I am, &c., your Lordship's, &c.,
HENRY POTTINGER.
Humbugs of the Day
POLITICS ABROAD.
(By the Foreign Correspondent of the "Comic Almanack.")
The Spanish are, as you know, very nutty on their late revolution. Several provinces have pronounced; but as they all have a peculiar patois of their own, it is difficult to catch their pronunciations. America is in a more settled, though certainly not in a more settling, state than it was some time ago. It has resorted freely to the old way of paying new debts, and in return for our specie, has sent us a species of whitewash, which is all that we can get as an equivalent. It is a glorious thing to see a whole nation throwing off its bonds; and the way in which America has released herself from the bonds she was under to her creditors, is a proof that she knows how to be free herself, and to make free with others. On the other side of the Channel, Young France finding it impossible to beard Old England, has taken to bearding itself; and the war-party show, by their chins at any rate, that they would be much improved by a good lathering. New South Wales, as you are by this time aware, is to have a representative assembly; but it is not yet decided what the legislative body is to consist of. It would perhaps be the fairest plan, that each of the prisons should send so many members to the Botany Bay parliament; but others think that each class of offenders should have its own representatives. Whether the Honourable Member for Newgate would sound better than the Gallant Representative of the Housebreaking Interests, is a question that may be decided hereafter; and it will be a very nice point, whether conviction shall be a necessary qualification for a seat in the legislature of New South Wales, or, whether the fact of having committed an offence, shall render a person eligible as a candidate. It will perhaps be difficult to draw the line where the elective franchise shall begin, but it is generally believed, that nothing under a pickpocket ought to be entitled to vote, though, whether the claimant to the suffrage must have been positively caught in the act, is a nicety on which I leave it to the lawyers to deliberate.
THE SINGING MOUSE.
'Tis thought a very wondrous thing,
That any mouse is known to sing;