And ever since, that dreary square Seems shunned, and desolate, and bare.

The Moral of the thing is clear-
Excess of spirits, wine, or beer,
Imbibed in publics tend to shape
The way to some infernal scrape;
And whether heedless youth pursue
A folly or a kangaroo :

They meet some sad untimely fate,

And smell the brimstone when too late!

AN EPISCOPAL BENEDICTION

HE parishioners of Chilwell ought to be immensely grateful to the Bishop of Melbourne. They asked him for Doctor Brough, and his lordship gave the memorialists-his benediction! What generosity and what magnanimity! Let us hope that the parishioners are capable of appreciating the value of a Bishop's benison. Deprived of the nmiistrations of their pastor, they ought to find abundant consolation in the pax vobiscum of a spiritual lord. If he is unforgiving and implacable, he is nevertheless gracious in blessing, and bountiful in benediction. The closing scene of the Chilwell meeting is only to be parallelled in point of pathos by that touching 'incident in the life of Mr. Pecksniff, where that pious gentleman accidentally drops a tear upon a bald part of Mr. Chuzzlewit, the elder's, head.

I DUE GIONESI.

A DOMESTICO-POLITICAL OPERA.

In Two Acts,

THE LIBRETTO BY A. SCRIBE. THE MUSIC BY AND. Organ.

ACT I.

Scene-House of Mr. Jones
CHORUS OF DOMESTIC.

Stir the fire-now ain't it jolly;
As they always stops at home,
Wouldn't it be precious folly

On a night like this to roam.

COOK SOLO (listening).
Hark! Hark! how now descending,
'Gainst the window, rain and sleet;
How sad if we our way were wending,
Through the miry sloppy street.

COACHMAN: Aye, or on the cold box driving,
Master home from ball or rout.

CHORUS: Oh, no fear, they're both domestic
And ne'er after dark go out.

ENTER JONES.

DUET.

JONES; Go harness, I say, the mare in the shay,

There's a meeting at Astley's, and there I must speak.

MRS. JONES; Dear husband! Adolphus! oh whither love, say,
Some purpose quite dreadful is hid in thy breast;
Your tea was untasted your toast thrown away,
Though the butter was fresh and my congou the best.
Dear husband oh tell all thy secrets to me

Is it true what I see in the papers disclosed;
The election draws nigh, but oh ne'er let there be
A candidate by my Adolphus proposed.
DUET.

JONES; See from those bright eyes are streaming,
Tears which I have caused to flow
See that smile so kindly beaming,
Now she hopes I will not go.

MRS. JONES; Oh how pale my cheek with sadness,
As I think of meetings low;
Me you'll drive to utter madness;
Take your coat off-do not go.

RECITATIVE.

Still it pours; and past eleven, too!
Adolphus-husband,—this night's trip you'll rue.
He'd be a speaker, braving a shower,

Scorning the words of poor little me,
Only to prate on the stage for an hour,

And prove which is greater fool, John Smith or he.
Oh such perverseness, it makes me contrary,

But cold and rheumatics will reason restore, With these, ill in bed, I'll warrant me there he Will resolve on wet nights ne'er to speechify more. (Jones coughs violently outside, enters wet through, and covered with mud.) JONES (RECITATIVE.)

Once more at home all politics I shun;
Farewell ye ninety, I'm for number one.
AIR.

Mas. JONES': Come eat up this basin of gruel,
And take off that wet coat, I pray,
Thus to leave me, Adolphus, was cruel,
Yet no more on the matter we'll say.

CHORUS OF FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OUTSIDE.

Tol de rol lol,

Tol de rol la.

(Chorus dies gradually away in the distance, and scene closes.)

DE LUNATICO INQUIRENDO.

A commission to enquire into the state of mind of one Mr. Atticus, has resulted in a verdict declaring it necessary, both for his own and the public safety, that he should be placed under restraint. Abundant evidence was given to show that the unfortunate gentleman had long been in the habit of talking wildly and incoherently, but he was generally believed to be harmless until the 16th inst., when he became greatly excited, and began screaming "blood! blood!" and threatening many lives. As not unfrequently happens in cases of this kind of insanity, the patient associated his desire for bloodshed with some wild kind of religious sentiment. The two seemingly incongruous ideas occupied his mind entirely. Some of his ravings were repeated by witnesses, and we quote a few to satisfy the public mind that the verdict arrived at by the jury was just and right:

"I would shed blood, not because blood had been shed, but in order that blood might seal as an offering to the Holiest One the victim that justice demanded. There are no malignities to be glutted; no passions to be satisfied; there is the performance of a religious rite, and the executioner is the priest.

"And I see not why that priesthood should cease in the case of political delinquents. Political action loses its epic sublimity the moment your sickly sentimentalism sweeps away the possibility of a tragic termination."

A little while after uttering these words, the unfortunate gentleman broke out again thus :

"The redder the scaffold gleams with gore the more will it have the awful beauty of an altar. I am not in a serious state of alarm lest Exeter Hall, or Little Bethel, or English humbug in any shape should sweep the scaffold away. The scaffold will survive many pulpits and the praters therein; for the scaffold is a stupendous and ineradicable necessity; but above the corpse of a Palmer as it swings in the wind, I am zealous to show that Calcraft belongs to a more lasting and venerable hierarchy than Cardinal Wiseman."

the

Mr Punch, in summing up the evidence adduced, said that it was necessary to be extremely careful not to confound peculiarities of opinion, however extreme, with insanity. Many persons had been declared insane merely for holding opinions in advance of the period. The jury, therefore, however extraordinary they might think that doctrine, should, in his (Mr. Punch's) opinion, dispel from their minds all considerations founded on Mr Atticus's apparent belief that capital punishment sheuld be restored, for a vast variety of offences now no longer punished in that way. It was possible, for a man conscientiously to think with Draco, that punishment of death should be applied to all crimes. Bad reasoning must not be confounded with insanity, and not only would it lead to many gross cases of individual wrong, but would also have a most pernicious influence upon society, if persons holding unusual and what might be deemed wild opinions, were to be deterred from expressing them through any terror of being confined as lunatics. Although society might very likely be right as to the unsoundness of such wild opinions in nine cases out of ten, yet it should be borne in mind that almost every great and new doctrine had to pass through the ordeal of being long ranked by the bulk of mankind as utterly fallacious and wild. He (Mr Punch) did not for a moment believe that Mr Atticus's opinions, if such they could be called, were otherwise than most unsound. He (Mr Punch) merely laid down a general principle that eccentricity of opinion, however great, must not be taken as evidence of insanity for the purpose of an enquiry like the present.

An er

He feared however that, having regard to other circumstances, there could be no doubt as to Mr. Atticus's lunacy. roneous view ofthe capital punishment question was a very different thing from an incessant shrieking for "blood blood !" The phrase used by the subject of the present enquiry, "the redder the scaffold gleams with gore the more will it have the awful beauty of an altar," indicated a ferocity and morbid craving for blood, incompatible with soundness of mind. It was well known to physiologists that in some forms of insanity the colour of blood was always in the patient's sight, exercising a strange effect of terror and fascination at the same time. He (Mr. Punch) had no doubt that Mr. Atticus was afflicted in this way, and that his mind was completely deranged. It was for the jury to determine this however-he had only given them such assistance as he could in forming their opinion.

The jury at once declared Mr. Atticus to be unfit to go at large, and with every attention to his morbidly excitable feelings he was conveyed to the Asylum.

But Pat I'm incloined to repint me,

If me eloquent letters has done

The avil effects to have sint ye,
Away from the oiland o' fun.
For here 'tis so dull and so paceful,
The devil a foit can ye raise,
I witnessed a sayn so disgraceful
To day, that in all me born days
I hope

"Tis the last o' the koind as I says.

Sure Milburn's a moity fine city.

Wid beautiful houses and strayts;

But oh, 'tis a shame and a pity

When to nominate mimbers they mayts There's not such a thing as injoymint, And divil a row can be had,

My shillelagh has got no imployment,
And mesilf is inclined to po mad.
Och hone!

'Tis too shameful untoirly bedad.

There's Staw'll, from the gim o' the ocean,
What elections is loike ought to know,
And O'Shanassy, o'ive got a notion,
Could dale out a pretty nate blow.
In this loife may I taste no more toddy,
If, when that swate youth Macoboy,
Brought out his big words and big body,
My sowl didn't lape up wid joy;
But oh !

Me hopes proved to be all me oi,

They may call the tame scayne an iliction,

I say 'twas a farce for bad luck,
To the boys, - widout telling a fiction,
Not a ghost of a blow was there struck.
The divil a head was there broken,
But that of a bast of a black,

And his counts for nothing, be token
He fell down the stips on his back,
Bp chance,

And gave his own thick skull a crack.

Then stay where ye are Pat me jewil,

For though there ye git little to ate,

And though here there, both mate, drink, and fuil Ye'd miss the perpetshual trate.

That matings in Oirland supplys ye

The oceans o' foiting and fun-
Remain where ye are I advise ye
Or bedad ye'll repint as I've done-
That's mesilf

Me mother's unfortunate son.

THE "SALDANHA'S" MAILS.-In order to expedite the delivery of these mails, (when they arrive) they will be landed at Queenscliffe' and conveyed overland to Melbourne, &c., by a bullock-team, engaged (regardless of expense) for that purpose by the owners of the Black Ball line of Packets.

LIVELY CONUNDRUM.

Of what diggers' garment does a conquered flea remind you?—. worsted jumper!

(This being a first offence, the author is discharged with an admo nition).