h for Sunday, rushed into the crowd, and affectionately, but
earnestly, reproved his humbler brethren for putting faith in such
vulgar and impious folly. He entered the haunted house, walked all over
it, and throwing up every window in turn, addressed a few words of
gentle ridicule from each: and he ended by leading away the whole
assembly to his church, where he gave them some sound, shrewd counsel,
which will probably spoil a Ghost's market in that quarter for some
time. Others of the clergy, roused by the spectacle in Pond Street, have
been equally active; and perhaps after all, this was the Ghost's real
mission. In this case "it is an honest ghost, that let _Punch_ tell ye."

The Roman Catholic priests of the vicinity, however, look at the matter
in another light, and regard the "Deathlike face" as the editor of the
_Tablet_ does the Salette miracle, where the Virgin astonished the weak
mind of the pig-boy and girl, and sent a very proper message to the
French people not to swear. They say that the Ghost is that of somebody
who, not having paid up the priest's "dues," will haunt the
neighbourhood until somebody else pays them for him. The landlord of the
house, who seems to have most reason to complain of the apparition,
intends to pay these "dues," and charge them in the rent, unless the
next tenant likes to take the Ghost with the fixtures.

This is, _Punch_ joyfully admits, an enlightened age, but its lights
will, sometimes, burn blue.

* * * * *

A CONSULTATION "IN ARTICULO."

Doctors, diplomatic doctors, mixers of the paper-pill.
Fuming, fussing, drafts discussing, o'er a dying nation,
Protocol-prescription-mongers, slow to cure, but strong to kill,
Spreading words, like blister-ointment, to allay an irritation.

CLARENDON, M.D., prescribeth sedatives and cooling potion;
_Le Docteur_ DROUYN DE L'HUYS to stimulants inclineth;
_Hofartzt_ BRUCK of _vis naturae medicatrix_ hath a notion;
_Medicus_ AUPICK, looking wise, doth nothing, but defineth.

Wrangle, jangle, argol-bargol, still the Doctors diplomatic
But differ to agree again, and but agree to differ,
While the poor old Turk, their patient, groweth more and more asthmatic,
And his eye gets dim and dimmer, and his limbs wax stiff and stiffer.

While behind the patient's curtain, with cautious step, yet certain,
The AZRAEL who that poor old Turk hath threatened many a year--
A C