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QUESTION BY THE DISOWNED OF NOTTINGHAM.

Why do men who are about to fight a duel generally choose a field for the place of action?

ANSWER BY COLONEL SIBTHORP.

I really cannot tell; unless it be for the purpose of allowing the balls to graze.

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REVIEW.

Two Prize Essays.  By LORD MELBOURNE and SIR ROBERT PEEL. 8 vols. folio.  London:  Messrs. SOFTSKIN and TINGLE, Downing-street.

We congratulate the refined and sensitive publishers on the production of these elaborately-written gilt-edged folios, and trust that no remarks will issue from the press calculated to affect the digestion of any of the parties concerned.  The sale of the volumes will, no doubt, be commensurate with the public spirit, the wisdom, and the benevolence which has uniformly characterised the career of their illustrated authors.  Two more statesmanlike volumes never issued from the press; in fact, the books may be regarded as typical of all statesmen.  The subject, or rather the line of argument, is thus designated by the respective writers:—­

ESSAY I.—­“On the Fine Art of Government, or how to do the least possible good to the country in the longest possible time, and enjoy, meanwhile, the most ease and luxury.”  By LORD MELBOURNE.

ESSAY II.—­“On the Science of Governing, or how to do the utmost possible good for ourselves in the shortest possible time, under the name of our altars, and our throne, and everybody that is good and wise.”  By SIR ROBERT PEEL.

We are quite unable to enter into a review of these very costly productions, an estimate of the value of which the public will be sure to receive from “authority,” and be required to meet the amount, not only with cheerful loyalty, but a more weighty and less noisy acknowledgment.

As to the Prize, it has been adjudged by PUNCH to be divided equally between the two illustrious essayists; to the one, in virtue of his incorrigible laziness, and to the other, in honour of his audacious rapacity.

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TO THE LAUGHTER-LOVING PUBLIC.

PUNCH begs to inform the inhabitants of Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Dogs, that he has just opened on an entirely new line, an Universal Comic Railroad, and Cosmopolitan Pleasure Van for the transmission of bon mots, puns, witticisms, humorous passengers, and queer figures, to every part of the world.  The engines have been constructed on the most laughable principles, and being on the high-pressure principle, the manager has provided a vast number of patent anti-explosive fun-belts, to secure his passengers against the danger of suddenly bursting.