Volume 25 — PLAIN FARE AT THE PALACE.
Reading edition
The Court Circular informed us the other day that "there was no addition to the Royal dinner yesterday." We should not have had the impertinence to speculate on the bill of fare at the Palace, had we not been, as it were, invited to the subject by the Court Newsman, who tells us that there was "no addition to the Royal dinner." We can only compliment those who have the arrangement of the Palace provisions on their frugality, which in these days of dear provisions is a virtue that all housekeepers would do well to imitate.
If there was "no addition to the Royal dinner," it is clear that the Royal Family must, on the day in question, have been eating cold—or at most hashed—the "joint" of the day previous. We confess we do not like the idea of the younger branches being deprived of any of those little luxuries so dear to juvenile as well as to "other lips and other hearts;" and, therefore, in the event of any future announcement of "no addition to the Royal dinner," we should be glad to read the extra intimation "but there was a pudding in the nursery."
The Price of Coals Accounted for.
It is usual with small tradesmen to increase the weight of coals by sprinkling cold water upon them; but in the City the reason why coals come so heavy is owing to the City dews falling upon them for twenty miles round London. When these dews are collected, it is found that the difference, which, of course, weighs upon the price, amounts, in the course of the year, to many hundred thousands of pounds!
WHERE ARE THE RUSSIANS?
WHAT has become of the Russians, of whom 80,000 were said to have passed the Pruth, while 24,000 is the greatest number that has been yet accounted for. People are beginning to suspect that the Russian Army in the Principalities is like the Russian Army at Astley's having a considerable force behind some imaginary hills, and running round and round by the back of the stage to give an appearance of numbers. We all know that theatrical population progresses more rapidly than any other kind of population; and if our census shows that we double ourselves in fourteen years, a dramatic census will show that a theatrical population—if well marshalled by the stage manager—will double itself in less than five minutes. These considerations, however, do not help us in our difficulty, when we ask what has become of some 40,000 or 50,000 Russians that are wholly unaccounted for? We may be told in the usual loose phraseology of the chronology of war that they have been "cut to pieces." But before we can believe this dreadful assertion, we have a right to demand the production of at least the "bits" into which the Russians have either been smashed, chopped or beaten. Perhaps the most plausible way of accounting for the slaughter of the thousands of Russians whose remains are nowhere to be found is by the very natural supposition that they were but giants of the imagination, manufactured before they were slain by some literary Tom Thumb, who is "doing the foreign correspondence" of some London journal in his lodgings at Lambeth.
A Cup Too Much.
We understand that Prince Albert has nothing whatever to do with the movement got up by the (late) Lord Mayor, and indeed His Royal Highness has as much distaste for the baneful cup of adulation as he has for "the poisoned Challis."
AN ALARMING DISCOVERY.
Somebody is advertising every day an instrument warranted to "frighten but not kill" the public in general. The terrific instrument is no less than a Gong, which for 40 shillings will frighten a thief, will "appal a burglar" for 60 shillings, and for the comparatively small matter of four pounds will "alarm the country." We hope the Government will at once put a prohibitory duty on these gongs, for it will be an awful state of things if anybody may have it in his power to frighten the isle from its propriety for eighty shillings. Unless something is immediately done to check the danger that threatens us, there is no doubt that "Bang goes the Gong" will become as great a nuisance as "Pop goes the Weasel."
Turtle in Ecstasies.
Accounts from Honduras represent the turtle in the Bay as exhibiting symptoms of extraordinary excitement; flapping their fins, paddling about with unwonted rapidity, lifting themselves on end and dancing and jumping out of the water; in short, realising the most vivid idea of lively turtle. These symptoms of hilarity among the furnishers of green fat have been referred to the anticipation of the extinction of the City of London Corporation, and consequent discontinuance of the Lord Mayor's dinners.
THE GORTSCHAKOFF JACKET.
The uniform of Prince Gortschakoff has not been described. We believe the principal article of it is a "cut-away."
Protection for the Sloe.
Everybody is for reducing the duty on French wines, except certain wine-merchants. As importers, the interests of those gentlemen could hardly be affected by the reduction; but perhaps they do not look on port and import as exactly the same thing.
The Oldest Anchorite.—Hope.
