AUTOMATIC DINNER-TABLE AND APPETITE COMBINED, upon taking a seat at which, the diner will be immediately served with a course consisting of soup, fish, joint, and vegetables, choice of entrees, sweets, cheese, and celery, with an appetite to enable him to relish the repast as it proceeds.  After-dinner speeches, phonographically introduced, can be supplied at a slight additional charge.  They, moreover, have in hand an

AUTOMATIC BUTLER-DETECTING SIDEBOARD, which, by an ingenious contrivance, on the Butler opening it for the purpose of helping himself to a glass of wine, instantly blows up with a loud explosion, that obliges him to desist in his design.  But their chief triumph is their

AUTOMATIC AND MECHANICAL SHAREHOLDER, who, immediately on being shown the Prospectus, puts his name down for the required number of Shares as indicated to him.  This last the Association regard as a great success, but they have several other startling novelties in active preparation.

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[Illustration:  RISING TO THE SITUATION!

(Scene from a well-mounted Drama.)]

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STARS IN THE STRAND; OR, THE HORSE AND THE LADY.

MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,

One of the greatest attractions in Town to the Country Cousin I need scarcely say is the Theatre.  Speaking for myself, it is the place I earliest visit when I get to London, and consequently I was not surprised to find myself the other evening in the Adelphi, on the first night of a new play.  As an Irishman might guess, from its name (The English Rose), the piece is all about Ireland.  Both State and Church are represented therein—­the former by a comic sergeant of the Royal Constabulary, and the latter by a priest, who wears a hat in the first Act that would have entirely justified his being Boycotted.  The plot is not very strong, and suggests recollections of the Flying Scud, Arrah Na Pogue, and The Silver King.  The acting is fairly satisfactory, the cast including a star, supported by an efficient company.  The star is a horse that pranced about the stage in the most natural manner possible, carefully avoiding the orchestra.  In spite, however, of his anxiety to keep out of the stalls, suggestive as they were (but only in name) of the stable, some little alarm was created in the neighbourhood of the Conductor, which did not entirely subside until the fall of the curtain.  But the sagacious steed knew its business thoroughly well, and was indeed an admirable histrion.  Only once, at the initial performance, did this intelligent creature remember its personality, and drop the public actor in the private individual.  The occasion was when it had to put its head out of a loose-box to listen to the singing of a serio-comic song by a lady, dressed as a “gossoon.”  For a few minutes the talented brute made a pretence of eating some property foliage, and then, catching sight of the audience, it deliberately counted the house! I regret to add that, in spite of the valuable support afforded by this useful member of the Messrs. GATTI’s Company, its name did not appear in the playbill.