A SHAM FIGHT.
BY OUR SPECIAL AMATEUR.

WHENEVER I go to a public dinner (which I am thankful to say isn't often) and listen to the mellifluous accents of the worthy toastmaster as he ejaculates gen-tle-men! Chairm-pro-po! ses toast! Arm-y Nave-y Voln-teers!! I feel a glow of enthusiasm run down my right elbow and quiver in the glass of tepid champagne that I hold in my hand. You may judge of my feelings then, at receiving an invitation to be present at a real sham fight where all the arrangements necessary for the proper performances of a sanguinary battle had been provided without regard to expense by one of the most-well, sir, courtesy demands that I should go farther and (without faring worse), say the most distinguished regiment in London. Need I say that I allude to the Honourable Ar- but perhaps I may be accused of revealing the secrets of private hos, well let me not violate the confidences of the festive board. Suffice it to say in the words of an eminent Common Councilman when alluding to this most effective body, that "them's the liveliest corpse I ever see."

Every one knows by this time that these energetic upholders of the national glory are so assiduously devoted to ball practice, as befits an Artillery Company, that they never omit any occasion for a dance, and the enormous consumption of tulle, blond, muslin, and other light fabrics, in consequence of the effective manner in which the members of the Company manage their spurs and side arms while engaged in tripping people up on the light fantastic toe, has, I am informed, enhanced the value of such productions of the Indian loom, and con siderably raised their market value. I mention these characteristics of our brave defenders as illustrative of the soul-stirring spectacle, to witness which I underwent the fatigue of a journey to Wanstead Flats. I at once attached myself to the non-combatant division of the army in the field-need I say I allude to the commissariat-and as the position assigned to that arm of the force was a sequestered thicket, where, as the witty officer in charge observed, we found lobsters in e-chell-on, and champagne and stout in open order. I prepared for action by an attack on the cold chicken. I regret to say that the pusillanimity of the light cavalry led them to retreat from the foe in this direction, and that the sharpshooters followed them immediately, while a couple of guns were rapidly advanced to the very front of our position, and unlimbered before we could secure the hamper, into which I fell. Nothing

but the orderly retreat of the cavalry, and the determined advance of the light infantry and field-pieces could have saved our company, represented by myself, from being cut to pieces with broken glass, and as it was they (that is I) were (or at least was) thrown into disorder, and had difficulty in getting into camp.

This was

One touching ceremony replete with interest opened the subsequent proceedings. A carriage was seen in the distance, and as it neared the camp I could see that some great event was about to follow. A majestic lady alighted, and men let their pipes go out. She bore in her hand a neat spade, with which she commenced to dig a hole in the ground. What could it mean? Was it for the solemn interment of the apocryphal dog whose death is popularly ascribed to the misdirected ambition of a too eager volunteer? I asked the question. I was bonneted. Ere I could recover myself two lovely beings had brought forward an iron pot and cross trees. Then it rushed upon me. The majestic lady who had just alighted herself was about to light a fire; that was the corporal's joke, and he added that there was nothing like putting the pot on while you were about it. done also, and soon the camp was a scene of revelry, and the steam of much cooking added its savour to the soft evening air. The sun was going down as our spirits rose. Then we all rose, and the alderman rose-I don't mean ALDERMAN ROSE, but ALDERMAN FINNIS-rose to the full height of the occasion, which, as far as I could make out by the uncertain light of my seventeenth glass of wine, was between fifteen feet eleven and five feet three. He opened fire-at least no-I mean we marched to assault his cellar, and to admire a magnificent display of his plate, which marched past in full uniform at least-the weather was warm, and how those brave fellows managed to dance on the lawn in heavy marching order is a wonder that deserves well of their country. I sat under a tree with a flask of chablis, for England expects every man to do his duty. It had been a glorious day, and had a glorious FINNIS; but military life upsets the system till you get used to it, and I walked home between two at the double.

NOTICE.--Early in November will be published, price Twopence,
FUN ALMANACK.

Now ready, Vol. VIII. (1ST VOL., NEW SERIES), price 4s. 6d. Also, the TITLE, PREFACE, AND INDEX, price One Penny. Cases for binding the volume may be had at the Office.

III.

THE REAL BASKET TRICK,
OR STOWED HARE ILLUSION,

As now performed on some of the South-Northern Railways.

OUT-OF-TOWN TALK.

EDITOR,-"Soufflet-bang, nous voici encore!" as the poet says. Back in London. Grimy London. Black dingy London. Comfortable London. Expensive, ugly London. Jolly, sociable London. Convenient London. Back again, and not sorry.

Perhaps it would be impossible to discover a course of treatment better adapted to reconcile one to a nine months' stay in England than the journey from Spa to Ostend. You travel through a flat, uninteresting country to Malines (or Mechlin), and then you wait three hours for the train from Brussels which is to take you to Ostend. So you see that you have a good deal of time on your hands at Malines, and Malines is just about the worst place in the world to while away odd hours in. MEM.-Never eat anything at the refreshment counter at Malines if you can help it. For this reason. Feeling very dirty after my journey from Spa, I beg to be allowed to wash my hands. Permission granted. Am told to wait where I am for a minute. Eventually basin and pocket handkerchief are brought, and placed upon counter in the middle of the pastry, and there I wash my hands. I am charged half a franc for this luxury, but if I had been charged half a Napoleon it would hardly compensate the proprietor for the damage that I do to his cakes and tartines, for my hands are extremely dirty, and I always splash dreadfully. So-Moral: Never eat anything at the Malines refreshment counter if you can help it. The most prominent fact that remains on my mind in connection with Malines is, that I was the only person in it. It seemed as if it were all mine. I assure you on my honour that I walked right through the principal street of the town at midday, without seeing a single human being. To be sure it was raining slightly. At length, frightened by this extraordinary solitude, and anxious to hear my own voice in conversation, I rushed into a peach shop. After waiting for ten minutes, an old lady appeared in answer to my repeated raps on the counter, and without waiting to ask my business, threw her arms round my neck and tried to kiss me.

"THERE IS A NAME."

BY J. E. CRP*NT*R.

THERE is a name I dare not breathe,
Although it once was dear,
They deem my linen spotless now,
And no deception here;

And yet like sunset's rosy flush,

My cheek is hot with shame,

They ask me-but I will not breathe

My washerwoman's name!

Last night when in the mazy dance,

My neat foot trod the floor,

They little deemed my manly neck

A paper collar bore.

A "Richard" seared my heaving breast,

And yet who dares to blame?

Her bill's not paid-I cannot breathe
My washerwoman's name!

IV.

THE CAVALIER."

Br W. C. B*NN*TT.

A CAVALIER rode by a cottager's door,

And a maiden sat thereby,

The cavalier bowed to his saddle full low,

And the maiden winked her eye.

And years rolled on, and the maiden worked

By her door, and still would think

Of the cavalier's bow, and the knight he thought

For aye on the maiden's wink.

And years rolled on, and the maiden heard

No more of the courteous knight,

And, perchance, he called on her name and thought

Of her wink as he died in fight.

But the maiden lived the merriest life,

For the curate he came one day,

And she winked at him with her arch blue eye, And he married her straight away!

I was at first disposed to attribute this extraordinary behaviour to but on further enquiry it turned out that she thought I was her her overwhelming joy at the discovery of a real, live, human being, nephew. As I wasn't, there was an end of the matter.

I began to get absolutely terrified at my loneliness, and to think that found myself once more on board the train to Ostend, the three hours never would come to an end. But they did, and I

solitude Malines is a picturesque old town, and possesses many quaint Which is a more irritating place than even Malines. With all its architectural phenomena which excite amusement, if not admiration. But Ostend is dirty, vulgar, pretentious, and German. It has two redeeming features, its Digue, which forms a good promenade, and its bathing. And when you have said that you have said all. It is in a second-rate house which would disgrace a British vice-consul, and nothing to me that the King of the Belgians spends his summer here that he and his family pass the day in a tent on the sands, surrounded, of course, by snobbish English people, who, I suppose, expect to find the Royal Family walking about on their heads, or at all events, in and the fat, oily, all-over-the-place-spitting, fish-with-their-knifesome manner unfamiliar to humbler mortals. It is a dismal place, eating Germans make me miserable. So I hie me on board the dirty little mail packet which is to carry me back to my boyhood's home. And (thanks to a smooth sea) the ricketty little craft lands me safely at Dover six hours after leaving Ostend Lights. And there I get into London in the twinkling of a jiffey. And here in London, will be one of the comfortable carriages of the S.E.R., and am whisked up to found, for many months to come, the humble individual who is proud to subscribe himself

VERY DRY.

SNARLER.

THERE is melancholy news from Berlin. The Spree is almost dried up, and that's no joke for the Prussians.

like anything that's good, whether new or old, there are the Adelphi and the Prince of Wales; for those who like anything that's bad there's the Olympic. Then there are the two opera houses going for the musical folk. As for the entertainments there are plenty of them. You can take your unadulterated Scotch at MR. GOURLAY's, or your unmixed Chinese at CHANG's. Or you can go to the Opera di Camera, and take a delightful combination of the two in Ching Chow Hi, which is simply glorious fun, not to mention the jolly music, which haunts you so that for days after you find yourself going about the streets humming it, and sticking up your thumbs, which appears to be a Chinese custom. With regard to the Widows Bewitched, I can't help thinking the composer might have had a better libretto, and the librettist might have had a better composer. Why does MR. AIDE content himself with only two rhymes for a quatrain, and does he consider "court" a good rhyme for "thought?" But then Ching Chow Hi is delicious! Then there are the HOWARD PAULS in the most charming boudoir of a theatre, the fittings of which must have been designed by a lady, they are so tasteful. It is unnecessary to say a word for entertainers so well known, but I must just express my admiration of MRS. HOWARD PAUL'S Sims Reeves. There is only one little thing needed to make the impersonation perfect-it is not much, and MRS. PAUL is so consummate an artist, I'm sure she will not feel offended at the hint, which is this:-She ought not to appear on some of the nights for which she is advertised.

MR. STODARE has produced a new puzzle-the Sphynx-and a most perplexing one it is. If it is a human head where is the body?-and if it isn't why, it is a triumph of mechanism. MR. STODARE is an adept at sleight of hand, but if he takes my advice he will curtail the ventriloquial part of his entertainment, and discontinue the sale of a very catchpenny book of tricks. He can succeed without these, for he is the neatest conjuror I have seen since HERMANN.

THERE's a new toy called Pharaoh's serpent, which is all the rage just now. It consists of a small cone, about the size of a large pastile, covered with tinfoil. On lighting the apex a writhing and seemingly endless coil, something like a pale puff adder, pours from it. The toy has two advantages: it is a very amusing surprise, and as it is of a poisonous nature you can, if you are an old bachelor and hate children, take them to your friends' houses and make a clean sweep of their growing families, by allowing the youngsters to inhale the fumes or put the serpents in their mouths.

I HAVE had forwarded to me some doggrel on the Freemasons, for quoting a few lines of which I trust that honourable body will pardon me

"Weep, brother Masons, weep, weep for your sins.
Oh, down on your knees; oh! down on your pins.
Oh, dear! oh, dear! What shall we do?
He says we are a wretched crew."

The party guilty of this execrable trash describes himself as "M.A., and private tutor." Does he teach his pupils to spell "bleat" with two "e"s? And at what university did he hear of such a substantive as "a vice-regal ?" I may mention for the benefit of those who would like to possess this literary curiosity-for it is curiously bad-that it is obtainable at a shop in the Strand famous for the magic donkeys, as the imprint of the sheet rather pointedly declares. I may add, however, for the comfort of Private Tutor, M.A., that his verses are not worse than a prologue quoted by the Court Journal, as written by LORD WILLIAM LENNOX for some amateur theatricals. Why even the authors of Glaucus and Camaralzaman might blush to own them.

Kensington clique, and is to be held in the Botanical Gardens ! There's only one thing more needed to ensure its success, and that is that MR. PALGRAVE, who compiled the notorious handbook of the Exhibition of '62, should be employed to do the catalogue and write the lives-he'd do it with such taste and judgment.

I DON'T often prophesy, but I look confidently for the time when the Anti-Game Law people will erect a statue to SIR BALDWIN LEIGHTON. His statute for turning the rural police into gamekeepers has done what all their years of agitation have failed to do. It has shaken the Game Laws, and I think now there is some hope of their being revised to good purpose.

LORD PALMERSTON is dead. He died within two days of his eightyfirst birthday. It is hardly two months since I saw him cantering down Piccadilly on his famous old white horse. His vigour and spirits seem to have supported him to the last. His death is a loss not only to his party, but to the country, which he made to be respected and feared in foreign lands, where the name of England was once a byword. He was a genuine Englishman-and he himself could wish no nobler epitaph than that. As I write these lines the last photographic portrait taken of him, by MESSRS. WALKER, of Margaretstreet, lies before me. It is an excellent likeness.

MR. HAZLITT'S NOVEL.
A MACARONIC.

THERE's a book written
Called Sophie Laurie,

It isn't a fit 'un

For drawing-room storey.
Teste uno Doctore

And one or two morey,
Magno dolore

Pro tristi auctore,
Testibus doctoribus
Injurious moribus,
For it's improperer
Than all other opera,

And "Trash" adds Corrector.

"I'll get it," says Lector.

"If you were wiser
You'd cease this cry, sir,
For now folks 'll hie, sir,
The novel to buy, sir.
All cry and no wool,
A cock and a bull,
And who's got the pull ?-
Buy a man,

BISHOP COWLENSO.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE W. COWPER, M.P.

MISS BURDETT COWTTS.

SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULLWER, M.P.

MR. HORSEMAN, M.P.

MR. WILKIE COWLINS.

ARCHBISHOP COWLEN, of Dublin.
DR. COWMING.

MR. PETER COWNINGHAM.
MR. J. PAYNE COWLIER.
MR. STERLING COWYNE.
GENERAL COWDRINGTON.

MR. J. D. CoWLERIDGE, M.P.

MR. HENRY COWLE, C.B.

MR. GEORGE COWRUIKSHANK.

Will you be good enough to pronounce the last name

A GENTLE LIFE;

OR,

LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF A "GUSHER."

January 1.-Another glorious year dawns on me. Oh, I mean to be so happy! I love everything and everybody. What a fairylike place the world is to be sure! I grow fonder of my fellow-creatures every day. The mere fact of being alive almost maddens me with unutterable rapture. It appears like an intoxicating dream. I adore mankind and beastkind; for they are beautiful and good. Why should I tread upon a worm? Ah, my dear brothers and sisters of both hemispheres, let us all be very tender and very generous to each other. Let us extend our sympathies to the solar system, shall we?

February 1.-To-day I have been grieved-very deeply grieved by a sad spectacle of human infirmity. I was walking down Fleetstreet-ah, my darling old burly lexicographer, you also loved the spot!-when I beheld a couple of boys disputing. Yes; there was the effulgent orb of day looking down upon them, and yet they quarrelled. One of them, I hear, had spoken slightingly of the other; for a bystander assured me, on his oath, that the word "fool" had been made use of. How it made my heart ache to see one of those innocents raise his clenched hand and strike the other upon the nose. This is no fable for I saw the blood! Ah, me! Why cannot we love and cherish one another?

March 1.-I received a letter from the obliging creature who makes clothes for me. Poor soul, he is in want of money. I have scolded him for not writing to me earlier; and I trust that the bank-notes I forwarded may be of service to him. I felt a pang at parting with so much; but why should my fellow creatures be unhappy? No doubt somebody will give me money when I want it! That will be very

soon.

April 1.-There is much harmless mirth to-day at the expense of the confiding and simple-minded. But I cannot bear to hear the name of "fool" applied, even in jest, to such a glorious creature as man. What is a fool? I never saw one. We must overlook the failings of our neighbours, or the world will cease to be a perfect paradise.

May 1.-The flowers are going to blossom. Dear, delicious flowers! I confess that I never look at a daisy without crying. But how sweet it is to cry now and then! When I was a baby I cried constantly, and they gave me sugar-plums. How kind and generous people always are to those in distress!

June 1.-My landlord-as delightful a being as ever drew the breath of life-tells me that I owe him nearly two years' rent. How time flies in this happy world of ours! Poor fellow! it made me weep to see him so disappointed. If I were a rich man nobody should be in want. Still I do not think he was justified in threatening to deprive me of liberty. Are we not inhabitants of the same lovely universe? Does not the same sun shine on us both? But no; surely he would never be so ill-natured and cross as to lock me up!" He loves me too much for that!

October 1.-Confound it, I shall have to go through the court. What an infernal nuisance! To think of that old humbug, THREADNEEDLE, having the impudence to talk about an "instalment." As if I hadn't enough to bother me without a miserable tailor's bill. But I don't care, after all, if I can only scrape tin enough together to go down and see the mill between JERRY CONK and the CHICKEN. By the way, I wish I could get one of those brutal managers to look at my burlesque. I'm sure it's just the sort of thing to suit the Olympic. They seem to go in for elegance there! That good-looking chap I met at SLOMAN'S when I was locked up for the rent said that burlesques were all the rage. Ah, we had some jolly nights in Cursitor-street. What an ass I was before I went to old SLOMAN'S.

November 1.-By Jove, another late night. How I pitched into A 299 when he told me that three o'clock a,m. wasn't the proper time to go about howling comic songs. Ha, this is what I call "seeing life," with a vengeance! I wonder whether IKEY means to do that bill for me-the old, sixty-per-cent. ruffian. I can soon make it all right when something turns up. By jingo, this head of mine spins round like a teetotum; I must have one more bottle of Seltzer, or else I shan't be able to go anywhere to-night, and I suppose we shall find something to do in the way of a lark.

December 1.-That muff of a doctor says that if I'm not more careful he won't answer for the consequences. Nonsense; I don't believe in doctors, nor in anybody else. Why, I've been ill three weeks, and not a soul comes to see me. Where's HARRY, I wonder, the ungrateful hound-I lent him a sovereign before I was laid up. Bother this cough, I wish I could get rid of it. Well, I can't write any more now. I shall give up keeping a diary as soon as this miserable year comes to an end. Thank goodness, there's not much more of it to come!

WHY is CHANG the laziest man in the world?-Because, on account of his height, he lies the longest in bed.

PALMERSTON.

Ост. 18тн, 1865.

A CHIEFTAIN dead! Let discord cease:
Awhile suspend your quarrels,
And lay the olive branch of peace
Among our hero's laurels.

Our leader, who so gaily marched before us,
Is gone from us-is gone!
He who still kept the grand flag flying o'er us,
Who such example of high courage bore us,

From whom our strength was drawn;
For him the death-bell booms in tones sonorous,
This dull October dawn.

Yet will we chant no melancholy dirges-
We will not wail for him.
On welcome shores of rest he now emerges,
Who had so long, amid life's cruel surges,
To battle and to swim.

Peace now! To-morrow's care no longer urges
Tired brain and weary limb.
who stood so boldly by the helm
Of the realm;

He is dead;

In the fulness

When the dim

of his time, the close of day,
Past away,

October lights in mist and rain
Slowly wane.

How friends loved him!-and none hated, not e'en those
Who were foes,

For the arrows of his wit, if they were keen,
Yet were clean

Of the venom of a sneer, begot of spleen.
Kind and courteous in the hall, and in the fray
Bold and gay,

Dealing blows, and taking blows, with open smile
All the while.

And the downcast of the nations knew the fame
Of his name-

Sighing, looked to him for liberty. And he

Set them free

When he knew that he could strike the one great blowFree them so,

Not rivet more the fetters of their woe.

Fade, failing year, in fog and gloom,
And leave this record on the page-
"The foremost statesman of the age
This year was given to the tomb."
And we had thought he could not die-
This veteran with his eighty years,
Who was as one among his peers-
No Nestor of an age gone by.
He never struck an unfair blow,
Or failed a helping hand to lend-
So true, through good or ill, to friend-
So prompt in mercy to a foe.
He listened to the nation's voice,

But when an angry rabble cried,
He did not swerve or turn aside,
But held the justice of his choice.
Close up the ranks. Aye look your fill
Upon our ancient captain dead.
Then onward-by the way he led-
And keep the old flag spotless still!
Let those who future histories pen,

His noble qualities review;
Kind, cheerful, honest, fearless, true-
The Englishman of Englishmen !

Go search the world from end to end-
A braver heart had no man-
So faithful aye to fallen friend,
So generous to foeman.
We must not weep a death like this,
So peaceful and so painless,
No tears! This shield we bear of his
He has bequeathed us stainless!

BAITING FOR FLAT-FISH.

WE find the following in the advertising columns of a highly respectable daily cotemporary :ONE NE THOUSAND POUNDS per Annum for ONE POUND.-Any persons who may be desirous of becoming possessed of the above-named annual income are requested to make an immediate application, enclosing a stamped directed envelope, to, &c.

It is perhaps cruel of us to withhold the name of the advertiser from our readers, thus depriving them of the chance of comfortably settling down in life upon an income not by any means to be sneezed at. But we must uphold our rule of not allowing our columns to be made traps for the unwary We must needs content ourselves with the remark that if every person "who may be desirous of becoming possessed of" this very snug little competency will only send his or her sovereign to the advertiser, the said advertiser will certainly have no cause to regret the capital expended in type and printing.

The same number of the same paper has an announcement of a certain "Donnybrook Bazaar," which appears to be a species of lottery, with a charge for tickets (entitling the holders to a chance in the drawing), at the low sum of sixpence! In this lottery the principal prize, we are informed, is "A grand cottage" (not piano, but dwellinghouse), "with six rooms, suitably finished for a respectable family, situated on Dalkey-hill; lease for ever, and rent free. Hundreds of other valuable prizes also. Including an Irish jaunting car, DUKE OF LEINSTER pattern, with horse and harness."

Again our inexorable rule prevents our stating where tickets are to be applied for, but to any one investing current coin of the realm to the amount of sixpence sterling, in the hopes of obtaining either the freehold cottage, or the Irish jaunting car, DUKE of LEINSTER pattern, &c., we can only wish success. To speak more plainly, we most sincerely "wish he may get it."

REMARK CAUSED BY THE HIGH PRICE OF PROVISIONS.-"When shall we three meat again ?"

I KNOW that my love wears a chignon behind,
And lots of false puffing before,

But her conduct to me is exceedingly kind,
Though some people think me a bore;

I know that her eyebrows are pencilled with art,
The rose on her cheek is a sham,
But she says it's impossible ever to part,
And in proof of the fact-here I am!

Yes, what if her locks are hooked on by her maid?
That I am hooked also is plain,

And though for her bloom MADAME RACHEL be paid,
I feel that her cheeks are a chain;

Then let her soft contours be nothing but pads,
If her heart and affections are free,
And let all her hair be some obsolete cad's,
If that heart it beats only for me!