CHEMISTRY AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

1. Does any chemical combination take place between the porter and ale in a pot of half-and-half upon mixture? Is there a galvanic current set up between the pewter and the beer capable of destroying the equilibrium of living bodies.

2. Explain the philosophical meaning of the sentence—“He cut away from the crushers as quick as a flash of lightning through a gooseberry-bush.”

3. There are two kinds of electricity, positive and negative; and these have a pugnacious tendency. A, a student, goes up to the College positive he shall pass; B, an examiner, thinks his abilities negative, and flummuxes him accordingly. A afterwards meets B alone, in a retired spot, where there is no policeman, and, to use his own expression, “takes out the change” upon B. In this case, which receives the greatest shock—A’s “grinder,” at hearing his pupil was plucked, or B for doing it?

4. The more crowded an assembly is, the greater quantity of carbonic acid is evolved by its component members. State, upon actual experience, the per centage of this gas in the atmosphere of the following places:—The Concerts d’Eté, the Swan in Hungerford Market, the pit of the Adelphi, Hunt’s Billiard Rooms, and the Colosseum during the period of its balls.

ANIMAL ECONOMY.

1. Mention the most liberal pawnbrokers in the neighbourhood of Guy’s and Bartholomew’s; and state under what head of diseases you class the spring outbreak of dissecting cases and tooth-drawing instruments in their windows.

2. Mention the cheapest tailors in the metropolis, and especially name those who charge you three pounds for dress coats (“best Saxony, any other colour than blue or black”), and write down five in the bills to send to your governor. Describe the anatomical difference between a peacoat, a spencer, and a Taglioni, and also state who gave the best “prish” for old ones.

HARVEST PROSPECTS.

Public attention being at this particular season anxiously directed to the prospects of the approaching harvest, we are enabled to lay before our readers some authentic information on the subject. Notwithstanding the fears which the late unfavourable weather induced, we have ascertained that reaping is proceeding vigorously at all the barbers’ establishments in the kingdom. Several extensive chins were cut on Saturday last, and the returns proved most abundant.

Sugar-barley is a comparative failure; but that description of oats, called wild oats, promises well in the neighbourhood of Oxford. Turn-ups have had a favourable season at the écarté tables of several dowagers in the West-end district. Beans are looking poorly—particularly the have-beens—whom we meet with seedy frocks and napless hats, gliding about late in the evenings. Clover, we are informed by some luxurious old codgers, who are living in the midst of it, was never in better condition. The best description of hops, it is thought, will fetch high prices in the Haymarket. The vegetation of wheat has been considerably retarded by the cold weather. Sportsmen, however, began to shoot vigorously on the 12th of this month.

All things considered, though we cannot anticipate a rich harvest, we think that the speculators have exaggerated the

ALARMING STATE OF THE CROPS.

PUNCH’S RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

(IN HUMBLE IMITATION OF THE AUTHOR OF “THE GREAT METROPOLIS.”)

No. I.—THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

Before entering on this series of papers, I have only one request to make of the reader, which is this: that, however absurd or incredible my statements may appear, he will take them all for Grant-ed.

It will hardly be necessary to apologise for making the hero of Waterloo the subject of this article; for, having had always free access to the parlour of the Duke of Wellington, I flatter myself that I am peculiarly fitted for the task I have undertaken.

My acquaintance with the duke commenced in a very singular manner. During the discussions on the Reform Bill, his grace was often the object of popular pelting; and I was, on one occasion, among a crowd of free-born Englishmen who, disliking his political opinions, were exercising the constitutional privilege of hooting him. Fired by the true spirit of British patriotism, and roused to a pitch of enthusiasm by observing that the crowd were all of one opinion, decidedly against the duke, worked up, too, with momentary boldness by perceiving that there was not a policeman in sight, I seized a cabbage-leaf, with which I caught his nose, when, turning round suddenly to look whence the blow proceeded, I caught his eye. It was a single glance; but there was something in it which said more than, perhaps, if I had attempted to lead him into conversation, he would at that moment have been inclined to say to me. The recognition was brief, lasting scarcely an instant; for a policeman coming round the corner, the great constitutional party with whom I had been acting retired in haste, rather than bring on a collision with a force which was at that time particularly obnoxious to all the true friends of excessive liberty.

It will, perhaps, surprise my readers, when I inform them that this is the only personal interview I ever enjoyed with the illustrious duke; but accustomed as I am to take in character at a glance, and to form my conclusions at a wink, I gained, perhaps, as much, or more, information with regard to the illustrious hero, as I have been enabled to do with regard to many of those members of the House of Lords whom, in the course of my “Random Recollections,” it is my intention to treat of.

I never, positively, dined with the Duke of Wellington; but on one occasion I was very near doing so. Whether the duke himself is aware of the circumstances that prevented our meeting at the same table I never knew, and have no wish to inquire; but when his grace peruses these pages, he will perceive that our political views are not so opposite as the dastardly enemies of both would have made the world suppose them to have been. The story of the dinner is simply this:—there was to be a meeting for the purpose of some charity at the Freemasons’-hall, and the Duke of Wellington was to take the chair. I was offered a ticket by a friend connected with the press. My friend broke his word. I did not attend the dinner. But those virulent liars much malign me who say I stopped