Volume 25 — DRAT THE EASTERN QUESTION!

To my Son Punch.

There now, Punch! Drat this nasty stupid good-for-nothing Eastern Question. I am sick and sorry of hearing it talked of, din, din, din, bother, bother, bother, every day, and all day long. Drat the Russians and Turks both, one's barbarians and the other's savages. I wouldn't give a fig for either of 'em; the Russians are just as bad as the Turks, and the Turks every bit as bad as the Russians, there isn't a pin to choose between 'em, six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. The Turks commit double and treble bigamy, and the Russians drink train oil; the Russians are beaten with the knout, and the Turks with the bastinado, and deserve to be, both alike. Oh, I know all about it, although I am only an old woman! and what's the whole to-do about but a parcel of nonsense, ambassadors niggling with their diplomatic notes, and quibbling backwards and forwards because an i wasn't dotted on one side and a t crossed on the other. Hity tity! I've no patience with 'em. Of course, if our bounden duty is to interfere, we must; but it's a great plague, and sickness in the land, and raining cats and dogs, and bread up and meat up, and how much higher they'll go goodness knows, but it will be beyond everything if there should be a war. Drat it! we can't help pestilence and famine, but it's our own doings if we add war. Not that I'm for Mr. Cobden and your 'No Soldiers' people that want to do away with the army and navy, and leave their sisters and mothers to invasion. Drat them, too—I despise such dirty drabs. But I do think it's such annoyance to be drawn in and forced to fight when you've no heart in the quarrel. What a pity it is we can't leave 'em alone and let 'em fight it out. Neither of 'em is our fellow Christians, Turks being Mahometans, and Russians Greek, which is as bad as Latin; and what I should like would be to see them left to themselves and eat each other up, like the Irish cats—poor things! Drat the ultimatums, drat the Phosphorus—which is always causing a combustion—drat the Dardanelles which I am sure they must be some forward husseys—drat the whole business, it's altogether a bad job from beginning to end, if there is to be any end, which if the scrimmage goes on I'm afraid will be the end of everything. Drat it all I say! I wish I had a good large broom, and power to sweep both your Sultan and your Emperor, and all their forces into the Red Sea, or Black Sea, or any sea deep enough to drown 'em out of the way, interfering, by their nasty trumpery tiffs and tantrums, with progress and civilisation, and arts and sciences, and the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, and the comfort and happiness of everybody, to say nothing of a poor old lady like me.

"Your affectionate,

"Mother Goose."

"The Common, October, 1853."

Great Theatrical Strike.

It is reported that Mr. Charles Kean the actor has struck for an advance of salary from Mr. Charles Kean the manager. Mr. Charles Kean refuses to advance another shilling to Mr. Charles Kean, actor, desiring him to act his worst. It is believed that the actor has taken the manager at his word. We deplore all strikes; especially one like the above, in which the public are the greater sufferers. When bad's the best, what must the worst be?

THE FASHIONABLE STRIKE AMONGST THE LOWEST CLASSES.

A Brute of a Husband is one who fancies, when he marries, that he is at perfect liberty to treat his wife as if she were no better than a street-door, on which there was nailed the polite request: "Please to Ring and Knock."

Beware the Bear.—Let Abd-ul-Medjid and Nicholas make it up, if possible—but not embrace. The Sultan must not trust himself to the hug.