And the Jackdaw, fowl provoking, still is croaking, still is croaking,
On the pallid bust of GLADSTONE just above my study door,
And his eyes have all the seeming of a small attorney scheming;
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And the shape cut by that shadow which lies floating on the floor,
Looks (to me) OBSTRUCTIVE BORE!
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
SUBMARINE ENTERPRISE.—It is a pity, perhaps, that on the very first occasion which enabled you to submit, for an experimental trial, to the Dockyard Authorities at Portsmouth, your newly-designed Self-sinking and Propelling Submarine Electric Gun Brig, your vessel, owing, as you say, "to some trifling, though quite unforeseen, hitch in the machinery," should have immediately turned over on its side, upsetting a quantity of red-hot coal from the stoke-hole, and projecting a stifling rush of steam among the four foreign captains, and the two scientific experts whom you had induced to accompany you in your projected descent under the bottoms of the three first-class ironclads at present moored in the harbour. Your alternative ideas of either cutting your vessel in half, and turning it into a couple of diving-bells for the purpose of seeking for hidden treasure on the Goodwin Sands, or of running it under water, for the benefit of those travellers who wish to avoid all chances of sea-sickness, between Folkestone and Boulogne, seem both worthy of consideration. On the whole, however, we should be inclined to think that your last suggestion—namely, that you should put yourself in communication with some highly respectable marine-store dealer, with a view to the disposal of your "Electric Submarine Gun Brig," for the price of old iron, would, perhaps, prove the soundest of all. Still, don't be disheartened.