The only real power that is still exercised by the Lord Mayor is the right of shutting up Temple Bar when the Sovereign is expected; but since the side bar has been rented by a loyal hair-dresser, who would assuredly let the monarch through his shop—if any serious obstacle were to be offered by the civic authorities—it is high time that even this dim branch of the civic prerogative were lopped off by the axe of Improvement, that judicious woodsman, who spares nothing superfluous.
"REVENONS À NOS MOUTONS."
The French, in a great victory over the Arabs, "have captured 4,000 sheep." What will they do with these 4,000 prisoners of war? Will they drive them to market, and sell them for what they will fetch, or will they turn them into gigots and cotelettes? Will they preserve their fleeces as trophies, and hang them up in the Invalides? What will they do with the tallow? Will they melt it into candles, and send them as altar-offerings to the Pope to solicit his blessing on their Algerian campaigns? These questions are difficult to answer, and in the meantime the poor sheep, recollecting the deeds of Bugeaud and Pélissier, must tremble in their skins every time they see the steel of the Frenchmen. For ourselves, we believe the lives of the 4,000 sheep will be spared by the French, out of their noble anxiety to prove to Europe that warfare can be carried on in Algeria without butchery.
Mute Eloquence.
Somebody has brought out a collection of the "Songs of Scotland without Words." In order to render the thing completely agreeable, we would propose that the songs without words should be set to bagpipes without sound, and sung by performers without voices.