Chapter 4

If the unhappy victims of mud-juice had constant access to the solar microscope, and there was occasionally in London a little sunshine to set off the animated bedevilments which are crowded into the composition, and could see thousands of animals, generated in filth, and living in the highest spirits and the greatest abundance, in the stuff destined for their stomachs, they would go mad. Boiled down in tea (for which, in the midst of _starvation_, a cockney pays five hundred per cent. beyond its value, and a tax of five hundred per cent. more than that,) these centipedes, toads, small alligators, large worms, white bait, snails, caterpillars, maggots, eels, minnows, weeds, moss, offal in detachments, gas-juice, vinegar lees, tallow droppings, galls, particles of dead men, women, children, horses, and dogs, train-oil, copper, dye-stuff, soot, and dead fish, are all, according to the chemistry of the washerwomen, neutralized, mollified, clarified, and rectified--but this we doubt; and if any of the unhappy persons who imbibe nastiness fourteen times a week, under the idea that it is good and wholesome because it is hot, will take the trouble to look at the agreeable deposit in the bottom of the "slop-basin," they will find that independent of all the muddy, fishy, oily, gaseous, animal and vegetable stuff, introduced into their stomachs under the guise of that most poisonous of all herbs, tea, they are in the habit of swallowing mud, earth, stones, sand, and gravel, in quantities sufficient to establish in less than three months spaces of land as big as Cornish freeholds in their insides.--_John Bull_.

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NAPOLEON.

While Napoleon was a subaltern in the army, a Russian officer remarked, with much self-sufficiency, "That his country fought for glory and the French for gain."--"You are perfectly right," answered Napoleon; "every one fights for that which he does not possess."

INA.

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FORBIDDEN FRUIT.

Sir Richard Steele, who represented the borough of Stockbridge, Hants, in parliament in the reign of Queen Anne, carried his election against a powerful opposition, by sticking a large apple full of guineas, and declaring that it should be the prize of that man whose wife was first brought to bed after that day nine months. This merry offer procured him the interest of the ladies, who, it is said, commemorate Sir Richard's bounty to this day, and once made a vigorous effort to procure a standing order of the corporation, that no man should ever be received as a candidate who did not offer himself on the same terms.

HALBERT H.

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EPITAPH ON A SILLY, DRUNKEN SOT.

His life and death five letters do express; A.B.C. he knew not, and he died of X.S.

G.J.F.

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CONVENIENT ABSENCE.

An individual often visited a landscape painter, who had a very beautiful wife, but he always met with the husband. "Zounds," said he, one day to him, "for a painter of landscapes, you are very seldom in the country."

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TARRAGON.

We recommend our correspondent, _Qy?_ to steep shalots and tarragon in vinegar, to be used as a sauce with rump-steaks. Or he may chop the shalots and tarragon _very fine_, and sprinkle them over the meat. Tarragon sprinkled over mutton chops is a nice relish; and with _sauce piquante_ flavoured with the above vinegar, makes a dish on "which the gods might dine."

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PEREMPTORY CONCLUSION.

An advocate, whose pleading appeared too diffuse for the cause he was defending, had received an order from the first president to abridge it; but the former, without omitting a word of his intended address, replied in a firm tone, that all he uttered was essential. The president, hoping at length to make him silent, said to him, "The court orders you to _conclude_." "Well," replied the advocate, "then I _conclude_ that the court shall hear me."

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GROUNDS OF RECOGNITION.

A man went to a restaurateur's (or chop-house) in France, to dine. He perceived another man in the room and hurried away to tell the master. "If you do not, Sir, order that man, who is dining alone at the table in the corner, out of your house, a respectable individual will not be able to sit down in it."--"How is that, Sir?"--"Because that is the executioner of R----." The host, after some hesitation, at length went and spoke to the stranger, who calmly answered him: "By whom have I been recognised?"--"By that gentleman," said the landlord, pointing out the former. "Indeed, he ought to know me, for it is not two years since I whipped and branded him."

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SINGULAR MISTAKE.

A courtier was playing at piquet, and was greatly annoyed by a short-sighted man with a long nose. To get rid of it he took his pocket handkerchief and wiped his troublesome neighbour's nose. "Ah, sir," said he immediately, "I really beg your pardon, I took it for my own."

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BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

During the revolution, a young man was travelling in the Diligence to Lyons with "_a brother and a friend_," when they had got about half way the latter's purse became empty; "_Brother_," said he to the young man, "pay for me, and I will return it to you at Lyons." "I cannot."--"Why, are we not brothers?" "Oh certainly, but _our purses are not sisters_."

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SPANISH REFUGEES.

As philanthropy is of no _caste_ or creed, let us dip our pen "in the milk of human kindness," and recommend each of our readers to contribute the amount of the MIRROR purchase-money--_Two-pence_--to the fund for relief of the Spanish Refugees.

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THE ANNUALS.

The SUPPLEMENT announced in No. 340 of the MIRROR, will be published next Saturday, December 6, and will contain Notices of such of the ANNUALS as were not included in the previous Supplement, with a FINE ENGRAVING, and their _Spirit_, or _Second Sight_.

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LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE

_Following Novels are already Published_:

- _s._ _d_. Mackenzie's Man of Feeling . . . . . . 0 6 Paul and Virginia. . . . . . . . . . . 0 6 The Castle of Otranto. . . . . . . . . 0 6 Almoran and Ramet. . . . . . . . . . . 0 6 Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia. . 0 6 The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne . . 0 6 Rasselas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 8 The Old English Baron. . . . . . . . . 0 8 Nature and Art . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 8 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield . . . . 0 10 Sicilian Romance . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 The Man of the World . . . . . . . . . 1 0 A Simple Story . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 Joseph Andrews . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 Humphry Clinker. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 The Romance of the Forest. . . . . . . 1 8 The Italian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 0 Zeluco, by Dr. Moore . . . . . . . . . 2 6 Edward, by Dr. Moore . . . . . . . . . 2 0 Roderick Random. . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 The Mysteries of Udolpho . . . . . . . 3 6

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_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers._