e locked up
inside it. We shall pay a visit to the Monument the first fine day there
is no fog, and bring away with us an inventory of the furniture. In the
meantime, we should like to be informed of the amount of salary of this
"Upholsterer," who has to look after a place that contains no
Upholstery.

* * * * *

PERSPICUITY OF RED TAPE.

In reply to a request for information where to get the Blue Books which
are granted to Mechanics' Institutions, "A PROVINCIAL SECRETARY,"
writing to the _Times_, says that he received the following official
directions; that is to say, he was told

"To make application at the proper season to the clerk of the
committee, to be appointed pursuant to the report of the House of
Commons on Parliamentary papers, ordered to be printed on the 7th of
July last."

This the "PROVINCIAL SECRETARY" wants translated for the benefit of
himself and other country gentlemen. The passage may be construed
thus:--

At certain times of the year, and between certain hours, which will be
appointed hereafter but are not fixed yet, apply to somebody who will
perhaps be the clerk of a committee which does not at present exist but
will, one of these days, in conformity with a report of the House of
Commons on Parliamentary Papers, which was ordered to be printed on the
7th of July last, be constituted, if that report shall ever be acted on.

The translation is rather longer than the original; but if brevity is
required to be the soul of official advice, the answer might simply have
been "Arrangements have not been made," to which, if any further
explanation were necessary, might have been added, "And when they will
be, Heaven only knows."

* * * * *

THE DIGNITY OF TRADE.

We were going to say that the fact of a noble Lord having passed the
Bankruptcy Court the other day as a horse-dealer, gives strong
confirmation to the saying that we are a nation of shop-keepers. But
perhaps a horse-bazaar or repository cannot be properly called a shop;
and though the horse may be taken over a bar, that noble animal cannot
very well be handed across a counter; thus, whatever leaps the noble
lord in question may have taken, it is clear that it would be incorrect
to call him a counter-jumper. His case, however, certainly tends to show
that we are a highly mercantile community, since it exhibits a member of
one of our principal families as