346 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



discovered this morning, it would appear primd facie, from the evi- 

 evidence of our door-post, that we owed the milk-woman several shil- 

 lings. Really it is time to put a stop to this, otherwise the characters 

 of respectable people may suffer, for we observe in our immediate 

 neighbourhood, many door-posts, wantonly, or rather carelessly dis- 

 playing the same disgraceful insignia." 



Of the characters of a milkmaid's score fow are ignorant; they are 

 simple and innocent as the administered fluid they record; they 

 sometimes amount e ' to several shillings," it is true ; but they are not 

 typical of any moral offence, any contemptible evasion, any clear act 



/% 1 1 C1 "!_!__ .*_ _j_ A-\ !,*-!_ J\ A ~_~>^ 



they 



amount to a serious imputation. " Pray," said a gentleman, one of 

 our neighbours, a few weeks ago, to a collecting dustman, " pray, 

 why do you chalk the door-posts on the other side of the way ? I have 

 seen you do so every Christmas, for the last ten years. What does it 

 all mean ?" (f Vy, Sir," replied the dustman, " as you've been liberal 

 with your shilling and two or three loose half-pence, I doesn't mind 

 if I tells you. That's how ve keeps our accounts. Vot dustman, as 

 is a dustman, and nothing else, not at no price, could tell how the cat 

 jumped at all the houses, if it vorn't for chork (chalk) ? by vich, 

 ven we comes round again, ve knows vot's been said afore, you see/' 

 " That's capital, but pray enlighten me a little, (here's another shil- 

 ling) : What do you mean by an upright line ?" " Vy, that's ven 

 ve calls and they ar'n't at home." " Very well : and then you sometimes 

 draw a horizontal line about the centre of the perpendicular." ' ' Oh ! 

 you means perhaps, a chivey right athirt the t'other, so as to form a 

 cross." " Exactly so/' t( Vy that signifies that ve've called tvice, 

 and they von't be at home?' " Good : But then again, occasionally, you 

 draw a circle round the cross." ' ' That, your honour, means that, if 

 so be, and no vise daunted, ve've knocked again, they've giv'n us 

 NOTHING, vith sauce to make it pleasant." 



... 



MIBADLE MoNGERS.-The Country Press is a rich fund for the 

 lovers of the marvellous ; our town purveyors are far inferior to their 

 provincial brethren, in all that belongs to the romance of life ; our 

 dull common-place facts are not to be compared to their gigantic re- 

 mains the mosaic pavement, the urns filled with gold; objects so 

 familiar to rustic optics. And then, as regards facts, touching the su- 

 pernatural or mystic, commend us to your chawbacon ! Our Cock- 

 Lane and Hammersmith Ghosts are the mere impostures of sucking 

 imps, compared with the palpable hoof and fiery horns of our devil- 

 raising provincials. 



The " Hereford Times" invites the attention of all open-mouthed 

 marvel-loving noodles, to the " singular fact," that in a turnip field, 

 has been discovered a root bearing the remarkable conformation of a 

 man's hand ! Stay friend Noodle ; don't shut your mouth yet ; in 

 that very turnip field was a man murdered ; and mark ! the vegetable 

 marrow of that distinguished edible above mentioned, was stamped 



