_ they knew. If successful, they'll replace the aspirates, and it
will be some time before they recover the exact date when they Had-don
Hauling in the coin. _Prosit!_

* * * * *

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.--Says the _Pall Mall Gazette_:--"For knocking
over a man selling watercress, with fatal results, a Hammersmith
cabman has been committed for trial for manslaughter." If this is
true, the HOME SECRETARY should immediately interpose. The action
of knocking a man over is hasty, and may be indefensible. But if
the Hammersmith Cabman had just grounds for belief that the man
was "selling watercresses with fatal results," he should rather be
commended than committed for trial.

* * * * *

"KEEPING-UP THE CHRISTOPHER."--(_A Note from an Old
Friend_).--"CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS" indeed! As years ago I told _Sairey
Gamp_ about her bothering _Mrs. Harris_, "I don't believe there's no
sich a person." That's what I says, says I, about COLUMBUS, wich ain't
like any other sort of "bus" as I see before my blessed eyes every
day.

Yours, ELIZABETH PRIG.

P.S.--Mr. EDWIN JOHNSON, him as wrote to the _Times_ last Saturday, is
of my opinion. Good Old JOHNSON!

* * * * *

"HONORIS CAUSA."--To Mr. GRANVILLE MONEY, son of the Rector of
Weybridge, whose gallant rescue of a lady from drowning has recently
been recorded, _Mr. Punch_ grants the style and title of "Ready
MONEY."

* * * * *

QUESTION AND ANSWER.--"Why don't I write Plays?" Why should I?

* * * * *

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. XV.--TO SWAGGER.

[Illustration]

Not long ago I reminded you of CHEPSTOWE, the incomparable poet who
was at one time supposed to have revolutionised the art of verse.
Now he is forgotten, the rushlight which he never attempted to
hide under the semblance of a bushel, has long since nickered its
last, his boasts, his swelling literary port, his quarrels, his
affectations--over all of them the dark waves of oblivion have passed
and blotted them from the sand on which he had traced them. But in his
day, as you remember, while yet he held his head high and strutted
in his panoply, he was a man of no small consequence. Quite an army
of satellites moved with him, and did his bidding. To one of them
he would say, "Praise me this author," and straightway the fire of
eulogy would begin. To anothe