MR. 'ARRY BELVILLE, ON THE CONTINENT GENERALLY.
'Arry Belville. "Yes! I like it extremely. I like the Lazy ally sort of feeling. I like sitting at the door of a Caffy to smoke my Cigar; and above all (onter noo) it's a great comfort to wear one's Beard without bein' larfed at!"
OPINIONS OF OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
"The Steppes of Russia are long dreary tracts, extremely tedious and very difficult to get over, requiring the greatest patience so as not to lose yourself in the midst of their interminable flatness; and, on my word, the same thing may be said of the diplomatic steps of the same country."—Aberdeen.
"Meeting one's constituents is sometimes as disagreeable as meeting a bill; but still it must be done, for the form of the thing, if it is only to save one's political credit."—Disraeli.
"The fault is not so much in bribing, as in being found out."—W. B.
"The only balls England should fight her battles with should be balls of cotton; the only shot, shot-silks'"—Bright.
"There are two kinds of M. P.'s; those who confine themselves to merely representing the people, and those who think it their duty also to represent their wrongs and grievances."—Roebuck.
"If I had my way I would very soon make the Russians leave the Danubian provinces. I should say to them very plainly, "Sortez, Messieurs, voilà la Porte;" and, if they didn't, I would soon make them."—Palmerston.
"I wouldn't dine with a Custom House officer, not even if he was to invite me, for I should be afraid he would always stop the bottle and never pass the wine."—B. Oliveira.
"Dentists stop vacancies in teeth by filling them up with gold, and really I know of no better plan for filling up a vacancy in Parliament."—Coppock.
"What's the use of my having a seat, if you will not allow me to sit down upon it?"—Rothschild.
"The Emperor Napoleon distinguished himself, it is true, in taking a few capitals; but let me ask what capital can stand in the way of Louis Napoleon without his immediately taking it? Such an Emperor is worth a fortune—aye, several fortunes—to France."—Malmesbury.
"The fact of the House sitting till so late an hour in the morning may, perhaps, account for there being so few rising men in Parliament."—Brotherton.
"Peace is the only commodity that, in a commercial country like England, one can never pay too dearly for, but then you should purchase it always in the cheapest market, and sell it in the dearest. But selling it is out of the question, for it is my advice to keep the peace, and not to sell it."—Cobden.
SHORT AND SAPONACEOUS.
SOME of Mr. Punch's contemporaries have been circulating, together with other small change, an account of a plant, newly discovered in California by a Viennese. This plant, they say, "is about a foot in height, and fades away in May, revealing to the astonished botanist a ball of natural soap, contained within its stalk, and superior to the best brown Windsor." They have forgotten, however, to add some particulars, which Mr. Punch, in his zeal for the public service, has taken pains to collect. He has ascertained that, out of one hundred and twenty-nine persons who have read this paragraph, thirty-two have observed, "that the properties of the plant are evidently soap-orific;" twenty-eight have opined "that, when Nature planted it in California she must have had an eye to the gold-washing;" sixty have pronounced authoritatively, "that the discoverer of the plant ought at once to be made a Companion of the Bath;" eight have expressed their surprise "that it should have been discovered by a German, who could have had but little previous knowledge of the article which it is said to produce;" whilst the remaining person, an eminent boiler in the City, who prides himself upon his French accent, remarked that, "they might say it had been discovered by a German naturalist, but that, for his part, he should always think it had been found out by a French savon." Mr. Punch has further ascertained that, in the Californian dialect of the language of flowers, this plant signifies "I wash my hands of you!" and is employed by ladies to intimate their rejection of an unwelcome suit.