Porkers and Paupers.—Bath Workhouse pigs "live on the best of good cheer" in the form and substance of milk, so the municipal pork and rate-aided bacon ought to be prime. The Bristol Mercury reports a meeting of the Bath guardians, when
Mr. Manchip called attention to the fact that some of the children did not even touch their milk gruel and dry bread which was served out for breakfast. On Friday morning when the visitors were at the Workhouse at seven o'clock two buckets of milk gruel were taken out to the pigs. Mr. Manchip proposed that the Medical Officer be asked if he would be good enough at his earliest convenience to consider whether a change could be made in the children's diet. The Chairman thought if the gruel was sweetened with a spoonful of treacle the children would then like it. It was agreed to give the Chairman's suggestion a fortnight's trial.
Congratulations to the Bath children on being e-manchip-ated from their old diet!
For securing "absolute impartiality" in conferring the prizes at the Llanelly National Eisteddfod, the judges had "a pit dug for them," into which they disappeared during the progress of competitions, so that participators could not "fix them with a glittering eye," and compel them (by hypnotic means) to award a prize. Sir Joseph Barnby—warbling, sotto voce, "This is my time for disappearing"—greatly enjoyed these dives to the bottom of the well in search of Truth, and no doubt the novel departure "assisted" the blindness of Justice. But, so far as dignity is concerned, "Oh! the pit-y of it."
We read of a cooky at Claughton,
In music she was a self-taught'un;
But her mistress, I fear,
Said 'twas nothing but beer
that caused her cook to vociferate hymns and, in her harmonious enthusiasm, to return home towards midnight and hammer loudly at the door. We know not whether this melodious cuisinière's recipe for cleaning fire-irons "with a wet rag and a bucket of water" is to be found in Mrs. Glasse's Art of Cookery, but the learned Judge decided in favour of the mistress, against whom Mary Rogers (a poetical name forsooth) brought an action for unjustifiable dismissal. Alas! poor cook. She must, henceforward, do her stewing without singing and her "mashes" without melody.