dishonest tradesman has been detected in using false weights and
measures. The beadle holds up a pair of scales, one of which weighs very
much heavier than the other. The wretched culprit, conscious, all too
late, that honesty would have proved "the best policy" for himself,
leans against his shelves the picture of sullen and detected guilt. The
window of the shop bears on it the painted _legend_ of "The cheapest
shop in London." Leaning against the counter we find a programme of the
"City Theatre," announcing the performance of "Measure for Measure": to
conclude with "Honest Thieves"; an officer outside (surrounded by a
deeply interested crowd) is engaged in breaking up a second pair of
dishonest scales. Chronology, difference in politics, character, tastes,
and disposition, are most amusingly set at defiance in the etching
entitled _The Revolution at Madame Tussaud's_ [1847]: Mary Queen of
Scots "treads a measure" with William Penn the Quaker; Fox and Pitt make
long noses at each other from opposite sides of the room; O'Connell
shakes hands with Freschi, to whom our old friend the elderly country
gentleman offers a friendly pinch of snuff; William Shakespeare flirts
with an almond-eyed Chinese woman; Henry the Eighth smokes a long
churchwarden with Judge Jefferys; Lord Byron (with greater propriety)
exchanges friendly greetings with Jean Jacques Rousseau; whilst the
great Napoleon unbends, as chroniclers assert that he was wont to do,
and waltzes round the room with Madame Tussaud, and Britannia (to the
uproarious delight of Sir William Wallace) rasps her trident across her
shield, by way of accompaniment to the fiddle of the Saturnine Paganini.

The fun of these side splitting designs is only equalled by their
variety. The "Almanack" of 1838 introduces us to the inevitable row
which forms the wind-up of a Hibernian _festa_; chairs, sticks,
shovels,--anything that comes to hand is used without fear or favour;
men, women, children struggle together in inextricable confusion amidst
the _debris_ of wrecked furniture, broken glass, and battered pewter;
high above the din drone the nasal tones of the piper; while amidst the
infernal clatter "the praist" vainly endeavours to re-establish order
and make himself heard. _Theatrical Fun Dinner_ (1841) represents the
close of the banquet. Hamlet is already too far gone to know what he is
doing; Othello belabours Iago with a bottle; Shylock and Antonio
fraternize; whilst a reconci