The Comic Almanack, Volume 2 / An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities

by William Makepeace Thackeray; Gilbert Abbott À Beckett; Henry Mayhew; Horace Mayhew; Albert Smith

DIRECTIONS FOR BREWING.

One of the difficulties attendant on domestic brewing is the expense of the cask, but this may always be got by having a barrel of beer on trial from a regular brewer, and saying it is not quite out when the cask is applied for. By agreeing to pay for the beer, one barrel under the other, the expense becomes merely nominal.

In order to prevent the lightning from turning the beer, a lightning conductor should be fixed in the bung-hole of the cask, or a stair-rod would perhaps be an economical substitute.

Families who brew without exactly knowing how, may try the experiment of a polite note to Messrs. Barclay and Perkins, asking one of them to step round to put the parties in the right way, if they should be making a failure of the brewing.

If the beer should be flat after having been left to cool in washing-tubs, a raisin may be thrown in, and if it fails to produce any effect, another raisin may be tried; but should the second raisin prove unsuccessful, it will be waste of time—and raisins—to go on with the experiment.

COURT OF YOUNG ENGLAND.

YOUNG ENGLAND.
A BIOGRAPHY.

The subject of the present notice was born of very obscure parents in London, and was placed, soon after his birth, at the doors of the Treasury, under the impression that Sir Robert Peel might stumble over it, and be induced to take it in and provide for it. The Premier, however, merely moved it on one side with his foot, and Young England began to cry out very lustily; but its voice was so weak that no one paid any attention to it. Soon after, the bantling attracted the notice of the press, and its case was laid before the public, but it excited very little interest; and an appeal to Old England in favour of Young England was equally unsuccessful, the former denying the latter to be its legitimate offspring. A novel, entitled "Coningsby," was afterwards written, in the hope of doing something for Young England; but the more the book was read, the less was Young England thought of.

It is a curious fact, that while Young England never could succeed in winning popularity, a rival, in the shape of Young America, was very successful, under the name of General Tom Thumb, who was received very graciously at Buckingham Palace. Surely, if mere littleness confers a claim to admiration, Young England is almost as deserving of it as General Tom Thumb, who, on the principle that extremes often meet, frequently found himself in the presence of greatness. Young England would give its little finger to make its way at Court as little Thumb has done.