NOTES OF THE MONTH. 699 



In future commend us to inexperience in these matters. It is a real 

 " consolation to the tremulous" sportsman to reflect, that, though his 

 pride is touched, his hands are safe. They are not liable to those ex- 

 centric excursions to which the manipulators of a practised shot are 

 prone to 'take. We should prefer placing our hands rather awkwardly, 

 than witness their independent evolutions in a sphere for which nature 

 never intended them. We would, however, recommend the tyro, if 

 he must go upon these expeditions, to leave the glory and danger to 

 the ambitious marksman, and make all sure by keeping his hands in 

 his pockets. 



CELESTIAL PECULIARITIES. We are hardly sufficiently grateful 

 to Providence for having cast our lot in such " pleasant places." It 

 is only by the occasional receipt of foreign documents that we can, by 

 comparison, appreciate our own security. The decease of a crowned 

 head is surely sufficiently distressing, without lacerating the feelings 

 of a bereaved people by orders such as these : 



" On the 15th July, died at Pekin, the consort of the Emperor of China. 

 A general mourning has been ordered in consequence. The Mantshur em- 

 ployes are for 27 days to wear garments of coarse white linen, and caps with- 

 out tassels or buttons; during 100 days they must not shave their Heads. The 

 Mongolian employes are to assume the same mourning, with the exception of 

 the white garments. The Chinese people must leave their heads unshaved for 

 the same period, and are to wear no tassels on their caps for seven days/' 

 Russian Paper. 



Now, when we unhappily suffer a similar calamity, the people are 

 merely enjoined to put on decent mourning, a comprehensive term 

 enough, and ingeniously contrived ; but our shaving is left to our 

 own sense of propriety. We can fancy the consternation at court 

 produced by an order for the discontinuance of scissors and razors for 

 the space of 100 days our Mongolian employes would be in a state 

 little short of frenzy. We remember the effect produced by such ,a 

 mandate, although on a small scale, upon a regiment of cavalry, when 

 the discontinuance of the growth of moustache was delicately hinted 

 to them. Many, who had been at great pains and expense to enter 

 the regiment for the privilege of wearing them, retired from the ser- 

 vice in disgust ; and the precincts of the Horse Guards were disquieted 

 for many days with the apprehension that the heroes would march 

 out drums beating and colours flying to fortify Primrose-hill, 

 rather than ingloriously part with their whiskers. Nothing offends 

 a gentleman more than interfering with the cut of his wig, or the 

 pointing of his whiskers ; and our independence in these particulars 

 makes us pity the tonsorial enthralment of those whose razors are 

 only sharpened by royal authority. After all, to speak seriously, if 

 we place the celestial order beside one from our own Chamberlain's 

 office, and place our bag wigs and ruffles against the buttons and tassels 

 of the Chinese, we shall find the distinction of absurdity pretty much 

 on an equality, whether in the courts of Asia or Europe. 



THE COLUMNS OF ROYALTY. We are not of that class who fancy 

 that loyalty to the monarch can only be proved by hollow encomium 



