* * * * *

AN ALARMING STRIKE.

HORACE TWISS, on being told that the workmen employed at the New Houses of Parliament struck last week, to the number of 468, declared that he would follow their example unless Bob raised his wages.

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SIR RHUBARB PILL, M.P. & M.D.

    “Now the Poor Law is the only remedy for all the distresses
    referred to contained in the whole of the Baronet’s
    speech.”—­Morning Chronicle, Sept. 21.

    Oh! dear Doctor,
      Great bill
      And pill
    Concoctor,
  Most worthy follower in the steps
    Of Dr. Epps,
  And eke that cannie man
    Old Dr. Hanneman—­
  Two individuals of consummate gumption,
    Who declare,
    That whensoe’er
  The patient’s labouring under a consumption,
  To save him from a trip across the Styx,
    To ancient Nick’s
    In Charon’s shallop,
  If the consumption be upon the canter,
  It should be put upon the gallop
    Instanter;
  For, “similia similibus curantur,”
    Great medicinal cod
    (Beating the mode
  Of old Hippocrates, whom M.D.’s mostly follow,
    Quite hollow);
  Which would make
    A patient take
  No end of verjuice for the belly-ache;
  And find, beyond a question,
    A power of good in
    A lump of cold plum-pudding
  For a case of indigestion. 
    And just as sage,
    In this wise age,
  ’Faith, Dr. Peel, is your law;
    Which, as a remedy
    For poverty,
  Would recommend the Poor Law.

* * * * *

MATINEE MESMERIQUE

Or, Procede Humbugaresque.

There is at present in London a gentleman with an enormous beard, who professes the science of animal magnetism, and undertakes to deprive of sense those who come under his hand; but as those who flock to his exhibition have generally left all the sense they possess at home, he finds it difficult to accomplish his purposes.  If it is animal magnetism to send another to sleep, what a series of Soirees Mesmeriques must take place in the House of Commons during the sitting of Parliament!  There is no doubt that Sir Robert Peel is the Lafontaine of political mesmerism—­the fountain of quackery—­and every pass he makes with his hand over poor John Bull serves to bring him into that state of stupefaction in which he may be most easily victimised.  While Lafontaine thrusts pins into his patient, the Premier sends poor John into a swoon, for the purpose of, as it is vulgarly termed, sticking it into him; and as the French quack holds lucifers to the nostril, Peel plays the devil under the very nose of the paralysed sufferer.  One resorts to electrics, the other to election tricks, but each has the same object in view—­to bring the subject of the operation into a state of unconsciousness.  If the Premier would give a Matinee Politique, it would prove a formidable rival to the Soiree Mesmerique of the gentleman in the beard, who seems impressed with the now popular idea, that genius and a clean chin are wholly incompatible.