Ellen (who loves a joke at AUNT FIDGET's expense). "GOOD GRACIOUS, AUNT! THERE ARE TWO OFFICERS !'

dunt Fidget (a short-sighted lady). "BLESS ME, SO THERE ARE! WELL; THEY MAY BE OFFICERS, BUT THEY ARE NOT GENTLEMEN, I'M SURE, OR THEY WOULDN'T STAND LOOKING AT US IN THAT IMPUDENT MANNER."

THE DIGNITY OF THE WORKING CLASSES

OFFENDED!

To the RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN MANNERS.

PRINCE OF WALES were to come of age next week, and the QUEEN were to ask the aristocracy, in honour of the occasion, to practise good old English sports in Hyde Park. Fancy the chivalrous Ministry riding a Donkey Tournament,' or racing in sacks. Conceive the Lords and Commons at 'Bell in the Ring, or the Bench of Bishops 'Hunting a Pig.'

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"Your Lordship's humble servant,
"POWDERPUFF."

HYMEN AND LOUIS NAPOLEON.

"Oh dear! my Lord, to think of a Bishop hunting a pig! I told that Y NOBLE LORD,-I now take the philosopher fellow that he shouldn't talk so.. But,' says he, 'why liberty of addressing your not? I know it's beneath the dignity of Bishops, and Lords, and Lordship, because everybody Squires to play such fool's tricks. Beneath their dignity-that's it! eays that your Lordship ought Well, where lies their dignity? In their lawn-sleeves, ribands, acres? to have been made a Commis- No. In that which elevates them above the fool-in that which sioner of Sports and Pastimes. renders them superior to the jackass-understanding, knowledge. If My Lord, SIR J.W.RAMSDEN, we, Huddersfield working-men, have souls above donkey races, they Bart., as your Lordship may are beneath our dignity, I should think. I dare say SIR J. W. be aware, came of age the RAMSDEN means well; but how would he like, on the PRINCE coming other day. To celebrate that of age, as aforesaid, to be invited by HER MAJESTY to climb a pole for happy event, it was announced a leg of mutton ?' by handbill that certain prizes What state of things are we coming to, my Lord, when common were to be competed for at fellows think and talk like this? Not old English times over again, Longley Hall; valuable prizes, I am afraid, your Lordship. I remember when a lout would have some of them: one, a Set of thought himself highly honoured if requested by a gentleman to grin Donkey-Cart Harness; another through a horse-collar. Those days will never return, your Lordship; a Silver Watch; another aah, no! my Lord; the clowns and bumpkins have lost nearly all that China Tea Service and Tray; respect and reverence they used to have for large property and leather another, may, it please your breeches; very shocking, this, to Lordship, a Pig. The proposed games were a Donkey Race: capital fun, you know, my Lord; Climbing a Pole: very amusing, your Lordship; a Wheelbarrow Race Blindfold; a Hurdle Race on Foot; and a Donkey Tournament: all A FORM of petition has been considerately drawn up by Louis good old English Sports, my NAPOLEON-and circulated throughout France-a petition to be signed Lord, particularly the last by the labouring classes, praying, heartily praying, that the President says you. Then there was to will condescend to become an Emperor. "The man of God"-as come a variety of leaping and piously designated by the BISHOP OF CHALONS-is entreated to cap the foot-racing-including a Sack dignity with a diadem. He has only to consent, and we doubt not Race; followed by Bell in the Ring, a Pony Hurdle Race, and that another dove will duly bring another ampoulle-in humble imitation a Foot Steeple Chase; the whole to conclude with Hunting a Pig of the dove that honoured ST. LOUIS-full of the holiest oil, to grease -clodhoppers chasing a pig, trying which can catch him, and swing the President's head, that his uncle's crown (too small, no doubt, for his him round his head by the tail; pretty diversion, if not what you nephew's caput) may, with a little wriggling in the hands of Mother call intellectual; and very gratifying to gentlemen lookers-on-Church, be made to slip on, and fit. This, however, by the way. especially as the pig's tail is greased. Now, my Lord, wouldn't One of the great fireside reasons for calling upon the President to your Lordship say this was just the right thing; reviving ancient become Emperor is, that he may settle the delicate question of customs; cultivating friendly relations with the humbler classes,' marriage, at some time or other sure to agitate the paternal breast of to use the elegant language of genteel newspapers. Weren't all the labourer for his little onethese the very games and sports which the genuine Old English Gentleman in the song would have delighted in, and most likely have had acted at his own majority? Could any ceremonies have been more fit and proper? Of course your Lordship would expect that if you had been in SIR J. W. RAMSDEN's place, all the Longley clowns and clodpoles would have flung up their hats for you, made a bonfire in your honour, danced round it, and drunk your health with nine times nine, as in gratitude and duty bound. And you would naturally suppose, my Lord, you would have been applauded and praised by the whole neighbourhood sky-high!

.

Instead of that-what does your Lordship think? A 'crowded public meeting-crowded, my Lord!-was held in the Philosophical Hall, Huddersfield '-I am copying a newspaper advertisement- on Thursday Evening, September 9th,' at which the following disrespectful resolution was passed unanimously:

"That while this meeting highly approves of amusements for the working classes, whose labour makes recreation at once necessary and useful, it would yet record its strong conviction that the increasing intelligence and general culture of the age demand that such sports and amusements be at least healthful and innocent, and tend as far as possible to elevate the tastes, and promote the well-being, physical and moral, of the people.'

cannot foresee under what political conditions the boy or girl now growing up between
"Considering that with a President for 10, 15, or 20 years, the father of a family
his knees may be married."

interests French boys and girls, if there are such beings; for we have
Now this is a question, or rather consideration, that even now
always considered them as little men and women.
point with JULES, aged four, whether he shall marry HORTENSE, rising
It is a great
three, under a republican despotism, or an empire. Poor little JULES;
how can he prepare for future housekeeping? Sweet HORTENSE-in
maiden meditation, sucking her little thumb-how can she decide upon
the fashion of her trousseau; for what might serve for a President
would be very mauvais ton for an Emperor.

It is supposed that all the boys' and girls'-we mean all the little men and womens'-boarding-schools will petition the President, at once and for ever, (all things are done for ever in France,) to settle the momentous question.

Echo answers "When!"

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"And then, my Lord, these terrible fellows also resolved:THE Constitutionnel, in an article full of benevolent hopes that the "That this meeting has seen with deep regret the announcement of a programme of that nothing is easier, and that "England has always been conquered English may not know the misfortunes of an invasion, goes on to add sports for the amusement of the people, in celebration of the majority of SIR J. W when a foreign army set foot on her soil." RAMSDEN-sports which are, this meeting believes, of a highly objectionable character, The word when worthy only of an uncivilised age and people; and it hereby desires to give expression qualifies most materially the force of this sentence, as far as the present to its indignant sense of the degrading estimate of the tastes, intelligence, and cha- generation is concerned. The actual possessors happening to be the racter of the working population of this town implied in such programme, and recom-descendants of the conquerors, defeats the force of the suggestion that mends, further, that out of self-respect and regard for the moral well-being of the community, the working classes, generally, will abstain from all participation, even as spectators, in the sports at Longley Hall, on Wednesday next."

England is to be vanquished by any one who sets foot on her soil.
When an enemy sets foot there, we may expect England to knock
the experiment would find he had set his foot in it indeed.
under; but not till then. We suspect that any foreign enemy trying

WE BEG TO SECOND THE AMENDMENT.

"Shocking chaps! my Lord. Fancy, your Lordship, these mechanics, tinkers, tailors, cobblers, and weavers, turning philosophers, and meeting and passing resolutions-knocking out a Baronet's eye-in a 'Philosophical Hall. Only think of these fellows presuming not only to despise the amusements of our ancestors, but also flying in the face of a man of title, who, they say, has come into a million of money! I A VERY literal and illiterate gentleman suggests that, as all the asked one of these philosophers what he objected to in such very Frenchman has left of his "Egalité" is his Eagle, the word should suitable recreations for the People; and his answer was, 'Suppose the be spelt now "Eagle-ité."

"WHAT'S IN A NAME?"-The nuisance of being continually twopenny postum transmissa, apud juvenalibus pueros, acerrimo studio, et likeblasio, bothered for your autograph.-Widdicomb.