"STUFF AND (NO) NONSENSE!"—"Begorra, 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good," said The O'GORMAN DIZER, when he heard that on account of the Influenza there was a Papal dispensation from fasting and abstinence throughout the United kingdom.
IN THE SEAT OF WISDOM.
At a meeting of the Drury Lane Lodge of Freemasons, said the Daily Telegraph, "with all due solemnity was Mr. S.B. BANCROFT installed in the Chair of King SOLOMON." This, whether an easy chair or not, ought to be the seat of wisdom. Poor SOLOMON, the very much married man, was not, however, particularly wise in his latter days, but, of course, this chair was the one used by the Great Grand Master Mason before it was taken from under him, and he fell so heavily, "never to rise again." How fortunate for the Drury Lane Masons to have obtained this chair of SOLOMON's. No doubt it was one of his wise descendants, of whom there are not a few in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, who consented to part with this treasure to the Masonic Lodgers. So here's King SOLOMON BUSY BANCROFT's good health! "Point, left, right! One, two, three!" (They drink.)
LEGAL IMPROVEMENTS.
A QUERY BY "PEN."—There was a "Pickwick Exam." invented by CALVERLEY the Inimitable. Why not a "Pendennis" or "Vanity Fair" Exam.? À propos, I would just ask one question of the Thackerayan student, and it is this:—There was one Becky whom everybody knows, but there was another BECKY as good, as kind, as sympathetic, and as simple, as the first Becky was bad, cruel, selfish, and cunning. Where is BECKY the Second to be found in W.M. THACKERAY's Works?