Madam, much since then has happened, much has been achieved; Marvels, commonplace to-day, few then would have believed.  Science, Liberty, Pure Manners, order, Peace, Goodwill, Punch for Fifty Years has championed, and will champion still.

Then and now!  The captious cynic at the contrast sneers, Punch believes in, and would help, the Progress of the Years.  When his Century’s full course, fifty Years hence, has run, With good heart and glad may he look back on Ninety-One!

[Footnote 1:  “The Song of the Shirt,” which appeared on page 260 of Vol.  V., 1843, in a supplementary number entitled, “Punch’s Triumphal Procession.”]

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QUEER QUERIES.

INFLUENZA.—­I should feel really grateful to any reader who can tell me whether I have Influenza or not.  I think I must have it, as I have tested my temperature with a thermometer attached to a weather-glass hanging in the hall, which is only slightly cracked, and find that it—­my temperature, not the weather-glass—­stays constantly at 120 degrees, which seems rather high.  My headaches are frightful, and the pills with forty grains of quinine in them, which I have been recommended to take by a neighbouring chemist’s assistant, do not seem to do any good.  Cough and chemist’s bill both very heavy.  Ought I have to have a change?  If so, whom should I try and take it out of?—­NERVOUS SUBJECT.

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