e admitted to her
august presence--once enrolled as her sworn slave--your eyes become opened
and clear, and you see her as she is, the marvel of the world. Yet, though
so difficult of comprehension, no man, nor woman, nor child, must plead
ignorance of her excellencies. To be ignorant of any one of them is an
impossibility as palpable as that "the Queen can do no wrong," or any other
admirable fiction which the genius of our ancestors has bequeathed us. We
all must know the law, or be continually whipped! A hard rule, though an
inflexible one. But the schoolmaster is abroad--PUNCH, that teaches all,
must teach the law; and, as a preliminary indispensable, he now proceeds to
give a few definitions of the principal matters contained in that science,
which bear a different meaning from what they would in ordinary language.
The admiring neophyte will perceive with delight the vast superiority
apparent in all cases of "matters of law," or "matters of fact."

To illustrate:--When a lovely girl, all warmth and confidence, steals on
tiptoe from her lonely chamber, and, lighted by the moon, when "pa's"
asleep, drops from the balcony into the arms of some soft youth, as warm as
she, who has been waiting to whisk her off to Hymen's altar--that is
generally understood as

[Illustration: AN ATTACHMENT IN FACT.]

When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the
sheriff's-office, and with his _capias_ armed, ere you are half-dressed,
gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles
dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger--that
indeed is _une autre chose_, that is

[Illustration: AN ATTACHMENT IN LAW.]

When you remark a round, rosy, jolly fellow, shining from top to toe,
"philandering" down Regent-street, with a self-satisfied grin, that seems
to say, "Match me that, demme!" and casting looks of pity--mellowed through
his eye-glass--on all passers, you may fairly conclude that that happy dog
has just slipped into

[Illustration: A BOND-STREET SUIT.]

But when you perceive a gaunt, yellow spectre of a man, reduced to his last
_chemise_, and that a sad spectacle of ancient purity, starting from
Lincoln's-Inn, and making all haste for Waterloo-bridge, the inference is
rather natural, that he is blessed with

[Illustration: A SUIT IN CHANCERY.]

It being dangerous to take too great a meal at a time, and PUNCH knowing
well the difficulty of digesting properl