Though not yet quite "fourscore and upward," and always I believe in my "perfect mind," at least as much as other people, I may well borrow for myself that confession of Lear. Paternal fondness for young ladies is one of my many weaknesses, insomuch that I am excessively interested about them generally, and especially as regards their personal appearance, and their dress and the decorations thereunto ancillary. This is foolish enough to be sure, but I have been even more foolish than so much so as to trouble my head about matters which may be supposed not to concern me. I have committed a very gross error in judgment, Mr. Punch, respecting these matters. Peccavi! I cave in. Sir, I have been such a fool as to condemn and vituperate chignons. In ignorance of their sterling merits, I allowed myself to be prejudiced against them by unthinking eyesight. I did not like the look of them, therefore abused them, and what is worse, tried to disgust their wearers with them by pointing out the sources whence false hair is said to be derived fabulously!

"He has no children," is what Macduff could not say of Mr. Punch. If those children include grown-up daughters of some years standing, then you know what used to be the cost of bonnets. You know it too well. You need know it no more.

Sir, I have the honour, the pleasure, the happiness, of being acquainted with a young lady whose bonnets, I find, come no dearer than three shillings or three-and-sixpence a-piece. She makes them herself out of a little piece of crape or tulle, and a few artificial flowers. This tulle is not tulle illusion, no, Sir, tulle at one-and-three pence a yard, fifteen penn'orth of tulle, dog-cheap, no illusion, and no mistake.

Now this admirable economy, Mr. Punch, is rendered alone possible by the chignon. That fashionable superstructure of the upper storey itself, in fact, constitutes the clothing of the head, thus allowing, or rather necessitating, a bonnet which is simply decorative. In the case to which I refer it is Nature's gift; but even a chignon, constituting a quasi wig would be so durable as to be comparatively cheap.

Chignons are praiseworthy inventions. No head-dress can possibly be more becoming than the chignon, it is the most elegant, and captivating, and the prettiest ever devised. The chignon is more than graceful when it has that saving grace which charms an old censor like САТО.

your

RATHER A FOOL'S QUESTION.

THE question which has arisen touching the precedence of the Household Cavalry over the Royal Horse Artillery will recall to the minds of some of Punch's more ancient readers, a scene at Astley's, in the hippic days of that establishment, which used to occur between MR. WIDDICOMBE and the Clown. At the conclusion of one of their customary dialogues between the rides, MR. MERRIMAN proceeded to make his exit, marching ahead of MR. WIDDICOMBE. Whereupon MR. WIDDICOMBE pulled MR. MERRIMAN back behind him, saying, "I never follow the fool." "Don't you?" MR. MERRIMAN used to reply. Then I do." And he followed WIDDICOMBE. Did not MR. MERRIMAN treat the question of precedence in a spirit of wisdom which the gallant officers of "crack" regiments might, but do not emulate, in discussing that subject?

Beales v. Jenner.

An agitation, which it is not too much to call wicked, considering its probable results among the uneducated, has beenggot up against Vaccination. Mr. Punch rejoices to say that the movement has received its death-blow. The Noble BEALES has observed the crisis. Resolved to do something which should stamp the agitation as utterly ludicrous, and should make it impossible for a rational person to speak gravely of it, MR. BEALES has patriotically joined it. A bolder, kinder, better-timed act is not upon record. Let this reformer's motto be, "Emancipate the Small-Pox!"

HABITUAL CRIMINALS BILL OF COMPLAINT. MR. PUNCH, LETTER-WRITING not being in my line, I've got a perfessional Gent, who makes his living by it (beging pardon of the "Mendicity," that is when they'll let him) to put my ideas on paper for me, in order that you and other gentlemen of enlitened minds and libral principals may know what me and my Friends think of a certain act of parleyment, as effecting a vast and powerfull (so far as mussells is concerned) class of society.

Mr. Punch, I don't mind telling you, now I'm obleeged to shut up Shop, that I'm a Teacher of theiving. I hartily wish I could have sold my Practice, but it ain't worth tupence now, and it's too late to go into the reglar joint stock business or open a bank (unless it was with a crow-barr). As therefore I can't do nothing in my native country I must go abroad where the liberty of the subject is respected as it ought to be. But how am I to go without Funds? Every body else whose livelyhood is taken away by a lot of Bighothed ledgislaters has compensation given them. Why didn't the home sec, put a clawse in his bill to make some prevision for us? Next season I understand we are to have a compulsery Education skeme thrust upon us. Why that'll be worser than this. We shan't have a chance of getting a Prentice then, for our motto is "catch your hare early in the morning" (a Prentice is a hare-in Newgate he's jug'd hare). Unless you have a boy in training as soon as he can use his hooks and eyes you will never make a thief of him what 'll be worth a hering. If boys is made to go to School till they're 10 or 12 year old, their Fingers won't be lissome enough for the Pocket, and another thing Education makes boys Superstitious, and further than that, they get too knowing. They see that Theiving after all is a losing game-that it don't pay in the Long Run, so far as the lower orders is concerned, even if it pays us Trainers what get a commission and run no risk. I do hope the home sec. will see what he can do for us and pay our expenses to America. Sweep a crossing I never will-no, I'll beg my bread from door to door first-neither will I go to the Union, for there the mean creatures require you to pick okum, and I hate work as a rat hates pison. Yours, &c.

MR. BAXTER is of opinion that the country maintains "scores of useless clerks." Very likely it does. That is an indisputable reason for not filling up their vacated places. The country maintains a great many officials who are of no use. It maintains useless bishops, parsons, lawyers, military and naval officers. MR. BAXTER does not propose the abolition of their stipends and pay. So the Post need not apprehend that he proposes the dismissal and disendowment of the useless, but engaged clerks. He scorns the suggestion of discharging scores of clerks uncompensated, as he would scorn that of wiping out milkscores unpaid. He knows that the uselessness of useless clerks ought to have been considered by those who hired them on the country's behalf. Of course he no more thinks of pauperising ex-clerks than of stopping the pensions which ex-Ministers may be entitled to. MR. BAXTER's views are the reverse of mean, cruel, unjust, and selfish. For the sake of an inappreciably fractional relief of the taxpayer, who would dream of turning poor clerks out of their situations to starve? Nobody but an unfeeling economical prig; and there is no such person in the Cabinet. Her Majesty's present Ministers are not the men to reduce other placemen to beggary with the sole view of currying favour fear, therefore, that they will deal more hardly with useless clerks than with the British Public and keeping themselves in office. There is no by making use of them.

THE WAY THROUGH CLARENCE GATE.

So, MRS. PRESCOTT excludes the British Public from the Roehampton entrance to Richmond Park, by barring them out of Clarence Lane! Well, she can do what she likes with her own. For no Railway Company has as yet been authorised to spoil Clarence Lane and Richmond Park too by laying down a line in the former to traverse the latter. If this Vandalism had been legalised, DAME PRESCOTT would have been obliged to sell her lane to the Railway-men at a valuation. The other day, it appears she exercised her right of ownership by excluding agree quickly with her adversaries (LAYARD and the British Public) the Chief Commissioner of Works. Had not DAME PRESCOTT better whilst she is in the way with them; lest, ere this time twelvemonths, a special Act of Parliament, compel her to surrender Clarence Lane to the Government on terms to be dictated by a Metropolitan Jury.

CAUTION TO TRESPASSERS!

(By our Clodhopping Correspondent.)

MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,

THE other day, being Sunday, your servant and three companions, a respectable solicitor and his two children, were ordered by a seeming under-keeper, accompanied by two other cads, out of Nightingale Wood.

Nightingale Wood is a wood lying between Southampton and Romsey. Derives its name, of course, from being full of nightingales in the nightingale season. Might have been called Primrose Wood instead, with equal reason. Abounds in various other flowers and plants, including lilies of the valley and Solomon's Seal. Is traversed by grassy walks bordered with chesnuts and hazel. Communicates with the highway by open gates not barred. Has been, from time immemorial, open by gracious permission to rural ramblers.

Your Commissioner, when informed that he and his associates were trespassing, was dancing jauntingly down a hill, bearing in his hand a large bunch of the herb eyebright, and might, if he had only had spectacles on, have been taken for a regular Professor. He did not look like a poacher, at any rate. But one of the keeper's concomitant

cads did.

The principal cad, the keeper, said that he had orders from the proprietor of the property to exclude all persons from the wood. Your Commissioner does not for a moment believe any gentleman capable of cutting off his neighbours, and the harmless stroller, botaniser, or toadstool-hunter, and the children in the purlieus of Broadlands, from their ancient privilege of access to Nightingale Wood. He believes that the cad who accosted him as a trespasser, was, in so doing, simply trying it on with a view to a "tip"-which he missed.

Let the exclusion of your Commissioner from Nightingale Wood, by an officious if not a rapacious cad, pass. But there are other cads, who, without doubt do represent their employers, and represent them thoroughly, by whom the pedestrian has lately become liable to be ordered out of woodlands and solitudes which in time past he was free

to roam at large. In wood, coppice, and wild, where for ages there had been free leave of pathway, wayfarers are now almost everywhere confronted with a horrid board, reared on a post, and inscribed with an execrable "Caution to Trespassers." Which structure your Commissioner would gladly see converted into a gallows, with the churl who reared it hanging thereon.

By the way, no notice-board warns people out of Nightingale Wood.

You, Mr. Punch, are aware that the brutes now fast closing the sylvan scenery of England to Englishmen, are with the exception of an ignoble Duke or two, rich rogues of speculators and financiers, who have ousted the old territorial aristocrats and 'squires, having bought fields and forests with the reward of their rascality.

"Haven't I a right to do what I like with my own?" demands the exclusive Proprietor. Oh yes, Curmudgeon. I am answering a Snob and a Philistine, not Mr. Punch. Oh yes, Niggard. You have a perfect right to curtail people of an indulgence they have only enjoyed on sufferance. You have an undeniable right to deny them the vision, even, of your Paradise. And they have a right to do what they like with their own too. They have a right to vote for whom they will. The rights of property rest on common consent. Did you never hear any thing about a certain cry of Communism? If you want to provoke it, pursue your present course of excluding your less fortunate fellow citizens from domains which they have been accustomed to range as commons. And then that cry will be joined, and swelled, and helped as much as possible to become law by men who, enthusiastic upholders of a landed gentry, would, if they could, abolish landed Snobs.

Nobody, Mr. Punch, can be a more thorough well-wisher to your landed gentry-observe, Gentry, not Snobs-than, my dear Mr. Punch, Your ever faithful Commissioner, HOBNAIL.

Information Wanted.

WILL some one explain how it happens that, though wheat falls, bread continues to "rise ?" We have dipped into Yeast, but can find no solution of this puzzle there.

Happy Thought-Have it engraved as a frontispiece to Typ. Devel., with a little slip in book, Directions to Binder: Portrait to face title-page."

4. Bound to go to Jersey. Ought to go.

5. Bound to go to Milan. Ditto.

6. And to go to Austria, and call on COUNT DE BOOTJACK. If my wife says I am too much away, that's absurd, when it's business. Then it's absolutely necessary for my literary work.

Happy Thought.-To put down on paper Literary work in order. Have read somewhere of orderly habits of literary men (DISRAELI'S Curiosities, I think). Good plan, and divide the week and the days. First, What work? Typical Developments. This will probably run to twenty vols. Notes for these (as did the author of Civilisation, History of). It is said that portmanteaux full of notes were lost. Good plan that, portmanteau for notes for travelling.

Second, Book of Repartees, alphabetically arranged. These require perpetual refining and polishing.

Third, Everybody's Country Book. This will be a capital Shilling volume, with a picture outside (my portrait again, in colours would do) containing a quantity of valuable information on country subjects, when I have collected it.

Fourth, Humorous Tales and Stories. I began to make a large collection of these; that is, it would have been large only I kept forgetting to carry about the special pocket-book with me, except at first, so that I've only got six down. It is so difficult to recollect a good story when you come home late at night and write it down. I've got some commenced in the manuscript, but on looking at them I fancy I must have fallen asleep over them. I have since tried to finish them. Happy Thought.-Might publish a weekly paper of Commencements and Endings, as a sort of Notes and Queries, and invite the public to correspond and fill up.

Very good idea this. Will try it on friends first: try it everywhere. The plan on paper is this

A Commencement.-"As BRUMMEL was one day coming out of a shop in St. Martin's Court, an urchin who had been eagerly eyeing the Beau, asked him for a penny. The Beau refused, telling the ragged youngster in words less polite than forcible that he would see him at Jericho before he would bestow upon him a stiver. The UrchinNow what did the Urchin say?

66

Again. SOAME JENYNS, seeing the LORD CHANCELLOR mount

Now what did SOAME JENYNs observe to GEORGE D'ARCY?

Anyone knowing what SOAME JENYNS said will kindly forward the same to the Editor of the Commencements, &c.

As an example of Endings: "There's a capital Irish story ending with 'Bedad, Docther, 'tis the same thing entirely.' How does this begin?

His nose,' answered the wit. ERSKINE smiled at the witticism, but never forgave the satire." How does this commence?

I would give a trifle to remember one or two things I've said also, but I dare say they'll come in in time. A friend of RAWLINSON'S told me the other day about somebody on a tight-rope, and I made a reply which set everyone roaring; there were only RAWLINSON, CAZELL, and self. I couldn't write it down at the time, and two hours after I couldn't recall it.

I ask RAWLINSON; he doesn't remember. I ask CAZELL, he doesn't. CAZELL says he'll think of it, and he's got a capital thing for me for Typ. Devel. Will he tell it me when I return? He'll be away. He's going to BUSTED'S, in Hertfordshire to-morrow.

My Cottage is near the road, will he stop the night, and over a pipe he could tell me all about it. He accepts.

CAZELL has his luggage ready, so we start. I complain of luggage. "I'll tell you what you ought to do," says CAZELL.

N.B. I subsequently discover that this is CAZELL's peculiarity; he is always telling people "What they ought to do." He is great in dodges," and apparently there is not a single subject he is not well up in. Most useful fellow, CAZELL.

As to luggage, he says, "You ought to get one of SPANKER AND TICKETT'S bags. Those are the men: only six guineas. Put everything in 'em for a fortnight."

Happy Thought. To say, knowingly, "That depends what you want." Capital for repartee-book that. Put it down. I should have said it was unanswerable if CAZELL (he is a sharp fellow, CAZELL) hadn't immediately replied, "Yes; but if you take one of these bags, you won't want anything."

Happy Thought.-Put CAZELL's answer down instead of mine. Better. "Have you got one?" I ask.

'No, he has not. He divides things into two lots, one for each week. It is nearly as good.'

Happy Thought.-To say, "Yes, of course," being uninterested. I don't know what he means, and hate uninteresting explanations. We talk about literature: chiefly Typical Developments. I ask his opinion of POPGOOD AND GROOLLY. He says, "I tell you what you ought to have done : gone to LAXON AND ZINSKIN."

I say if POPGOOD AND GROOLLY fail, I'll go to LAXON.
Happy Thought.-Wish I'd gone to LAXON.

I think CAZELL (I put this note down later as an opinion) is calculated to render one dissatisfied.

"Where do you go for your hats?" asks CAZELL.

I tell him. He smiles pityingly, and shakes his head. "Why not?" I ask.

He tells me where I ought to go to for hats.

It appears that I go to all the wrong places for gloves, shoes, boots, coats, shirts-everything. All the people are furnishing me with those things who oughtn't to.

I apologise for them generally, and say, "Well, they suit me very well.'

Happy Thought.-When CAZELL gets out at our Station and sees my boy in livery (as a tiger) and my pony-trap, he won't go on giving advice as if I was nobody at all, and knew nothing about that sort of thing.

At my Station.-"Come," I say, heartily, "here's the trap waiting. I shall be glad to get home for dinner."

"My servant here?" I ask the Station Master, with a lord-of-themanorish air.

Station Master hasn't seen him, and goes off to give some directions to a sub-official. This apparent neglect will not impress CAZELL. The trap is not there.

I say, "Confound that fellow JAMES!" (Explain that JAMES is my groom.) The fellow JAMES is four feet high, aged fifteen.

Happy Thought.-Better walk.

"Tell you what you ought to do," says CAZELL, "you ought to have a communication between the Station and your house, so that you could tell 'em when you come down, and so forth."

I say it would be convenient, but how could it be done? He says, "Easily; write to the Manager. Represent the case here, and to the London Superintendent, and it's done."

We meet JAMES and the pony-trap. He is doing a full gallop, and, on seeing us, pretends the pony has run away. Young vagabond Most angry at the present state of his livery, he looks so dirty and disreputable (specially about the gloves, and tie), that I wish I could pass him off as somebody else's boy.

Happy Thought.-Blow him up privately behind the stable-door when we get in, and threaten to send him away if he's not better.

He weeps copiously at this, (hope CAZELL won't return during this scene: he'll go about telling everyone that I make my groom cry,) but I feel sure that directly my back is turned he makes faces at me. I turn suddenly one day, and find him (I will swear it) executing a sort of war-dance at my back. I charge him with it, and he says, with a look of utter surprise, at such an insinuation, that "No, he warn't."

I can't say, "Yes, you were," when he says, "No, he warn't." He must know whether it was a war-dance or not better than I.

As to pony-traps, CAZELL tells me what I ought to do. Go to LAMBORN, the fellow who builds for the PRINCE. This wrinkle (he generally calls his information "wrinkles ") he gives with a wink. In fact, when I think of it, CAZELL's conversation consists of nods, and winks, and wrinkles.

"You mention my name," says CAZELL, "and LAMBORN will do it for you at a very moderate price."

I make a note of this. Begin to wish I'd gone to LAMBORN originally.

As CAZELL hasn't much to say about the pony (I am disappointed with CAZELL, as most people coming down observe "What a pretty pony!" Ladies say, What a pet!" "What a delicious little trap," &c., &c.)-I remark to him that it's a pretty pony, isn't it?

CAZELL hesitates. "Yes," he says, dubiously. It appears he doesn't like that sort. He suggests that it is rather touched in the wind. I deny it. Wish he wouldn't say these sort of things before the boy JAMES. "If I want a pony (wink and nod) he can put me up to a model. Go to HODGKINS." Here (he leans back in the seat, and looks at me as much as to say, "There! there's a chance for you, my boy. 'Tisn't everyone who knows about HODGKINS."

Happy Thought.-To pretend (as I get rather tired of CAZELL) that I wouldn't go to HODGKINS on any account.

"Then you're wrong," says CAZELL. Subject dropped. We arrive at my gate.

some

JAMES (the tiger) has been instructed by me to touch his hat on going to the horse's head. He has a salute peculiarly his own: thing between military and a clown in a ring," says CAZELL (rudely, I think. If he sees a fault, he says, it 's friendly to mention it). "You ought to send your boy to THOROUGHGOOD, the trainer. He educates them regularly for noblemen. I know him, he'd do it for me."

I should like to send JAMES to be educated as a tiger.

Happy Thought.-To avail myself of CAZELL's knowing THOROUGH

GOOD.

OUR SEA-SIDE SWINDLE.

It is admitted by us both,

That summer leads to sea;

So every autumn nothing loth

Do I and MRS. B.

Lock up our plate, pack up our trunks,
And leave dear Number 3,

Cornwallis Place to MRS. HUNX,
Who "chars" for MRS. B.

An ancient female given to

Brown brandy in her tea;

But that's the case with all her crew,
Declareth MRS. B.

She never sets the house on fire,
And that means much to me;
Whilst inexpensive is her hire-
And that suits MRS. B.

Each August for ten years or so
To Shellford-on-the-Sea;

A small place lying rather low,
Have I and MRS. B.

Gone as a rule-this year as well-
Embrowning there are we.

We daren't admit that it's a sell,
Not I or MRS. B.

The butchers' shops are dear and bad,
The grocers keep vile tea;

There's seldom good fish to be had,
Which vexes MRS. B.

The butter's vague, the eggs are stale,
And with us disagree;

The smell of shrimps pervades the gale,
And sickens MRS. B.

If you should wish to get a book,
And seek the libraree;

Scorr's novels meet your anxious look,
Read all has MRS. B.

No modern works by TROLLOPE, or
By READE, are there, says she;
But Pamela's on hand-a bore
To simple MRS. B.

To-day's newspapers don't arrive
Until to-morrow. Three
We fix for dinner, but it's five
Before poor MRS. B.

Can get it served, good luck if then.
Our evenings bring ennui,
We have sat up till nearly ten,

Have I and MRS. B.

By early dawn a German band
Beneath our balconee,

Plays mad'ning airs of fatherland-
An ear has MRS. B.

It makes her ill: then men with prawns,
Then "Happy, gay, and free,"
Yelled forth: "My dear, I'm sure our brawn's
Been cut!" says MRS. B.

Our tea's purloined, we lock it up,
But there's another key;
Each day they take at least a cup,
Says angry MRS. B.

Our butter melts, our cold meat shrinks,
Dries up our eau-de-vie;

But that's the case with all our drinks,
In tears says MRS. B.

The things they call machines, oh dear!
We gladly pay the fee

To get on land again: they're dear
Though bad, says MRS. B.
The drainage is defective, one

Old native said to me

"It's time that summut should be done," And so thought MRS. B.

There's no amusement, oh dear, no,

We come for health, not spree;
The third week seems a trifle slow,
Eh? Don't it, MRS. B. ?

And still each year we patronise
The place and hail with glee,
The welcome sight of two new "flys,"

For me and MRS. B.

Each pimple on each boatman's nose,

We know as well as he;

Their boots, their pipes, their knives, their clothes-
All known to MRS. B.

The goods behind the grocer's pane,
Stamped on our memoree;

One cake of soap nine years has lain,
"Just there," says MRS. B.

"How queer an animal is man, How strangely loth is he

To deviate from his usual plan,"

Said I to MRS. B.

Why do we stick to grooves and rules

Why Shellford-on-the-Sea ? "

"Because we are a pair of fools!

Says downright MRS. B.

To a Correspondent.

"INVESTIGATOR." The two great exhibitions of armour in London are at the Tower and the South Kensington Museum. There is none in the place you suppose likely to have a collection of this sort-The College of Arms.

THE IDIOT!

TOMPKINS says he never passes down Bond Street and sees over a door J. and A. Jump, from Vulliamy's, without feeling sure those watchmakers must employ the best springs.

MAXIM FOR MRS. BEECHER STOWE.-De Mortuis Nil nisi Bonum.

HIRED BRAVOS.-The Cheers of the Clacque.