446 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



It is a remarkable fact, and in stating it we rely wholly upon our 

 memory, but the impression is as strong, and, we believe, as accu- 

 rate as if we had made a list of these peculiar cases of murder, and 

 then drawn the average, that out of twenty cases of murder, occur- 

 ring between men and women, fifteen of these twenty violent deaths 

 take place between parties cohabiting merely, and not being mar- 

 ried. We hear much sarcasm at, and sometimes censure of the mar- 

 riage-tie ; but how will the decriers of this moral, or religious, or 

 merely legal contract, whichever they choose to consider it, get over 

 this startling truth ? The proportion of number of the two classes, 

 the cohabiting and the married, are, we should think, as two in two 

 hundred : how is it, then, that the proportion of violence ending in 

 death is so much larger in the one case than in the other ? ]Let the 

 St. Simonians answer. But, no doubt they will, or will attempt it at 

 least for those sorts of puffy theorists are always wiser than ten men 

 who can render a reason ; and if you beat them with one truth, they 

 have always forty falsehoods with which they can outswear you, and 

 make the fools who are their jurymen hesitate and deliberate whether 

 truth herself is not a liar. 



THE PARLOUR SCHOOLMASTER A LITTLE ABROAD. Every ale- 

 house has its oracle every public-house parlour in London has its 

 parson (not to speak it profanely). He is commonly a gentleman of 

 much more impudence than intelligence ; but his admirers do not 

 discover this, and, if he leads them wrong in nineteen instances, he 

 leads them right in the twentieth. It is with one of the nineteenth we 

 have to do. A parlour party was disputing the meaning of the word 

 succedaneum, which we see continually advertized : many ingenious 

 guesses were made at it, but all was doubt till the Sir Oracle at last 

 arrived, and a general smile of joy spread round the room as he en- 

 tered, and hung up his hat, which was of the rustiest, on the usual 

 peg, having carefully dusted it with a decentish sort of handkerchief 

 enough. " We're glad you're come, Mr. O' something, for now we 



shall larn. You're a scholar, Mr. O' ; what's the meaning of 



this word here?" showing it to him in the column of advertisements. 

 Mr. O'. looked twice at it as though he was bothered, and twice he 

 scratched his head, and paused ; and you might have heard a pin 

 drop. An Irishman always will give an answer, and if he does not 

 happen to be the right one, which is very probable, wait a bit, and 

 he will try again, and still be as far off the mark ; " Faith ! then 

 no; och ! then, I'm bothered: yes, it is, sure enough ! succed- 

 aneum ? It's a Latin singular for succeed any how !" Need we say, 

 the parlour was pacified ! 



SUCKLING SENATORS. " Lord Milton presented a petition from a 

 parish in Northamptonshire, praying for the repeal of the Malt tax. 

 In consequence of the decision of the House last session, upon the 

 motion of the Hon. Member for Lincolnshire, with respect to the 

 Malt tax, and the course Ministers were now pursuing, he should, 

 although with great pain to himself, withdraw from them his support." 



