FIG. 11.
We append a couple of illustrations which seem to have escaped the usually keen eye of those at the Post Office, always on the look-out for these little curiosities in envelopes. One is kindly forwarded by a gentleman interested in these "Postal Humours," and shows a boar partial to boating playfully flying a kite, on the tail of which is the name and address. The sun looks on somewhat dubiously from above (Fig. 10). The second is a specimen of many similar ones which arrive at the office of Tit-Bits, and depicts the various stages through which a letter passes whilst on its way to compete for the weekly "Vigilance Prize," until it is finally handed in at its proper destination (Fig. 12).
FIG. 12.
[Celebrated Beauties.]
"Woman, be fair, we must adore you;
Smile, and the world is all before you."
Looking back across the gulf of years which divides us from the latter portion of the last century, we must be struck by the total change that has passed over society generally. No men like those giants in intellect, Chatham, Fox, Swift, Johnson, now fill the canvas; no fine gentlemen, who, as Thackeray says, were in themselves a product of the past, and for which the finikin, white-vested masher is but a poor substitute. And the women!—those wondrously fair creatures, whose faces have been handed down to us by Reynolds or Gainsborough, and who smile at us from their gilt frames. What witchery in the almond-shaped eyes, long and languishing; what pouting lips; what arched and lovely necks; what queenly dignity in their gait and carriage, and withal nothing of the voluptuous immodesty which marks the wanton beauties of Charles II.'s Court: they were mistresses, these were wives.