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[NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.-The learned leech's analysis having just come to hand, I find the phial had contained thirty drops of hyperstrychnate of arsenico-prussic acid. As this dose was sufficient to kill a full-grown elephant in robust health instantly, the reader will be good enough to consider everything cancelled after the passage in which my heroine put the bottle to her lips, an action "very unbecoming in a lady," as I fruitlessly pointed out to her at the time. Of course I can't be expected to carry on the novel after her decease.]

A LETTER FROM A WELL-KNOWN LADY. [Ir would be absurd to pretend ignorance of the writer of the following epistle. We have searched the police reports to find the grievance which calls forth MRS. BROWN's indignation, and will briefly epitomize the case. An application was made a week ago to the sitting magistrate at Lambeth by a gentleman, who complained that his mother had been removed from her house in a cab by three females, members of MR. SPURGEON'S Congregation, and that he had been refused admittance when applying to see her at the house to which she had been taken. On one of the summoning officers being sent with the applicant, it appeared that the poor lady, who was a lunatic, was in the care of her daughter, who denied that any improper force had been used in the removal. quote the portion of the report which appears to have given offence to We our correspondent:

that I says, "I do believe as you wouldn't care if I was pinted at as I goes thro' the street; but," I says, "I knows as there is punishments for parties as says them things;" for well I remember, tho' quite a gal, what appeared in our street, and can see her now, tho' lifted up by my own father, a-standing at the church door, in white, with a candle in her hand, as is the law; for whatever can you do for to protect your own character, a thing as is easy lost if it wasn't as you could punish them as makes too free. But as to my husband's interfering it ain't to be looked to. So I says to MRS. CHALLIN, "If only our Jos would step in, as is a wonderful scholard, p'raps he'd do it for me." "But," says she, "MRS. BROWN, mum, as you've been wronged, why not write, as," of schoolin' out of my father's pocket, with a sampler as I've got she says, "no one ain't more capable;" and certainly I did have plenty framed up-stairs, as shows marking as would puzzle me now; but lor, if he was to know it I never should hear the last on it, as said when I was a-complainin', in the cold-bloodedest way, what they says about you?" I says, "If you can lay down on your bed "Whatever does it matter happy, a-thinking as you've had a wiper a-festering in your bosim all these 'ears, I'm not that party as can bear such amputations, and would rather be took a-smiling to the gallers, with a clear conscience, than a countess in her carriage with a spangled repitition, as may hold themis their betters, and wouldn't bring a blush, tho' they may brazen it selves that 'igh, little dreamin' as them as they looks down on as minerals out, as well I knows thro' my own aunt being cook and housekeeper in a titled family, as the lady said to her, "MRS. WALKER," says she, "that female will never darken my doors," as will try it on and are to be met with in the highest spears; and for me, after all these 'ears, to come to be in print as a female, a thing as no one ever dared even With this brief introduction we leave MRS. BROWN to speak for herself. to breathe about me! So, if you can help me, I humbly trust as you -ED.] will; and as to MR. SPURGIN he's the last of my thoughts, and why ever them young people couldn't keep their troubles to theirselves and had better be kept within their own bosoms; but if you can only puzzles me, for I'm sure them quarrels in families reflects no credit, pint out who it was as said it, which is what I want to get at, I'll myself and spoke up, magistracy and all, but them newspapers is no precious soon put the saddle on the right horse, and would have gone good, for they never tells you nothin' till it's over, for when I did go up to that police they only laughed and said it was clean forgot, and the parties gone they didn't know where, except the poor lady as was out I have knowed them that rational as might be able to indemnify as I of her mind, as it wouldn't be right to trouble about sich a thing, tho' wasn't the party illuded to by the police, as would swear anything as they was ordered, thro' considering their duty, as is not to be envied, but did ought to be taught for to respect any one. my good gentleman to know as I've rote I don't put my name, tho' not as I do no washing now, thro' being retired and livin' comfortable. you will know me as a party as you've heered on by the enclosed card;

"MRS. MACKENTIRE, on the contrary, said that she (the invalid lady) had been harried and carried along when, from her own expressions, she had no desire or wish to part from her son.

"MRS. BROWN, who was one of the three females who removed MRS. HINCKLEY, denied the statement of the preceding witness."

TO THE EDITOR OF FUN.

SIR,-Bein' informed as yours is a orgin as is open to the wrongs of women, as mine would fill volumes, as the saying is, I wants to ask whatever I've done for to deserve it as give me that turn when MRS. CHALLIN showed it me in the paper, as made me legs tremble under me; and no wonder, for if there's a thing as I've set my face agin it's anything like kidnapping, thro' knowing what it is, when our JOE was lost a whole day thro' follering a berrying, and was thought to be 'ticed away artful, and me only just down-stairs thro' CHARLOTTE, as never was the child to thrive arter, and taken off her legs with the least thing, and cutting her teeth cross, as caused that squint as she'll carry to the grave, tho' the mother of three herself. Well, as I was a-sayin', when MRS. CHALLIN borrowed the paper at the "Catherine Wheel," drop I thought I must. "Me kidnap a lunatic ?" says I. "Why, if there is a thing as I wouldn't have at a gift is one of the poor deluded maniacs, as I never shall forget the one as got away from the 'sylum, and run seventeen miles in his night-clothes thro' the turnpike-gates, as was closed agin him, took refuge up a chimbly, and very near frightened a old lady to death as was lighting of the fire, thro' lodgers a-comin' in unexpected. And then to say as I used wiolence, as would walk out of my way for a worm in my path, and don't hold with using of force where arguments did ought to be, tho' I have knowed them as you was forced to set on their legs a-gnashing of their teeth, tho' only historical, as a jug of cold water will often do wonders; and as to pushing of her down the passage, I never set eyes on her or ever heard tell on her, nor them females, as in my opinion did ought to be ashamed of theirselves, for it did put me out dreadful. The idea of mixing me up along with females as frequents MR. SPURGIN'S, a party as I don't hold in with the least, as I never see but once at the Baptist meeting, where I was took unbeknown, and must say as he made that free with ser'ous matters as I shouldn't care to set under, thro' bein' one as is always a-looking up to the pulpit myself, and have heard beautiful discourses in my times, tho' none of your dippins for me, as give me that turn when I see them a-doin' it as was obliged to leave the chapel sudden, and the scrougin' and shovin' was downright disgraceful at the door, and my pockets turned inside out, as isn't goins-on for a Sunday in my opinion. So will trouble you for to set me right, tho' my good gentleman did laugh when I said as I'd have the law on 'em as had took away my character; and however that magistracy could set there and hear such things agin a quiet woman as has had her troubles, goodness knows. Not as I don't say as he was right in sending of her to Bedlam on the quiet, as is in my opinion the best place for them as is so inflicted, tho' I have heard my dear mother say as well she remembered it up in Moorfields, as is now changed into the Catholics, where screams was awful and groans untold, thro' chains and whips, as is now done away. What I wants to know is why a party should make free with my name, as is well known, and can hold up my head with the best; and let them as can say anything agin me speak out and do their best, as is every one's duty; and as to being a female, if I'd a husband with the sperrits of a mouse he'd soon make 'em prove their words; but, lor bless you, there he sets a-smoking away at his pipe and a-smiling till I was that put out

WISDOM-AND-WATER.

BY A GRANDFATHER.

FIELDS are green in the early light,

As I don't wish

When morning treads on the heels of night;
Fields are grey when the sun's gone west,
Like a clerk from the city in search of rest.
You've probably read that "flesh is grass,"
And that's the reason it comes to pass.
That we change our colour in life's long day,
From the young and green to the old and grey.

A short time since-as it seems to me

I was as young as a youth could be;
Filling my head, as all children do,
With notions of life more nice than true.
Now this noddle of mine looks strange,
With its plenty of silver-and no small change!
Surely I've travelled the shortest way
From the young and green to the old and grey.

Truly, the day is a varying thing

In winter and summer, autumn and spring;
But days of December and days of June
Run into twilight a deal too soon.
Life is a drama, the world's a stage,
And the piece we strut in from youth to age
May run, like a farce or a five-act play,

From the young and green to the old and grey.

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CROQUET.

A LETTER FROM THE COUNTRY.

D

EAR MAY, do you know
that we've started

The grand Croquet
Season to-day;
You know I was quite

broken-hearted

When winter abolish-
ed our play.

I put by the hoops with

a shiver,

And sighed when I

A RAILWAY ROMANCE.

CHAPTER I.

"AND only in its infancy!"

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In three minutes the speaker was in the land of dreams. Then a nightingale, perched upon the top wire of the telegraph, burst suddenly into a wild, sweet melody; and the tall, gaunt semaphores nodded their heads and smiled at the song of the nightingale, and the soul of the engine-driver was melted within him, and a tear stood in either eye-no matter which. He was a hard man, that engine - driver; nearly as hard as the stoker, in fact; but sometimes, when there was nobody looking at him, he wept like a child-quite like a child!

Let us return to the stranger. In asserting that steam was a wonderful invention, it had evidently been his desire to enter on a metaphysical discussion; and he was grieved-not angry, but grieved thought for how long-at finding his companion asleep. His noble and sensitive nature No ball would spin into was wounded to the quick by the apparent neglect with which his the riverremark had been treated. A sense of unutterable wrong was aroused Some people can within him, and his whole being was changed for a time. Only for a croquet so strong. time, though; the old tenderness came back again at last, and he shed I laid all the mallets tears-just as he had shed them in bygone days at BIRCHINGTON'S together, Academy for Young Gentlemen. There was something inexpressibly touching, too, in the last words uttered by the sleeper: "In its infancy! !" He also had been an infant once-had had the measles, and might never, never have them again. Then he wondered whether the sleeping man opposite had ever had the measles. Should he wake the sleeping man opposite and inquire?

Half cried as I looked

at the rain;

But now here's the jolly
spring weather,
That brings us the
croquet again!

We'd quite a large party

-MISS LESTER ;

Her cousins who
croquet so well;

FRED LECTERN, the curate from Chester,

A regular clerical "swell;"

MISS RAY, who's so terribly petted,

She sets all the men by the ears;

And FRANK, who, you know, was gazetted
Last week to the 5th Fusileers;
We'd old MRS. HUNT chaperoning
Her daughters so horribly fast;

And to you, dear, I needn't mind owning,
That Somebody joined us at last.

Of course, we'd a side; you can fancy
Who chose me instead of MISS RAY;

I wish, dear, you'd seen what a glance he
Gave just as we started to play.

A knight of the old feudal ages,

So lowly he knelt on the sward,

And looked in my face for love's wages-
True service is worthy reward.
He'd placed the balls for me so neatly,
I croquet'd the red far away,

Then gave a sly look, and smiled sweetly-
Oh, would he but kneel every day!

What need to go on, dear ?-so charming
The first day at croquet this year;
MISS RAY might make speeches alarming,
For clerical lovers to hear;

The HUNTS might exhibit their dresses,
What cared I with him by my side?

But now, dear, "Good-bye," for time presses-
Some day you may greet me a bride.

I thought so to-day, when a Rover

He tenderly dwelt on my name.

Ah, will he one day play the lover

As well as he plays at the game?

WARNING TO LITERARY MEN.

A YOUNG friend of ours who possessed sufficient creative power to make a book on the last Derby Day-and lost a considerable amount of money on the transaction-is now trying to build a reputation as the author of his own ruin.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

THE M.P. for Peter-borough (we don't mean Rome-oh, dear no! quite the reverse) seems to know the whalley of truth, for he appears to be very sparing of that.

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Pshaw! 'twas but the wind, or a car rattling o'er the stony street. But a moment's reflection taught him that all the pavements in Exbury were made of wood; and as for cars-what was a car?

The whistle again; nearer and clearer!

Oh, what horrible mystery was this? He was a tolerably brave man, that station-master; could snuff a candle with his fingers at thirty paces, for instance. But he had a daughter at home, and his paternal old heart throbbed audibly beneath his official costume as he thought of LucY. LUCY was the name of his child, and her age was thirty-five. Her long ringlets were similar in hue to the setting sun, and her eyes were the colour of a rainbow. She dyed them. Poor LUCY!

The whistle once more, and quite close.

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THE Hillsborough tunnel is only five miles in length, but the darkness is so profound that the most intimate friends might meet in the exact centre of it without being able to recognize each other. If a man were to hold up one of his hands at a distance of six or seven yards from his body in this gloomy spot, he would find it impossible to guess whether it were his right hand or his left.

When the 12.20 train emerged from the Hillsborough tunnel it was growing dark. The stranger had gradually cried himself into a deep and dreamless sleep. The time for action had at last arrived.

Then the man opposite cautiously lifted the lid from one of his eyes. Finding everything quiet he raised the other. He was now awake. A sardonic smile crept over his usually impassible countenance as he slowly drew from the pocket of his paletôt a curiously shaped bottle containing some liquid of a dark brown colour. He gazed intently for a few moments at the sleeping stranger. No, there could be no deception in that face!

Scarcely had he drained to its dregs the curiously shaped bottle mentioned in a previous paragraph, when the sound of a whistle smote

his ear.

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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 Folian 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!

I have just accepted, myself, a challenge to box with the Earl of Potter, who has told me-oh sad and for ever regretable coarseness of the insular noblesse "not to make such a thundering row!" Revenge! I must train myself for the battle. I will go home at once, and again wash my face, and eat a raw piece of pork! O gay! JEAN GODIN.

In Re Dawkins.

FROM the late Parliamentary talkin's,
In the case of unfortunate DAWKINS,

I find, to my grief,

The Commander-in-Chief

And the Sec. acting "Spenlow and Jawkins!"

HORTICULTURAL MEM.-When stocks are placed outside the thirdoor windows they may be quoted as the three-pair scents.

AN ELEGANT EXTRACT.-"M.

Louis Napoleon Imp. Frane.

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:

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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.

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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 between 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 m'a extrait les cors avec succès." grounds. Numerous invitations from nobility, British and foreign. A season-ticket for whitebait at Greenwich, &c., &c., &c.

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In all accounts of dog-shows hitherto published, there is one peculiarity it is that the notices are invariably written from the human point of view, never from the canine. It is high time that this should be altered, and we have accordingly sent several of our own animals to the Agricultural Hall. We print their remarks, so far as 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.

Printed by JUDD & GLASS, 80, Fleet Street, and Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietors) by THOMAS BAKER, at 9, Fect Street.-June 10, 1865.

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