"There is an amount of seven guineas paid for a violet gown for the Lord Mayor. In another instance there is an item of £17 for the Lord Mayor's silk violet gown. On the occasion of the Duke of Wellington's funeral, there is a sum of £72 for the Lord Mayor's silk gown."
We cannot pretend to understand either the necessity for such an extensive stock of gowns as the Lord Mayor seems to possess, or for such a frightful fluctuation in the price of one and the same article. We know of no system of arithmetic or rule of three by which we are to get a solution of the question: "If a Lord Mayor's gown cost £7 at one time, and £17 at another time, why is it to cost £72 at a subsequent period?" We can only say that as £7 is not to £17, so cannot be £72 by any rule or principle whatever.
THE CLEVER CLOWN NUISANCE.
Some very pleasing horsemanship at Drury Lane is being marred by some very obnoxious assmanship on the part of sundry clowns engaged, we suppose, for the purpose of marking the contrast between the stupidity of bipeds, and the sagacity of quadrupeds. We have no objection to the old Astleyan Clown, who is continually wanting to know what he shall "go for to fetch for to bring for to carry," but we must protest against the modern school of buffoons who, under the ambitious title of "Shaksperian jesters," or some other pseudonyme, inflict their dull platitudes on an impatient audience. Directly a clown becomes too fat to tumble, or too stupid to play the fool in the ordinary way, he adopts the name of "Shaksperian" and bores the public with long lectures, which he fancies may be received as instructive, because they happen to be the very opposite of entertaining—- just as if a man ceasing to be an amusing fool must of necessity become a philosopher.
The "clown to the ring" is, in fact, becoming a perfect nuisance: and we only wonder that the horses do not become low-spirited by contrast with those dreadfully dull dogs who wear the motley. It would be quite refreshing to meet with a good old conventional clown of former times, who would not be above asking Widdicomb "if his (Widdicomb's) mother is aware of his (Widdicomb's) absence from home;" or making any other of those rare old imbecile remarks which used to set us in a roar in our days of infancy. A philosophic clown to the ring is, in fact, an anomaly; for every one admits the idle absurdity of "Reasoning in a Circle."
A Good Ground for a Bad Joke.—Why is a lodging on the ground floor a degradation? Because it's a-basement!