You scarcely ever receive change for a sovereign without finding that one of the shillings or sixpences has had a hole drilled through it, which--suggesting a painful doubt as to the exchangeable value of the coin--is altogether a bore. We are glad that MR. WILSON has got leave to bring in a bill to prevent the defacing of the QUEEN'S money; and we hope this measure will have the effect of remedying one of the greatest evils of change.
[Illustration: MR. PUBLIC SUPPLICATES THE CABMAN TO RETURN TO HIS STAND, TO CHARGE A SHILLING A MILE, AND ALL SHALL BE FORGOTTEN!
[_A Picture seen only "in the mind's eye" of Cabby._]]
SUNDAY AMONG THE SEWERS.--The Sabbatarians want to have nothing stirring on Sunday but stagnation; which is not only not conducive to health, but also tends to engender zymotic diseases.
A SUGGESTION FROM SHAKSPERE'S RICHARD THE THIRD.]
There has reached _Mr. Punch_ a very good-humoured letter from a Reverend gentleman suggesting to him the expediency of subscribing £10 or £20 towards the endowment of a new church at Kenilworth, in order to show that he, _Mr. Punch_, is not opposed to the Christian observance of Sunday, which might, the worthy clergyman seems to think, be inferred from his objection to the Jewish observance of it.
The idea of a church at Kenilworth is peculiarly happy. On Sundays it might be a counter-attraction to the Castle. Success to the exertions of the minister that is to preach in it to render it such!
Our clerical correspondent's suggestion is ingenious; it merits attention: it shall be attended to in good time.
If _Mr. Punch's_ ideas--and circulation--were narrow, he might plead that the church at Kenilworth is not in his own parish. But that would be an invalid as well as a sneaking excuse for parsimony. The parish of _Punch_ is the world.
When all the property appertaining to the Established Church has been so distributed among the clergy as to maintain every one of them, bishops and all, in a style of apostolical competence, and when the whole of the surplus thus created shall have been applied to the endowment of new churches, then, if any more money is wanted for that purpose, _Mr. Punch_ will be most happy to contribute as much as ever he is able; and his munificence shall, in the very first place, effuse itself upon the new church at Kenilworth.