Moral Characteristics.—­None.

Reproduction.—­The offspring of opera-dancers are not, as is sometimes supposed, born with wings; the truth is that these cherubim are frequently attached by their backs to copper wires, and made to represent flying angels in fairy dramas; and those appendages, so far from being natural, are supplied by the property-man, together with the wreaths of artificial flowers which each Liliputian divinity upholds.

Sustenance.—­All opera-dancers are decidedly omnivorous.  Their appetite is immense; quantity and (for most of them come from France), not quality, is what they chiefly desire.  When not dining at their own expense, they eat all they can, and pocket the rest.  Indeed, a celebrated sylphide—­unsurpassed for the graceful airiness of her evolutions—­has been known to make the sunflower in the last scene bend with the additional weight of a roast pig, an apple pie, and sixteen omelettes soufflees—­drink, including porter, in proportion.  Various philosophers have endeavoured to account for this extraordinary digestive capacity; but some of their arguments are unworthy of the science they otherwise adorn.  For example, it has been said that the great exertions to which the dancer is subject demand a corresponding amount of nutriment, and that the copious transudation superinduced thereby requires proportionate supplies of suction; while, in point of fact, if such theorists had studied their subject a little closer, they would have found these unbounded appetites accounted for upon the most simple and conclusive ground:  it is clear that, as most opera-dancers’ lives are passed in a pirouette, they must naturally have enormous twists!

The geographical distribution of opera-dancers is extremely well defined, as their names implies; for they most do congregate wherever an opera-house exists.  Some, however, descend to the non-lyric drama, and condescend to “illustrate” the plays of Shakespeare.  It is said that the classical manager of Drury Lane Theatre has secured a company of them to help the singers he has engaged to perform Richard the Third, Coriolanus, and other historical plays.

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Why has a clock always a bashful appearance?—­Because it always keeps its hands before its face.

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KIDNAPPING EXTRAORDINARY.

The Chronicle has been making a desperate attempt to come out in Punch’s line; he has absolutely been trying the “Too-too-tooit—­tooit;” but has made a most melancholy failure of it.  We could forgive him his efforts to be facetious (though we doubt that his readers will) if he had not kidnapped three of our own particular pets—­the very men who lived and grew in the world’s estimation on our wits; we mean Peter Borthwick, Ben D’Israeli, and our own immortal Sibthorp.  Of poor Sib. the joker of the Chronicle says in last Tuesday’s paper—­