“The Regent Espartero, and the tutor Arguelles, are doing all in their power to keep the young Queen and the Infanta in good humour, encouraging the Princesses in many little indulgences suitable to their age and sex, especially in the article of dress, in which their royal mother was more than inattentive. This line of conduct, coupled with the expected arrival of the Infant, Don Francisco de Paula and his family, who are to be received with every mark of respect, indicates that the present rulers of Spain, aware of their critical situation, wish to strengthen themselves by the support of the great majority of the royal family.”

Thus, if the royal family of Spain have an excess of courtesy and benevolence towards the people, such blessings will drop upon them from the fringed petticoats of the little sovereign.  Thus curiously considered, may we not trace a bounteous political measure to the lace veil of a Queen, and find a great national benefit in the toe of a slipper?

Happy Spaniards!  Give fine clothes to your rulers, and they yearn with benevolence towards the donors. They do not walk about the streets of Madrid, smiling in the strength of their wardrobe at the nakedness of those who have subscribed the bravery.  Oh, ye “well-dressed gentlemen,” and oh, ye “well-to-do artisans!”—­be instructed by the new petticoats of Queen Isabella, and smile no at rags and famine.

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PUNCH’S PENCILLINGS.—­No.  XII.

[Illustration:  THE TORY PEACOCKS AND THE FINSBURY DAW.]

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TRANSACTIONS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF HOOKHAM-CUM-SNIVEY.

There is not a more interesting science than geology, which, as our readers are aware, treats principally of mud and minerals.  The association at Hookham-cum-Snivey has been very active during the summer, and may be said to have been up to its knees in dirt and filth, gravel and gypsum, coal, clay and conglomerate, for a very considerable period.

It having been determined to open a sewer where the old Hookham-road meets with the ancient Roman footpath at Snivey, the junction of which gives name to the modern town, the Geological Association passed a strong resolution, in which it was asserted, that the opportunity had at length arrived for solving the great doubt that had long perplexed the minds of the inhabitants as to whether the soil in the neighbourhood was crustaceous or carboniferous.  The crustaceous party had been long triumphing in the fact, that a mouldy piece of bread had been found at two feet below the surface, when digging for the foundation of a swing erected in a garden in the neighbourhood; but the carboniferous enthusiasts had been thrown into ecstacies, by the sexton having come upon a regular strata of undoubted cinders, in clearing out