Mr. Punch observes that his friends the parliamentary reporters did a sensible thing lately. An Irish faction-fight was detaining the House of Commons from its bed at the unseemly hour of three in the morning, and seemed likely to last until six. As the dawn broke, the gentlemen of the gallery, wearied with the gesticulations of Lord Claude Clamourous—for the best Peter Waggey that ever came out of the Lowther Arcade ceases to amuse after a time—wearied with the iterations of Lord Chaos, for a man cannot always have an eminent statesman, or an old friend, to carp at—wearied with what Mr. Gladstone gently called the "freshness" of Mr. Connoodle, fresh as dew from the mountain—the reporters, we say, suddenly shut up their note-books, and retired into their own apartment. The tongues of the Irish orators faltered, they looked up piteously at the long row of empty benches, murmured that it was unreasonable that the reporters should think that eleven hours and a half of talk was as much as the journals for which they work could conscientiously republish, and the profitless squabble was brought to a speedy close. Mr. Punch cordially approves of the remedy, and suggests that on another and a similar occasion it be tried a little earlier.
SOLDIERS AFLOAT.
A few more such showers as we have had lately, and the Camp at Chobham will become a flotilla.
MRS. MAGNALL'S HISTORICAL QUESTIONS
(As they should be written for Young Ladies).
A history of England for young ladies remains yet to be written. The usual ingredients of a reign cannot be interesting to the youthful female mind. Battles, with the number of killed and wounded; party feuds, with the names of the ministers who succeed one another in place; the slow march of public events, and the men who march slowly with them; the eternal round of diplomatic and political relations—which, as they never marry, are the last relations a lady cares for; these, we say, are not exactly the subjects that would engage the sympathies or the attention of a young girl. What romance, what possible interest is there in any one of them? No! we would change all that, and have our English History written in a style popular, easy, and graceful, and alluding only to such subjects as ladies understand, or can best appreciate.
Our proposal, however, will be at once apparent by the nature of the following questions, which we have extracted from a History supposed to be written according to our sensible plan;—