h a system? Poor fellow! In his last proclamation
he says "He has been goaded into war by the PORTE." Goaded is the word.
Only think of the nasty red-wattled turkey gobbling at and goading a
poor, harmless, innocent bear! We shall next have the Christian dove
pecking out the eyes of the twin-headed eagle.

* * * * *

THE INNKEEPER RHYMER.

Now that every British Innkeeper clearly holds himself privileged to
take as many people in continually as his house will hold, it has become
a question of quite national importance how most effectually to check
their chousing. In our position of Adviser-General to the Nation, we
have of course been nationally consulted in the matter, and we therefore
feel called upon to give our readers--we mean of course the nation--our
opinion on the subject.

It being generally admitted, by everybody but themselves, that the
present system of our Innkeepers has become, like a baby, quite a crying
nuisance, we think it may most properly be dealt with in the cradle: and
we would therefore have our rising generation early prepared for the
fleecing that awaits them. We are sure that by judicious treatment a
wholesome horror of hotels might be easily impressed upon the infant
mind. We would have the landlord take the place of the infantine "Old
Bogy," and figure in our fairytales as the terrible old Ogre, who lives
upon the unsuspecting travellers who come to him: while in all the
juvenile editions of our Natural History he might be represented as a
species, only known in England, of the _Ornithorynchus_, or _Beast with
a Bill_. Instead of the deeds of mythic "Forty Thieves," our nursemaids
should recount the rogueries of an inn; and, instead of threatening a
"dark room" by way of penal settlement for the fractious, they in future
might condemn them to a "private" one at an hotel, lit with nominal wax
candles at half-a-crown an inch. "_Reform your Landlord's Bills_" should
be, of course, an early round-hand copy, and the first thing in the
spelling-book a spell against extortion. In short, no means should be
spared to represent an hotel as a sort of inhumane mantrap, which it is
impossible to get out of without considerable bleeding.

The same wholesome warning might be given through the medium of those
senseless lyrics which are known to us, collectively, as our Nursery
Rhymes. We have long had a contempt for these unmeaning
_Humpty-Dumptys_, and have long considere