busts out a-screamin', and sayin' as it warn't her doin', but all MRS. WALLIS and only her mother.

I'm sure the sight of that room and the company give me that turn as I couldn't get no words out till I heard BROWN a-orderin' them fellars for to step it. At last I says, "MARY ANN TOPSETT," as were her name, "leave this house you do this night; and if it is only your mother she can take you;" and then the old lady begun for to beg and pray, but I says, "Be off with the whole lot. Send for your things in the mornin'."

As to MRS. WALLIS, she'd stept it somehow, I rather think through the pot-boy, as was her nephew.

It nearly broke my heart to see what they'd been and used, to say nothin' of wreck and ruin, and my bright copper kettle full on the fire burnt as black as a coal, and the things as was on the table you never did, black puddins and sprats, with baked potatoes and beef sausages, with odds and ends, and the smell of rum and baccy frightful. Well, it give me such a turn as I couldn't touch nothin' but a crust with somethin' warm.

I says, "BROWN, look round as all is safe, and let's get to bed," and so we did.

I must have been fast asleep through bein' tired when I hears a hammerin' as woke me up. Up I jumps, thinkin' it was that lot come back. I goes to the winder, and heard the hammerin' a-goin' on, and sees a policeman lookin' up. Says he, "I

So I goes to the door and says, "Whatever is it?" don't think it's thieves, but it's in your house." Well, we listens, and sure enough it was down below. So I lets in the policeman and he goes to the cellar, as BROWN had bolted up tight, and if there wasn't MRS. WALLIS, as had slep' off her liquor on the coals, and woke up not a-knowin' where she was, as had took refuge there in her fright at seein' me.

So I give the policeman a glass of somethin', and sent him home with the old faggot, as shan't never darken my doors agin; but I will say as them as has homes didn't ought to leave them.

THE LATEST THING OUT.-The policeman.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

PECKHAM.

MR. NICHOLAS presents his very friendly and quite cordial compliments to the Editor of FUN, whose missive (if an exceedingly uncalled for and peremptorial and individuous note, not even sealed with wax, but in a mere gummed envelope like the lowest of the low) did not reach him at those temporal premises in Bermondsey which shielded for a time your Prophet's hoary head against the pelting of pitiless impecuniosity, not to speak of many who would have gladly locked me up.

The best thanks of MR. NICHOLAS are due to that very worthy person MRS. CRIPPS, who forwarded the note to the house where the Prophet now resides, the honoured guest of a relation who has took

him up.

MR. NICHOLAS has known the lap of prosperity and he has, if he may be allowed the expression, often curled himself up like a dog on the doorstep of adversity. But he is now basking in the mild halo of the middle classes-a halo that only blooms once in a hundred years sixty of which he can vouch for as being within his period.

The epithets "Come, old man, put your best foot foremost, we want your Derby selection, and the printers are waiting for your history of Knurr and Spell," may not have been intended as contumelious nor designed to bring a tear; but it was in very different terms, sir, that you were once wont to address him; and he will gladly suppose you wrote such after dinner, the caliphgravy being of a shambling sort, and youth will be served. The Prophet is far too mature a sportive cove to grudge any one his fling, but it will not mitigate your dying hour to remember that you heaped the more casual and promiscuous ashes on a timeworn heart bowed down.

Thanks to my relative and his commercial antecedents, the Prophet now wants for nothing, but will gladly continue his flirtation with the Mewses in the columns of your New Serious, and hopes henceforward to be able to devote more leisure to the purely literary portion of his task, having endeavoured to form a good English style by devoting of his days and nights to the study of the Daily Press.

THE SPORTIVE KALENDER FOR 1866.

JANUARY.

It will be within the recollection of our readers that considerable sensation was recently created not a hundred miles from the neighbourhood of the city of London by a heavy fall of snow. Owing (it is supposed) to the unwarrantable remissness of the parochial authorities, than whom I am sure no one more disgracefully imbecile though a little bumptious, the devouring element was allowed to accumulate in the public thoroughfares regardless of expense, and bringing out into bright relief the steeples of the various churches in the vicinity, and there is every reason to believe that the consequences might have been serious had not the remonstrances put forward in the columns of the public press led to an immediate thaw. The posts and wires of the telegraphic companies were laid prostrate with the earth, and the classical Londoners who exclaimed "Vires acquirit eundo" were for once mistaken. Even when diligent relays of labourers had restored the posts to their accustomed animation, it was often found that the electric spark had fled.

Our readers will be glad to know that the electric spark has since returned, at twenty words a shilling. In spite of the most persevering enquiries on the part of the authorities at Scotland Yard, the origin of the-well, of the fall of snow, if you like-is still shielded in obscurities. But the police are said to be on the track of the offender. This brings us to our subject.

January-so called from "JANE," a domestic, and "airey" her Paphian bower-is adapted rather for the youthful sportsman, always a good deal after the manner of a fool, and committing excesses which have afterwards to be atoned for by stethoscopes and post-mortems, than for a mature cove, who, if in affluence, will very properly stop at home with a glass of something warm and the columns of the Daily Press, Britain's Palladium.

COURSING. There can be no objection to coursing, if you are really fond of it, but he tried it himself for the first time soon after Christmas, and not knowing much about dogs, which always look at the Prophet as though they had known him at a different epoch of his career, and his sight not what it was, and a cold day, felt glad enough to get home to a glass of something warm and the columns of the Daily Press, our island's pride.

SKATING. Nothing can be more seasonable, and he was once as fond of it as angling, but at a certain period you would much rather be safe at home with the columns of the Daily Press, that fourth estate, and glass of something warm.

SWIMMING. I have wrote this down because desired by my relative who once won a silver cup. But you don't find your Prophet trying NICHOLAS is not ashamed to show his honest old body at the Lambeth Baths when such are devoted to legitimate purposes, but you

to do so.

don't find him going there along of MR. G. M. MURPHY to say that if MR. PAUL BOGLE, of Jamaica, ruined white ladies it don't much matter, and if your Prophet met MR. CHAMEROVZow he would punch his unpronounceable old head. There! NICHOLAS.

A BILLIARD LESSON.
'Twas pleasant on the winter nights
To see beneath the shaded lights,
Her golden head bent low;
To watch her snowy fingers make
A tiny "bridge"-and count each "break,"
Of such a gentle foe.

And though she said it was a sin
To beat her-I could always win,
To bear such pretty blame;
And yet though winning strokes I made,
It seemed to me as if I played
A very losing game.

There's kudos in the rattling strokes
You make amid a fire of jokes

From chaffing fellow-men;
And yet when beauty turns away,
And points at your more skilful play,
You've other feelings then.

No "hazard," that my cunning cue,
With all my greatest care could do,
Or lucky" fluke" might get,
Could ever equal that I ran
In playing miserable man!
With such a flirting pet.

And though I lost such heaps of gloves
In betting with her-when one loves
Such losing bets are blest.
And since she teased me night and day,
I only get at billiard-play,

The chances of a "rest."

The "cannon" on the table green,
Will to a Canon come I ween,

Who'll tie me to a wife;
And she with backers not a few
Will quietly put on the "screw,"
And " pocket me for life!

66

Answers to Correspondents.

R. S., Wellingborough.-Your lines or rather your crino-lines, since you come with a hoop"- -are not in our line. You say "if we think enclosed worthy you are willing to dispose of it"-so we thus dispose of it at once.

L. W. R., Glasgow, sends a song which, he says, "has had a merely local publication, which will in no way interfere with its insertion" in FUN. Won't it? well, we are glad to hear it.

LEOPOLD R.-We should be happy to insert the few words if we could find the point-at which to begin.

A. B. B., Penge.-Your sepia sketch is too profound a brown study for us.

RIGDUM FUNNIDOS.-Your letter is so very funny we really can't see it.

W. C., Waterford.-We are very charitable, but we cannot admit a drawing on the ground of its poverty.

D. K.-The jokes are a little old even for a sonnet-in fact, a little too D. K'd.

J. W. sends "a lover's riddle," and wants to know "weather it is approved or not." The weather is uncertain just now.

C. E. H., Leeds, sends something which he says is not his "maiden attempt." Well, if he made an attempt at verse before it could not have been much worse than this.

A. W., Temple.-Too long-winded, even for "an ascent of Holborn Hill."

F. M., Burgess Hill., sends an original riddle about a clock and credit, "because it goes on tick." He's quite right. It is an original riddle, for it was originally made in the year one. "OUR HUMBLE SERVANT."-We saw the fun in that joke when first we heard it.

J. R., Liverpool, wishes us to give in our "answers our opinion of a sketch he encloses. We can't, for we have no opinion of it. A. W., Putney.-Your "Wooden bridges' are more arch than humourous. They wooden do for us.

BY OUR SPECIAL ARTIST.

SIR,-When we left your office the other day with your blessing and a cheque all round, I little knew what trials awaited the two artists attached to the commission. The literary gentleman (the only one who knew French), has disappeared somehow between London and Paris, and I and MR. SHEDDS are in the last-named city without either an interpreter or a knowledge of the language. But for SHEDDS's powers of pantomime what we should do it is impossible to say. I look on with wonder and admiration when he orders breakfast. He strikes an attitude, draws his right hand caressingly down his face, slaps it on his breast, folds the left over it, and wags from side to side. On the stage this means devoted love. Here it causes the production of coffee and toast. Any unusual extras have to be asked for artistically-for instance, if you want butter, you have to draw an Irishman, and then they bring a pat. To obtain milk, SHEDDS did a wash of sky-blue, whereupon the waiter said "lay," and we thought he was going for eggs, but he brought the right thing, though SHEDDS says he thinks "lay" is pigeon's milk, used on account of the cattle plague.

As SHEDDS and I are the only people he and I can talk with, we don't hear much news. But we have seen a good deal of Paris by adopting the simple expedient of learning the name of our hotel, going out and losing ourselves, and coming back in cabs. The city, SHEDDS says, reflects great credit on MESSRS. WILLIAM BEVERLEY and S. MAY-and what more can you desire? We are not far from the river, where I thought there were baths, but on trying to explain to the waiter by shamming to swim, I found that was a swindle, for he said "low," meaning, I suppose, the tide was too low for bathing, and brought me up a large jug of water-as if one could swim in that.

cue I send you a sketch of the Louvre. You will observe the high

FROM OUR STALL.

It is with much fear and trembling, and with an awful feeling of the possible consequences to ourselves that we take up our pen to criticise the performances at Drury-lane, the Adelphi, and Strand Theatres during the past week, for on the first night of the new piece produced at one of those establishments one of the actors was not quite perfect in his part. We dare not trust ourselves to speak more particularly of this individual shortcoming. The actor in question (not for worlds would we breathe his name) forgot his words, looked at the prompter, received no help, stammered, glared at the critics in the stalls, (who trembled violently), concentrating into that one glare the whole laws of libel as interpreted by MR. BARON BRAMWELL and a very common jury, demands for public apologies, Courts of Exchequer, declarations with unlimited counts, expensive counsel, cross-examinations, and perhaps a criminal trial and penal servitude for life. Our timidity is enhanced by an opportunity we enjoyed on the occasion of the Glowworm trial of hearing how common jurymen who have retired to a private room to "consider" their verdict, come to a rational conclusion on the point set before them. We were standing at the door of the jury room; the jurymen within were all talking at once, but one voice pre-eminent above the others exclaimed, "I'll give MR. EMERY a hundred pounds!" Another replied, "And I won't give him a penny!" The first voice rejoined, "Sir, you are a donkey!" The second retorted, "Sir, you're another!" A third voice interposed with a suggestion to "Take a priest" (query Precedent)! but despite the fact that the suggestion to "take a priest" was repeated over and over again, no one seemed inclined to take him, and he fell to the ground. But the curious part of the affair is, that within three minutes of the time when the discussion was at its highest, the whole jury came into court with an unanimous verdict for the plaintiff, with five guineas damages!

The farce Lending a Hand produced at the Strand Theatre last week is from the pen of MR. GILBERT A BECKETT, the eldest son of the late

COMING DOWN.
BY A CASUAL.

FORTUNE! we've no business done
Since the notable Year One.
All my clothes have dropt to rags,
And my sole is on the flags:
Even foes won't sew me tears.
Come! you owe me some repairs-
Do it handsomely: why, zounds,
Let us say a thousand pounds.

I should like a country house-
Pheasant-coverts-moors for grouse.
I should like some seven or eight
Henchmen, at my call to wait,
I should like a private Hansom:
Well! suppose I bate your ransom-
Grant my wishes their fulfillings,
And I'll say a thousand shillings.

I should like to be a swell-
Cosy chambers in Pall Mall,
Handy to a jolly club,

Where a chap can have a rub.

I should like such things as these.
But if not; give what you please-
(The reduction though's immense)
Shall we say a thousand pence?

Come, I'll drop my tone yet more-
Lodgings on a second floor.

Chops or steaks my modest cheer,
Sometimes grog, and always beer.
Decent credit at a tailor's,

Freedom from all fear of jailors.

ABIE

13

Still you're stern! Oh, come there are things

But, no odds! a thousand farthings!

I should like some bread and meat-
Water-I could drink it neat!-
Clothes to warm my shivering back
'Gainst rheumatic cramp's attack-
Something like a decent bed-
And a roof above my head.

Fortune! if I these must lack,-oh!
Grant a penny for tobacco!

MR. GILBERT ABBOTT A BECKETT, and is, we understand, his first theatrical production. Its object is to show the awful consequences of interested benevolence as wreaked by MR. BELFORD on MR. H. J. TURNER. MR. TURNER, prompted by an anxiety to distinguish himself in the eyes of MISS MARIA SIMPSON, saves MR. BELFORD, a wouldbe suicide, from drowning, and MR. BELFORD consequently claims MR. TURNER as an uncle, makes love to MISS SIMPSON before MR. TURNER'S eyes, contrives to get £500 from him, and eventually causes him to attempt suicide in his turn. The farce is cleverly written, the dialogue is considerably above the average of that which we are accustomed to find in a modern lever de rideau, and it is capitally played by the MESSRS. TURNER and BELFORD, and MISSES SIMPSON and HUGHES. The burlesque, Nellie's Trials, has been withdrawn from the bills, as the Strand audience would insist on regarding it as a serious melodrama, or to put it more correctly, perhaps they would insist on not regarding it at all. Pipkin's Rustic Retreat is nonsense. But nonsense as it is, it affords MR. TOOLE an opportunity of playing the part of a terrified cockney, and when we have said that we have said enough to show that the piece is worth seeing. Really managers should pay a little more attention to farce literature. The Pall Mall Gazette has, of late, been very hard indeed on the capital libretti of the Drury-lane and Covent Garden pantomimes. If it would devote a page or two now and then to the preposterous nonsense that is to be found in the pieces de circonstance and other farces played at the Adelphi and elsewhere, and if our journals generally in chronicling the success of a piece of the kind, were to state how much of that success is due to the literature of the piece, and how much to the acting of the low comedian, they would be doing a real service to dramatic literature and to the public at large.

We have only space to mention that a new entertainer, MR. FLEMING NORTON, gave his "Mrs. Perkins's Pic-Nic" at the Hanover-square Rooms, the other day, in aid of the funds of the Orthopaedic Hospital. MR. NORTON was warmly applauded, his impersonation of a lady being specially approved.