*

THE DREAM OF A BAGPIPE.

The EARL OF ABERDEEN, at the late Privy Council, looked very much
pressed and flattened. It is said that, for some weeks past, the noble
Earl has suffered a nightly dream, in which he believes himself turned
to a bagpipe, with the EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, horned and tailed, playing
upon him.

* * * * *

QUESTIONABLE ADVERTISEMENTS.

The present mode of advertising seems to be by asking a question and,
from the general use of the process, we presume that the questioning is
found to answer. Somebody asks us every day, "Who would be without a
dressing case?" and another attempts to tickle our vanity by addressing
to us the inquiry, "Do you keep livery servants?" and suggesting to us
the _eclat_ of an imaginary retinue. Another wants to know, "Why pay
more than sixteen shillings for your trowsers?"--a question we hardly
like to dwell upon, for it presents to our mind the still more
interesting question, "Why pay anything at all, and why not victimise
your tailor?"

Talking of advertisements reminds us of one which daily offers to dye
our hair, including the whole head for a crown, and our whiskers for "a
shilling upwards." It would be important to know how far "upwards" we
could have our whiskers dyed for that moderate sum, as it would be
awkward to have them a rich Prussian blue about the jaw, a piebald in
the middle, and a good old natural grey on the cheek-bone. The same
accommodating person, who promises to dye us permanently for five
shillings, offers, if we don't like the look of ourselves when we've
been regularly done, to give us our money back again. This would be but
a sorry compensation for one who had exchanged the simplicity of nature
for the variegated hues of art, and who, in the hope of becoming once
more the youthful beau, had qualified himself for the part of the
rainbow. Before, standing the "hazard of the dye," we, like RICHARD THE
THIRD, had rather see "HASTINGS'S head," or anybody else's head, a month
after the operation.

* * * * *

PRESENT TO MR. GLADSTONE.

A few days ago MR. GLADSTONE received, carefully packed in an oaken box,
and nicely enveloped in many folds of tissue paper, a massive handsome
silver poker. It bore on the squared end this inscription:--"Presented
to stir the Minister to stir himself to enable the country to stir a
cheaper coal."

* * * * *

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