Reform Club-house.

DEAR PUNCH,

Knowing the interest you take in anything relating to the advancement of science, I beg to apprise you that I am about publishing a statistical work, in which I have made it perfectly clear that an immense saving in the article of ice alone might be made in England by importing that which lies waste upon Mont Blanc.  I have also calculated to a fraction the number of pints of milk produced in the canton of Berne, distinguishing the quantity used in the making of cheese from that which has been consumed in the manufacture of butter—­and specifying in every instance whether the milk has been yielded by cows or goats.  There will be also a valuable appendix to the work, containing a correct list of all the inns on the road between Frankfort and Geneva, with a copy of the bill of fare at each, and the prices charged; together with the colour of the postilion’s jacket, the age of the landlord and the weight of his wife, and the height in inches of the cook and chambermaid.  To which will be added, “Ten Minutes’ Advice” upon making one shilling go as far as two.  If you can give me a three-halfpenny puff in your admired publication, you will confer a favour on

Your sincere friend,

JOE HUME.

* * * * *

THE ROMANCE OF A TEACUP.

SIP THE FIRST.

  In England one man’s mated to one woman,
    To spend their days in holy matrimony—­
  In fact, I have heard from one or two men,
    That one wife in a house is one too many—­
  But, be this as it may, in China no man
    Who can afford it shuts himself to any
  Fix’d number, but is variously encumber’d
  With better halves, from twenty to a hundred.

  These to provide for in a pleasant way,
    And, maybe, to avoid their chat and worry,
  He shuts up in a harem night and day—­
    With them contriving all his cares to bury—­
  A point of policy which, I should say,
    Sweetens the dose to men about to marry;
  For, though a wife’s a charming thing enough,
  Yet, like all other blessings, quantum suff.

  So to my tale:  Te-pott the Multifarious
    Was, once upon a time, a mandarin—­
  In personal appearance but precarious,
    Being incorrigibly bald and thin—­
  But then so rich, through jobs and pensions various,
    Obtain’d by voting with the party “in,”
  That he maintain’d, in grace and honour too,
  Sixty-five years, and spouses fifty-two.

  Fifty-two wives! and still he went about
    Peering below the maiden ladies’ veils—­
  Indeed, it was said (but there hangs a doubt
    Of scandal on such gossip-whisper’d tales),
  He had a good one still to single out—­
    For all his wives had tongues, and some had nails—­
  And still he hoped, though fifty-twice deferr’d,
  To find an angel in his fifty-third.