THE TAILOR ASSASSIN.
An unhappy French tailor has been charged, on the evidence of our old friend Joinville, with a conspiracy to assassinate our old enemy Louis Napoleon. The "conspiracy" looks very like an attempt on our gracious Queen, for the unhappy wretch of a tailor wanted Her Majesty's head on twenty pieces of gold coin, and his design was directed far more upon English sovereigns than upon French Napoleons. Twenty pounds was the price to be charged by the French tailor for making his country free and happy; but, considering that the trade of patriotism is rather at a low ebb just now, we cannot help thinking that the unfortunate humbug placed his services at too high a figure.
Whether the accused really contemplated the murder of Louis Napoleon is doubtful, though Mr. Bodkin was engaged to argue that the tailor designed the quietus of the Emperor with, perhaps, "a bare Bodkin," which, being the instrument of his trade, might have been the intended instrument of his iniquity. Our private opinion of the matter is that the French vagabond, instead of wishing to shed the blood of the present ruler of France, was anxious only to make the Prince de Joinville "bleed" to the tune of twenty sovereigns. Instead of elevating the scamp into a political conspirator, it would be better to treat him at once as a swindler and a would-be obtainer of money under false pretences. There is no greater "mistake" than to assign political motives to a merely mercenary act, and to arraign as a monster, who would have murdered an Emperor, a poor insignificant adventurer who, though utterly hopeless of a "clean shirt," may have aspired to the chance of "a guinea."
The Maims of Money.
You scarcely ever receive change for a sovereign without finding that one of the shillings or sixpences has had a hole drilled through it, which—suggesting a painful doubt as to the exchangeable value of the coin—is altogether a bore. We are glad that Mr. Wilson has got leave to bring in a bill to prevent the defacing of the Queen's money; and we hope this measure will have the effect of remedying one of the greatest evils of change.
Mr. Public supplicates the Cabman to return to his Stand, to charge a Shilling a Mile, and all shall be forgotten!
[A Picture seen only "in the mind's eye" of Cabby.]