“GUARDIAN, whose late ward merits the highest encomiums, seeks for him the POSITION of SECRETARY to a Nobleman or Lady of Position:  one with literary tastes preferred:  the young gentleman is highly connected, distinguished-looking, a lover of books, remarkably steady, and exceptionally well read, clever and ambitious:  has travelled much:  good linguist, photographer, musician:  a moderate fortune, but debarred by timidity from competitive examination.”

I have always longed to know the fate of this lucky youth.  Few of us can boast of even “a moderate fortune,” and fewer still of such an additional combination of gifts, graces, and accomplishments.  On the other hand, most of us, at one time or another in our career, have felt “debarred by timidity from competitive examination.”  But, unluckily, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and college dons who forced us to face the agonies of the Schools, instead of an amiable guardian who bestowed on us “the highest encomiums,” and sought to plant us on Ladies of Position, “with literary tastes preferred.”

Another case, presenting some points of resemblance to the last, but far less favoured by fortune, was notified to the compassionate world by the Morning Post in 1889:—­

“Will any rich person TAKE a gentleman and BOARD him?  Of good family:  age 27:  good musician:  thoroughly conversant with all office-work:  no objection to turn Jew:  lost his money through dishonest trustee:  excellent writer.”

I earnestly hope that this poor victim of fraud has long since found his desired haven in some comfortable Hebrew home, where he can exercise his skill in writing and office-work during the day and display his musical accomplishments after the family supper.  I have known not a few young Gentiles who would be glad to be adopted on similar terms.

The next is extracted from the Manchester Guardian of 1894:—­

“A Child of God, seeking employment, would like to take charge of property and collect rents; has a slight knowledge of architecture and sanitary; can give unexceptionable references; age 31; married.”

What offers?  Very few, I should fear, in a community so shrewdly commercial as Manchester, where, I understand, religious profession is seldom taken as a substitute for technical training.  The mention of that famous city reminds me that not long ago I was describing Chetham College to an ignorant outsider, who, not realizing how the name was spelt, observed that it sounded as if Mr. Squeers had been caught by the Oxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, and had sought to give an ecclesiastical air to his famous seminary of Dotheboys Hall by transforming it into “Cheat’em College.”

That immortal pedagogue owed much of his deserved success to his skill in the art of drawing an advertisement:—­