[Illustration:  A MOST DISTRESSING BLOW.]

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NATIONAL DISTRESS.

The Tee-totallers say that the majority of the people are victims to Bacchus.  In the present hard times they are more likely to be victims to

[Illustration:  JUG O’ NOUGHT—­(JUGGERNAUT.)]

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SONGS FOR THE SENTIMENTAL.—­No. 12.

  Away! away! ye hopes which stray
    Like jeering spectres from the tomb! 
  Ye cannot light the coming night,
    And shall not mock its gathering gloom;
  Though dark the cloud shall form my shroud—­
    Though danger league with racking doubt—­
  Away! away! ye shall not stay
    When all my joys are “up the spout!”

  I little knew when first ye threw
    Your bright’ning beams on coming hours,
  That time would see me turn from thee,
    And fly your sweet delusive powers. 
  Now, nerved to woe, no more I’ll know
    How hope deferr’d makes mortal sick;
  The gathering storm may whelm my form,
    But I will suffer “like a brick!”

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LAURIE’S RAILLERY.

When Sir Peter Laurie had taken his seat the other morning in that Temple of Momus, the Guildhall Justice Room, he was thus addressed by Payne, the clerk—­“I see, Sir Peter, an advertisement in the Times, announcing the sale of shares in the railroad from Paris to ROUEN; would you advise me to invest a little loose cash in that speculation?” “Certainly not,” replied the Knight, “nor in any other railway,—­depend upon it, they all lead to the same terminus, RUIN.”  Payne, having exclaimed that this was the best thing he had ever heard, was presented by our own Alderman with a shilling, accompanied with a request that he would get his hair cropped to the magisterial standard.

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A MEETING OF OLD ACQUAINTANCES.

At the sale of the library of the late Theodore Hook, a curious copy of “The Complete Jester” was knocked down to “our own” Colonel.  Delighted with his prize, he ran home, intending to lay in a fresh stock of bons mots; but what was his amazement on finding that all the jokes contained in the volume were those with which he has been in the habit of entertaining the public these last forty years!  Sibby declares that the sight of so many old friends actually brought the tears into his eyes.

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PUNCH’S THEATRE.

LOVE EXTEMPORE.

As the hero of a romantic play is obliged to possess all the cardinal virtues and all the intellectual accomplishments, so the hero of a farce is bound to be a fool.  One of the greatest, and at the same time one of the best fools it has been our pleasure to be introduced to for some time is Mr. Titus Livingstone, in the new farce of “Love Extempore.”