aniser of every Household.

* * * * *

PICK-ME-UP PEPPER.--A Pinch will thoroughly banish sleep for a whole
fortnight.

* * * * *

PICK-ME-UP PEPPER.--"An Octogenarian Consumer" writes:--"I was in a
comatose condition for twenty years, when I came across your Pepper.
I had scarcely tried it ere I bounded up from my arm-chair, and have
danced a continual fandango ever since. I carry it loose in all my
pockets, and scatter it on all my friends whenever I meet them. This
has got me kicked out of all their houses in turn; but I do not in the
least mind. I'm as merry and as mad as a March hare--and your Pepper
has done it."

* * * * *

PICK-ME-UP PEPPER.--The Proprietors beg to inform their Friends and
Patrons that they can supply this highly combustible and explosive
compound in felt safety cases, carefully packed at their bomb-proof
establishment in Barking Marshes, at the usual retail prices, viz.,
1s. 1-1/2d., 2s. 9d., 11s., 21s., and 31s. 6d., &c, &c.

* * * * *

SHADOWS FROM MISTLETOE AND HOLLY.

[Illustration: Tossing up for Turkey at Christmas Time.]

Dear Mr. Punch,--I venture to address you on a subject that I feel
sure will enlist your kind attention and sympathy. How am I to get
through Yule Tide? Ought I to give up the dispatch of "cards," or
ought I to send them to all my relatives, friends, and acquaintances?
If I drop the custom, people who like me will think I am outting them,
and persons with whom I am less popular will imagine that economy,
not to say meanness, is the cause of my ceasing to trouble the Post
Office. Suppose that I "hang the expense," and _do_ send the cards.
Well, I am in this position; it is a matter of the greatest difficulty
to get a suitable greeting to all those who receive my annual
benediction. If I have "Wishing you and yours every happiness," with
my appended name and address lithographed, the greeting seems cold,
and even inappropriate, if addressed to, say, a favourite Maiden Aunt;
and unduly familiar if forwarded to the acquaintance I saw for the
first time in my life the day before yesterday. Then if I trust to the
ordinary Christmas Cards of commerce, I am often at a loss to select
an appropriate recipient for a nestful of owls, or the picture of
a Clown touching up an elderly gentleman of highly respectable
appearance with a red-hot poker! I