A NEW DEPARTMENT OF FLUNKEYISM.
One of our contemporaries—the Observer—not satisfied with registering the mere dinner-givings, déjeûners, migrations, and marriages of the "upper classes," has just started a new department, to which the rather alarming title of "Accidents in High Life" has been given. We are henceforth, it seems, to be treated to the details of aristocratic mishaps, and the public press is to inform us how Lord Tom Noddy tumbled into a ditch while hunting, or what slips have been made by Lady So-and-So. We presume we may anticipate, under the thrilling title of "Accidents in High Life," a few such paragraphs as the following:—
"We regret to hear of a rather uncomfortable casualty having occurred to the young Earl of Spoonbill. His lordship, while riding in Piccadilly, had the misfortune to run over a young miscreant who was carrying a basket of oranges. The young nobleman was somewhat shaken by the concussion, which it is understood was sufficiently violent to break the legs of the unhappy wretch who was the cause of it; but, as we ran by the side of his lordship's horse, to be able to give our readers the latest particulars of his health, we did not wait to hear the fate of the degraded creature, who is, we hope, by this time expiating in a jail the offence of obstructing a thoroughfare and causing a temporary agitation to a member of a noble family. Repeated inquiries at his lordship's area-gate have satisfied us that there is no further cause for alarm. The noble earl was attended by the family apothecary, who "exhibited" a Sedlitz powder over night, and beef tea in the morning.