We are perfectly aware that if many of the elect of the land were to weigh themselves against merely the things they are worth, that a great deal of the food subscribed would be unfit to be eaten even by the poor.  We should have rats, dogs, snakes, bats, and all other unclean animals; but in levying the parties to weigh themselves at their own valuation, the poor may be certain to “sup in the Apollo.”  On this principle we should have the weight of a LYNDHURST served to this neighbourhood in the tenderest house-lamb, and a STANLEY kicking the beam against so many “sucking doves.”

Q.

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FASHIONS FOR THE MONTH.

Coats are very much worn, particularly at the elbows, and are trimmed with a shining substance, which gives them a very glossy appearance.  A rim of white runs down the seams, and the covering of the buttons is slightly opened, so as to show the wooden material under it.

Hats are now slightly indented at the top, and we have seen several in which part of the brim is sloped off without any particular regard to the quantity abstracted.

Walking-dresses are very much dotted just now with brown spots of a mud colour, thrown on quite irregularly, and the heels of the stockings may sometimes be seen trimmed with the same material.  A sort of basket-work is now a great deal seen as a head-dress, and in these cases it is strewed over with little silver fish, something like common sprat, which gives it a light and graceful character.

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PUNCH’S PENCILLINGS.—­No.  XXIII.

[Illustration:  THE POLITICIAN PUZZLED;

OR,

PEEL ON THE RE-PEAL OF THE CORN-LAWS.]

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THE CHEROOT.

An excellent thing it is, when you get it genuine—­none of your coarse Whitechapel abominations, but a veritable satin-skinned, brown Indian beauty; smooth and firm to the touch, and full-flavoured to the taste; such a one as would be worth a Jewess’ eye, with a glass of tawny Port.  But the gratification that we have been wont to derive from our real Manilla has been sadly disturbed of late by a circumstance which has caused a dreadful schism in the smoking world, and has agitated every divan in the metropolis to its very centre.  The question is, “Whether should a cheroot be smoked by the great or the small end?” On this apparently trivial subject the great body of cheroot smokers have taken different sides, and divided themselves, as the Lilliputians did in the famous egg controversy, into the Big-endians and Little-endians.  The dispute has been carried on with great vigour on both sides, and several ingenious volumes have been already written, proving satisfactorily the superiority of each system, without however convincing a single individual of the opposite