ion Q).

=Charade 2!!=

Scene I.--Archery at Castle Doodle.

Scene II.--Fra Diavolo a Dread Reality.

Scene III.--The Choice of a too Lowly Youth.

=Charade 3!!!=

Scene I.--The Pathetic History of the Poor Little Sweep.

Scene II.--Mussulman Barbarity to Christians.

Scene III.--Merry England.

_Gad's Hill Gazette_ Printing Office.

The various parts were taken by Dickens and his family, and the entire
word of the last Charade is supposed to be "May Day."

In connection with charades, Mr. Hulkes alluded to Dickens's remarkable
facility for "guessing a subject fixed on when he was out of the room,
in half a dozen questions;" and related the story of how at the young
people's game of "Yes and No," he found out the proper answer to a
random question fixed upon by Mr. Charles Collins, one of the company,
in his absence, which was, "The top-boot of the left leg of the head
post-boy at Newman's Yard, London." The squire sometimes took a stroll
with his neighbour, but observed "he was too fast a walker for me--I
couldn't keep up with him!"

Mr. Hulkes possesses a nearly complete "file" (from 1862 to 1866) of the
_Gad's Hill Gazette_, to which he was one of the subscribers, and which
was edited by the novelist's son, Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens, and, as
before stated, printed at Gad's Hill Place. It chronicled the arrivals
and departures, the results of cricket matches and billiard games, with
interesting gossip of events relating to the family and the
neighbourhood. Occasionally there was a leading article, and now and
then an acrostic appeared. Among the subscribers were the novelist and
his family, The Lord Chief Justice, The Dean of Bristol, Lady
Molesworth, Mrs. Milner Gibson, M. Stone, A. Halliday, J. Hulkes, C.
Kent, W. H. Wills, H. F. Chorley, Edmund Yates, etc. The number for
January 20th, 1866, contains a humorous correspondence on the management
of the journal between "Jabez Skinner" and "Blackbury Jones." Mr. H. F.
Dickens kindly allows a copy of the number for December 30th, 1865, to
be reproduced, which is interesting as giving an account of the
Staplehurst accident, and also the notice issued when the journal was
discontinued.

THE

GAD'S HILL GAZETTE

Edited by H. F. Dickens

December 30th 1865 Price 2d

* * * * *

We are very glad to meet