A NATURAL PHILOSOPHER.-A candidate for the Public Service, being asked to exemplify the correlation of physical forces, instanced a blue pill and a black dose.

SLAVERY AND ART.-AN artist travelling in Virginia narrowly escaped being tarred and feathered for expressing his admiration of the freedom of TITIAN'S brush, and his respect or him as a man of colour.

CLASSICALITY FOR THE

MONTH.

MARCH is called from Martius, Mars. He was not much respected by the ancients, nor is he by the moderns, chiefly on account of an unpopular ceremony which they are liable to perform on the 25th of his month. His two horses, Flight and Fear, typify another ceremony sometimes performed a few days, or rather nights, before that date, when the goddess Dictynna is metaphorically said to be shot. Magpies were sacrificed to him, and gossipping old women (happily) suffer severely by his blasts. He was father of Harmonia, and about this time concert-givers begin to tout for gratuitous assistance from professionals. He was called Mavors, yet soldiers seldom know much of the spelling-book. He electrified Electryon (for omitting to call him one morning), by turning him into a cock, and hence cocks were shied at on Shrove Tuesday.

IS AT ALL A CLEVER, OR DESIRABLE PERFORMANCE;MALAPROPISM.-A good old lady, having occasion to mention

a work by a great contemporary historian, denominated it MICAWBER'S History of England. Subsequently, referring to the arrangement which terminated the late Italian war, the dear old soul called it the Treatise of Villafranca.

MONOTONY.-The Austrians are so tired of a paper currency, that they are anxious for anything, by way of change.

EXTREME POLITENESS.-Pickpocket, to Policeman. I say, your handkerchief is hanging out. You'll have your pocket picked, if you don't take care.

THE BANKS OF THE TIBER.-CRASSUS was the richest man of his time among the ancient Romans. Who were his bankers? If the opulent Triumvir had a banker, MR. CASSIUS.

MR. PUNCH'S ENTOMOLOGICAL RECREATIONS.

TAPE-WORMS.

THE peculiar variety known as the red-tape worm will be found especially abundant in the War Office and the Admiralty, where this mischievous reptile breeds so fast, and attains such dimensions as to be an obstruction to all busi. ness. The red tape-worm is peculiarly insidious and determined in its attacks on all new inventions or improved business machinery, coiling itself round and round, and impeding the working of such contrivances, and often rendering them as entirely unusable, as the white ants are said to do with furniture in India. Many ingenious inven tors of excitable temperament have fallen victims to the slow but sure attacks of the red tape-wormwhich, like some other of the ascarides, has a tendency to mul tiply itself.

CLASSICALITY FOR

THE MONTH. APRIL is so called from Aphrodite, a word exactly similar in sound, and meaning Venus. This was the goddess of Love, wherefore her month opens with All Fools' Day. There were wo Venuses, one called Urania, who presides over the dreary orreries with which poor little hildren are afflicted in Lent, and the other Popularia, who sends hem, happy, to see the Easter-pieces. No pigs were offered to Venus though LORD BACON lied in April), and no reedy man is ever liked by the ladies. She is represented with a poppy, and the Exeter Hall speeches begin this month. She was called elessigama, because The presided over marage, and people had etter be married (if hey can afford it) in his month, because nere is a proverb gainst marrying in ay, and if they care bout proverbs, they might have to wait till

REALITY AND SHAM. "he true British officer raws his sword and ads on his company. The counterfeit Captain. raws his bill-and olts.

POLITICAL PREDIC ON.-Ribbonism may

e expected to be rife is season particularly

mong the customers of VAN AND EDGAR.

THE MONTH.

SEPTEMBER is so called from its having been the seventh month. The two new months, January and February, were inserted by Numa (please to remember the Grotto), who in imitation of the Greeks, divided the year into twelve parts. On the 13th the consul or dictator used to knock a nail in the temple of Jupiter, which was about as sensible a custom as is the counting of hobnails in our own time. Considering the fearful extravagance of the priests, it would have been better had the chief magistrate turned a screw. On the last day of the month there was a festival in honour of Meditrina, the goddess of curing, when the Romans tapped new wine, probably because it tasted like physic.

Ludi

Magni, or great games, were carried on this month, but in our time it is devoted to great game-bags being carried off.

ETIQUETTE à la Romaine.Upon the principle that one must do at Rome as Rome does, is one expected to put three hats upon his head, because the Pope wears three crowns!

A DELICATE PROPOSAL.A civic youth, intending to offer marriage to a young lady, wrote to ask her to unite with himself in the formation of a 'Art Union.

A BOUNCER.

FACILITY IN BOOKKEEPING.-To keep books appears to be an easy matter with most people; the difficulty with the majority of those who borrow books consists in returning them. HOMEOPATHY IN THE LARDER.-To cure bacon. Rub in as much butter as will lie on the point of a pin-and smoke.

MY DEAR, SHE'S A MERE CHILD-A MERE CHILD!" ICHTHYOLOGY.-Whitebait, in spite of their minute dimensions, are decided by the most scientific epicures to be no small fry. RETRIEVING ONE'S POSITION.-A fast undergraduate immediately on having been plucked gets driven to the station and takes a first class.

THE man who gives a joke should be prepared to take one; and so it is with testimonials, which have become such a complete joke now-a-days, that we should advise the reader, if he is sensible, to have nothing to do with them. He, who in

a moment of weakness, gives anything towards a testimonial, exposes himself to the danger of being compelled some day to take one himself. Such mutual homage only ends in general contempt.

PRACTICAL WISDOM. WHENEVER you see exposed for sale any article that strikes your fancy, buy it if you can afford it, whether you want it or not. If you wait till you actually want a certain thing, you will find that the exact thing you want is not to be found. You will search in vain at a hundred clothes-shops for the particular kind of trousers that you once saw in a window.

PROFESSIONAL NURSERY

RHYME.

TAILOR.

GOOSEY, goosey, gaby, Where's little baby?

Bend pins;

Cross shins;

Then he 'll in the way be.

THE SENTENCE OF A WISE MAGISTRATE.-Always speak of a man as you fined him.

ECONOMY WITH PERFUME.-A domestic recipe to renovate black crape says that, "Skim milk-and-water with a little bit of glue in it, made scalding hot, will restore old rusty black Italian crape." You cannot think how nice it smells! DIVORCE.-A Matrimonial Ticket-of-leave.

READING CHARACTERS IN WRITING.

THERE are persons who profess to judge of character by handwriting, and to judge from their advertisements, there is very little doubt that their profession pays them. Yet their judgments, after all, are mere matters of guess work. They base them, as the gipsies do, on the mere pretence of simply looking at the hand. Now, writing a good hand by no means generally implies the having a good head. Still less is it indicative of having a good heart. A man may be remarkable for the superfinest qualities, and yet may write the coarsest and most commonplace of hands. He may have the clearest brain, and yet may sign his name so puzzlingly that nobody can read it. Many a man indeed who cannot write his name at all, may, without untruth, be looked on as a man of mark.

WORDS FOR NIGGER MELODISTS. WHEN I lib in Ole Virginny,

I was no piccaninny;

I lub well a yaller gal,

Although her eyes wer squinny!

Corn cake corn!

SUKEY's all forlorn;

Cake corn cake!

SAMBO'S heart will break.

Dat yaller gal she whisper me,
"Oh, SAM, I want to married be!"
Yup! yup! I said, de sky am red,
And so you can't be mar-ri-ed!

Chorus. Corn cake corn! &c. Another twelvemonth past and gone, Dat gal and I sit all alone,

Yup! yup! I said, your eyes am red, Oh, Golly! we 'll get mar-ri-ed!

Corn cake corn,

SUKE's no more forlorn!
Cake corn cake,

SAMBO's heart won't break!

COCKNEY CLASSICS." JACK," said ROBINS," which varsity would you rayther go to, Hoxford or 'Idelberg !" "Hoxford, JEMMY, to be sure, you muff," answered ROBBINS. "'Cos vy, I prefers hindustry to hidleness."

BOTANY AND ENTOMOLOGY.-Creepers do much better on walls than in beds.

CLASSICALITY FOR THE MONTH.

JULY is so called from JULIUS, who was also named CESAR, which in Punic means elephant. Hence intending tourists do now pack their trunks. JULIUS deserved a month to his name, for he reformed the calendar, and set the almanack by the sun so cleverly, that things have gone on ever since much as he left them. But the Astronomer Royal who put J. C.up to all this was one PROFESSOR SOSIGENES, of Alexandria, of whom scholars only hear, while his master gets all the credit of the scientific operation. Mr. Punch now sets that matter straight, and ordains, that instead of the year being called the Julian year, CASAR shall be content with his July, and the annual period shall be called the SOSIGENEAN year. Remember the name by sausages.

THE FLIGHT OF GENIUS.-Too frequently, this flight is the Attic.

MRS. J. HAS THE BEST OF IT!

Paterfamilias. "MRS. JONES! M-MATILDA! WHY!-EH!-WHAT THE DEUCE-" Mrs. J. "YES, MR. J. YOU HAVE BEEN GOING ON SO ABOUT THE CRINOLINE, THAT I THOUGHT I WOULD TRY HOW YOU LIKED THIS STYLE OF THING. SO, COME, JONES, COME OUT FOR A WALK!"

LOST MEN. WHEN bach lors get marrie their bachelor a quaintances them no mor So far as conceri their chums wh live in chamber they might i deed almost well be dead wedded. Som times one of the appears in th haunts he on frequented, buth comes there like ghost, and seem the merest shi dow of the joll chap he used to b His old friends r gard him mor with sorrow tha with anger, bu neither he they derive mue comfort from hi visit. In fact, h drops in like tax-gatherer, an makes every on uncomfortable He who was onc the life become the death's hea of their dinner table. A Benedic with bachelors i

no

a fish out of wa ter; and the bes thing to be don with him is t throw a bait ou and try to mak him hook it.

A GOVERNMEN OFFICE.-A bun

dle of sticks bound

together by Re Таре.

I SHOULD BE EVER SO MUCH BETTER!"