ENGLAND.
In Parliament, an interesting debate occurred the other night. Mr. DAWSON moved a resolution condemning the raising of large revenue in India from opium. Mr. WINGFIELD opposed the resolution, arguing that opium was less hurtful than alcohol. Mr. TITMOUSE, a young member, added that arsenic is less hurtful than strychnine; also, that this is less injurious than prussic acid. Mr. GLADSTONE did not see what that had to do with the case. Neither did I.
Mr. DENNISON hoped that mere sentiment would not be suffered to interfere with the prosperity of India. Mr. TITMOUSE then suggested the sending of the volunteer Rifles to take immediate possession of China; that would not be sentimental, but practical. Mr. HENLEY believed that to be a more costly affair than he was prepared for; but, whenever the interest of England required it, he was ready. What are the lives of a hundred million Chinese to the financial prosperity of England? Mr. GLADSTONE considered that opium was merely a drug, after all. It was not worth while to consume the time of the House about it. And so the resolution was lost.
PRIME.
~A Mathematical Problem.~
If one United States Marshal can capture a Fenian General surrounded by his army, in five minutes, how long would it take him to capture the army?
| THE PLAYS AND SHOWS. Kant is admitted to be one of the greatest of the German philosophers. (That fact has nothing whatever to do with the Plays and Shows, but the artist insisting upon making K the initial letter of this column, the writer was obliged to begin with Kant—Kelley being hopelessly associated in the public mind with pig-iron, and all other metaphorical quays from which he might have launched his weekly bark being unreasonably spelled with a Q.) German philosophy, however, resembles Italian Opera in one particular: it consists more of sound than of sense. Both have a like effect upon the undersigned, in that they lead him into the paths of innocence and peace; in short, they put him to sleep. A few nights since he went to hear Miss KELLOGG in Poliuto. He listened with attention through the first act, drowsily through the second, and from the shades of dreamland in the third. Between the acts he lounged in the lobbies and heard the critics speak with sneering derision of the complimentary notices of the American Nightingale which they were about to write, while they expressed, with sardonic smiles, a longing for the day when they would be "allowed"—such was their singular expression—to "speak the truth about Miss KELLOGG as a prima donna." And while he sat with closed eyes during the third act, wondering whether he should believe the critics in the flesh, or their criticisms in the columns of their respective journals, he saw rehearsed before him a new operatic perversion of MACBETH, as unlike the original as even VERDI'S MACBETTO, and quite as inexplicable to the unsophisticated mind. And this is what he saw: |
Scene, the Dark Cave in fourteenth street. In the middle a Cauldron boiling. Thunder—and probably small beer—behind the scenes. Enter three Witches.