That all may know how great is the task, and the confidence required to pitch into it, we announce, with a flourish, that Miss L. E. is about to attack that well-known Saurian Monster, termed gossip!  Considered as a Disease, she proposes to find the Cause and the Cure.  Considered as a living and gigantic Nuisance (by far surpassing any Dragon described by Spenser,) she designs to hunt him out and slay him incontinently.

Courage, fair Knight!  Our eldest Son is kept in reserve for some such Heroine!  If you would be famous, if you would make a perfect thing of this Crusade, if you would render the lives of your fellow mortals longer and happier, if you would win that noble and ingenuous youth, our son, go in vehemently!

And, while you are about it, Lillian, would you object to giving your attention to certain relations of the monster which you propose to slay?  We name them, Detraction and Calumny.  They are tough old Dragons, now, we tell you; perhaps it were best to fight shy of them.

We have it, Lillian!  Leave ’em to us!  Us, with a big U!  You kill little Gossip, and see how quick his brothers and sisters will fall, before our mighty battle-axe!

(And so they will fall, sure enough, but it will be simply because when our dear young knight, L.E., has killed her Dragon, she will have wiped out the whole brood!  They can’t live without their sweet and attractive little sister.  And so, like many a bigger humbug, we shall take great credit, that belongs to somebody else, and assume to have done big things, at enormous expense of blood and money.  Trust us, for that!)

* * * * *

Napoleon III at Sedan.

September, 1870.

     I was an Emperor. Voila c’est bon!
       BAZAINE, MACMAHON, fought—­’twas my affair. 
     Only, to please my doctor, NELATON,
       I left the throne, to take a Sedan chair.

* * * * *

Unlimited Lie-Ability.

Veritas writes to say that as he was crossing the ferry from Wall Street to Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon, he counted 117 persons reading PUNCHINELLO.  He did not observe a single copy of the Sun on board, until the boat neared Brooklyn, when a man of squalid appearance produced from a dirty newspaper some soiled articles, all of which seemed to have been steeped in Lye, from contact with the sheet, which proved to be the Sun.

* * * * *

A Con for the “Ninth.”

What is there in common between Colonel FISK’S war-horse and a New York
Ice Company?

Both are tremendous Chargers.

* * * * *

THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.

Here I am again, back from the seashore, to find the theatres opening, the war closing, and GREELEY burning to imitate the late French Emperor, by leading the Republican hosts to defeat in the Fall campaign, so as to be in a position to write to the Germanically named HOFFMAN—­“As I cannot fall, ballot in hand, at the head of my repeaters, I surrender to your victorious Excellency.”