A learned Assistant Judge, while trying a boy for stealing a pudding, summed up thus:--"Here's the pudding; up pops the boy, off goes the pudding, and after him goes the policeman. You've got the boy, the pudding, and the policeman before you, and now, Gentlemen of the Jury, consider your verdict." In like manner, we say to the public, "You have got the report, the Reporter, and the Magistrate before you; therefore, Gentlemen of England, consider your verdict."
From the report of a recent case in the Rolls Court, it appears that some rogues have been putting damaged Prestonpans Ale into bottles labelled with the names of MESSRS. BASS and MESSRS. ALLSOPP, and selling the stuff under these false titles "at fairs and races." We suspect that this trick is too common. You meet, occasionally, with beer thus labelled, by which, no doubt, those firms are libelled; for it is a libel on respectable brewers to impute bad beer to them: and the sort of bitter beer we allude to is bitter bad. We call it beer, indeed; but we no more believe that it is made of malt and hops than that it is brewed by ALLSOPP or by BASS, whose names appear on the bottles it is sold in, but, to give a correct idea of their contents, ought to be altered to BASE and ALLSLOP.
The present policy of NICHOLAS is an illustration of the truth of this. For all he wants for Russians is time; a commodity that our Cabinet seems disposed to allow any quantity of.
SHEAR IMPUDENCE.--Following from street to street a poor foreigner with a long beard, and persecuting him to buy a pair of razors.
[Illustration: THE DISTANCE TO DOWNING STREET.
_R--ss--ll._ "WELL, SIR, _YOU'LL_ FIND IT A LONG WAY ROUND."]
SCENE.--_The Great Western Railway Station on the morning of Wednesday, July 27th. A Train has just arrived, bringing_, inter alios et alias, THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE, _with her usual moderate but miscellaneous accumulation of luggage, consisting of a hair-trunk profusely brass-lettered, and without the slightest lifting appliance in the way of handles; a cubical black box, with a convex top, very apt to give way (like its mistress) on slight provocation, and trusting much for support to a net-work of curiously knotted cordage; an oblong contrivance of wicker-work and oilskin, like a chicken-basket in a tarpaulin overcoat; a flower-pot, with a balsam in full blow; a basket, much too small for its work; four distinct parcels, of respectable dimensions and irregular form, two in brown paper, one in a newspaper, and the fourth securely sewed up in huckaback; a large stone bottle of real mushroom ketchup; a pair of strong shoes, which having obstinately refused to enter the hair-trunk, have been brought up by hand; an aged, but still expansive, carpet-bag, bursting with its contents; a bonnet-box and an umbrella, with a parasol and a camp-stool. As the Scene opens_, THE UNPROTECTED _is discovered in the act of reclaiming and gathering about her, with her usual distractedness, these her goods and chattels, as they are landed from the Luggage-Van, in the midst of a crowd of all ages, sexes, and conditions, occupied in the same way. The Porters have an embarrassed air, and not a Cab is to be seen on the Stand. Sharp-witted Passengers, who have rushed off to secure "first Cab," stand bewildered on the edge of the Platform. Ladies are huddled helplessly together, ruefully surveying their baggage. Indignant individuals are asking questions; and the possession of every inch of room in two fortunate Omnibuses is being fiercely contested, with very little regard to the route about to be taken by these vehicles._