e to their breasts, for fear
any one should see what they are inscribing in them. They seem
dreadfully afraid lest any one should peep over their shoulders, and
discover the wonderful "odds" they are pencilling down. We have no
particular love or partiality for this numerous class of HER MAJESTY'S
subjects. We do not like them, with their slangy stable coats, their
sporting hats knowingly cocked on one side, and their suspicious looks
that seem to say of every one on whom their sharp, calculating glances
fall, "Well, I wonder how green you are, and I wonder what harvest I
shall get out of your greenness." We do not like this betting _genus_,
with its whips and switchy canes, and thick-ruled trowsers, into which a
small five-barred gate seems to have been compressed, and its sensual
thick-lipped mouths, that are invariably playing with a flower or a
piece of straw, or caressing the end of a pencil.

Now, this class of persons blocks up our public pavements. Attempt to
pass by the Haymarket, or Jermyn Street, or the purlieus of Leicester
Square, about four or five o'clock, and you will find that the arteries
of circulation are tied up by those thick coagulated knots of betting
men. The thoroughfare is quite impassable, and you are compelled to go
into the mud of the road to avoid being soiled by the refuse of the
pavement. We wish the police would, until the entire system is
abolished, sweep away the offensive nuisance, for we do not see why
betting men should be allowed to carry on their trade on the flagstones
any more than applewomen, or even your openly-professed beggar. The
police might be worse engaged than in making them "move on." In this
instance we would have them not pay the slightest respect to their
"betters."

* * * * *

"THE BONES OF PAGANINI."

[Illustration: A]

A paragraph with the above startling heading has been going the round of
the newspapers. It seems that the bones of the great violinist have been
turned into bones of contention, by the priests who have refused to bury
them. Several lawsuits have taken place, and there has been one appeal
to the Court of Nice, which treated the matter as a Nice question. This
court refused the request of PAGANINI'S executors, who were anxious to
get the bones buried; but rather than submit to the decree, without
making any further bones about the matter, they appealed to Genoa, which
it seems is somewhat over nice, for it super