class="center">DUFFERTON AND BLUNDERBURGH.

Sparrowshooting Extraordinary.—The annual meeting of the Dufferton and Blunderburgh Sparrow Club was held on Monday last at the Goose and Gridiron, Dufferton, the President, Mr. Boobie, again occupying the chair. It appeared from the report that, during the past twelvemonth, no fewer than 5937 sparrows had been slaughtered by the honourable members of the club. Complaints had been received of increasing devastation by fly, and slug, and caterpillar, and it was said that this was owing to the great decrease of small birds effected by the club. The Chairman, amid cheers, pooh-poohed these allegations, and, after presenting a new powderflask to Mr. Jonah Jowls, for having made the largest bag of small birds in the twelvemonth, the Chairman humorously adjourned the meeting to the supper-room, where mine host served up an elegant light supper, the menu whereof consisted of sausages, black puddings, Welsh rarebits, and pork-chops.

SCIENCE GOSSIP.

Professor Agassiz has discovered "a fish which builds a nest." Wonders are only just beginning. Other Professors, envious of Agassiz's good fortune, will be stimulated to renewed study of the Animal Kingdom; and the result will be that at no distant day we shall see the great Zoological collections, here and in America, enriched by the addition of a glowworm which lives in a hive, a tortoise which hops from bough to bough, an oviparous rabbit, and a lobster whose diet consists exclusively of salad. The fable which deluded our childhood may yet be realised, and pigeon's milk take its place amongst the common articles of a free breakfast table.

NEW SCHOOL FOR NOBS.

ind Mr. Punch, a happy change has come over the character of our Public Schools. The chief of them, I have been told, of what is called mediæval foundation, were originally intended to educate the sons of poor gentlemen. But now, Sir, the purpose they have come to serve is just the reverse of that. A correspondent of the Morning Post, signing himself Pavidus—evidently a mean, shabby, needy sprig of gentility, afraid, as his signature means, if I am not misinformed, which, by the tenor of his letter, he plainly confesses himself to be, of having to fork out more than he is able—writes to complain, forsooth, of "the growing abuse of 'tips' and pocket-money allowance." This contemptible indigent fellow says:—

"It is within my knowledge that at one of the chief public schools—and I am told that the same rule holds good at the other schools of this class—a boy who does not bring back £5 each half is set down by 'the house' as a 'duffer' and as of 'no use.' In other words, he is under the cold shade of his fellow-boarders, and is subject to constant and galling humiliation."

Very well. Let him be off, then. A first-class Public School is no place for him any more than a first-class carriage. Let the beggar who doesn't like it, leave it—go second or third class, and be taught the three R's under Forster's Education Act. But now read what Pavidus has the insolence to say further:—

"It is not every lad that can bear lightly the gibes and jeers of the young cotton lords whose home ethics teach them to measure the quality of a gentleman by the amount of money he can spend. The result is inevitable. The 'soc' shop gives credit. A loan is soon and easily contracted, and the boy, smarting under the results of his comparative poverty, begins his career of debt and deceit in order to hold his own among his more pecunious fellows."

Mr. Pavidus, in his pride and poverty, seems very indignant at the idea of wealthy young cotton lords treating poor young pedigree lords with contempt. I dare say he is some poor nobleman's relation himself, the Honourable Pavidus, perhaps, or Right Honourable Pavidus.

When he wrote the above sneer at cotton lords probably he turned up his nose. That is, I mean, he tried to, for it is a nose that don't turn up by nature, I'm sure. I'll be bound it's one of those aquiline hook-noses which your bloated aristocrats are so vain of, none of your jolly button-mushroom snub. I fancy I see Pavidus—Lord Pavidus, perhaps—looking down upon myself and sniffing at me, like a footman with too strong a bouquet in his buttonhole. He and his, and such as they, had best keep themselves to themselves. If our boys are too well-off at school for theirs, and yet theirs are above being sent to regular pauper schools, why don't your Nobs and Swells get up poor's schools of their own, poor gentlemen's schools, if they like to call them so? At such schools the rule might be that no boy was to come from home to school with more than five shillings in his pocket, nor be allowed above sixpence a week.

Dress and board could be cut down to the same plain, poverty-stricken scale. Such regulations would keep the high-bred paupers what they call select enough without any necessity, which they that pride themselves so on their pronunciation might perhaps imagine, for an entrance examination to try if new-comers could pronounce their h's. And so, poor nobility and gentry, being brought up in that frugal sort of way, would continue in it, because able to afford no better, and by-and-by, I dare say, get to pride themselves upon it, and make a merit and a boast of their despicable economy; so that plain living and dressing and eating and drinking will some day perhaps be considered the particular tokens of high birth and breeding, and of class-distinction between Plantagenet Mowbray Fitz-Montague Norfolk Howard and

Shoddy.

TICHBORNE V. LUSHINGTON.

Boyle's Court Guide is, as all who dwell or have friends in the Court District know, as accurate and convenient a book of reference as possible. No library table can be without this manual. It is with great reluctance, therefore, that Mr. Punch, in the exercise of stern duty, devotes the new volume of the Guide to the vengeance of Lord Chief Justice Bovill. But respect for the Bench compels Mr. Punch to offer this sacrifice. In the issue for January, 1872, on page 797, this may be read:—

"Tichborne, Sir Roger C. D., Bart., 10, Harley Road West, Brompton, S.W."

Now Mr. Punch appeals to the Lord Chief Justice, and to the Universe to say whether the desire expressed by the former that there should be no comment on the Tichborne case, pendente lite, has not been scrupulously complied with. Dull as the season has been, there has been no yielding to the temptation to make smart articles out of the Australian Romance. Mr. Punch himself, who is above all laws, has set the most noble example to his contemporaries, and even when he has borrowed an illustration from the big trial, he has carefully avoided any expression of opinion as to the merits. But, in the Court Guide, the Claimant, or somebody else, has inserted an entry which prejudges the case. The