QUEER QUERIES.
Pure Beverages.—What is cocoa? I write to ask because our grocer says it has just been legally decided that a mixture containing eighty per cent. of flour and sago, and the rest genuine nibs, deserves to be called by that name. Is this really the law? He also tells me that in the Navy our sailors quite enjoy a cocoa that is half composed of "foreign fats." If so, is our Admiralty justified in getting its fat from abroad instead of supporting home industries? And when Jack Tar asks for cocoa, ought not he to get it? At all events, I have decided to pay my grocer's next bill with eighty per cent. of French pennies, and see how he likes that!—Soul of Honour.
An Additional "Labour of Hercules."—To fill, for the second time, the post of Governor of the Cape and High Commissioner of South Africa, to which Sir Hercules Robinson is appointed.
"Alone! Alone!"—Very like a wail. It has a sad sound, but not a bad look when written as "A Loan in London." Specially if it be the American.