ed to come
out of the present Commission with clean hands, after having fingered
every ton of coals within a circuit of twenty miles.

* * * * *

FASHION AND INFLUENZA.

"That fairy form muffled in shawls, FANNY! why?
What sorrow hath swoln and beclouded thine eye?
What _can_ have occasioned the tint of the rose
To abandon that cheek for the end of that nose?

"Strange ornament, strip of mere flannel, to deck
That swanlike, that snowy, that statuesque neck!
Why sit o'er the fender in such an odd trim,
With handkerchief stanching those red orbs that swim?"

"For shabe, HELRY! dolt you bake ful so of be;
You bolkey, preteldil that you diddlet see
The state I ab ill; do you walt to be told?
You bust low I've got a bost troublesub cold."

"But how did you catch it, love?--where did you go?"
"I cal't thilk, I cal't tell at all, I dol't low."
"You don't think damp feet may have brought it about?"
"Lo, I've worl Ildia rubber shoes whel I've beel out."

"I think I can tell what has caused a catarrh
Those charms to disfigure, those accents to mar;
The bonnet, my FANNY, was meant for the head,
But FANNY wears hers 'twixt the shoulders instead."

"_Oh_ HELRY!--aid yet it bust surely be oled
Lot clothid the head is the way to catch cold,
Ald followilg Fashiul is what, I suppose,
Bakes be look such al object ald talk through the doze."

* * * * *

RUSSIAN HONESTY.

There is a rigid sense of honesty in the Russian army. Lately, a
sergeant-major was flogged for stealing beyond his rank. There is a
graduated right of theft throughout all Russia. Thus, while a mere
master-shipwright may steal some cartloads of oak, a Lord of the
Admiralty may pocket a whole seventy-four. The god of Russia is not, in
fact, NICHOLAS, but MERCURY.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Nurse Ab--rd--n._ "DID IT WANT A BIT O' TURKEY, THEN?"]

* * * * *

A FERTILITY WELL-GROUNDED.--Periodicals are the dead leaves that
fertilise the soil of Literature.

* * * * *

[Illustration: ABERDEEN IN HIS UNPOPULAR ACT OF THE COURIER OF ST.
PETERSBURG.]

* * * * *

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL OF POETRY.

[Illustration: A]

A very pleasing advertisement appeared lately in the _Manchester
Advertiser_, an advertisement which al