THE KEY TO THE RUSSIAN QUESTION.
IT seems after all that the great casus belli between the Porte and Russia is "Who shall keep the key of the Greek Church?" The contest is to determine whether the key in question shall dangle on the watch-chain of the Greek, or hang on the bunch with the street-door and other keys of the Latin patriarch. We might as well allow the Emperor of China to interfere with us, and insist on appointing a protector of Temple Bar, for the purpose of deciding whether the Queen or the Lord Mayor shall have the custody of that rusty old myth, the Key of the City. It is absurd, and yet awful to think, that all Europe should be kept on the qui vive about a key of no real value, and which, in fact, nobody cares about.
We think we can furnish a key to the whole difficulty, and we can point the way to a pacific solution of the question by putting the affair into the hands of our friend Chubb of St. Paul's Churchyard, or our equally enlightened friend Bramah of Piccadilly. We are convinced that either of these ingenious individuals will undertake to dispose of the question, "Who shall keep the key?" by furnishing each party with a duplicate. By this arrangement either of the individuals claiming custody of the key will have it in his power to avoid the necessity of either picking the lock or picking a quarrel.