106 Notes of the Month. 



for a divorce or annulment of her marriage, we, simple mortals as we are, 

 classed her among some others of the corps dramatique, whose matrimonial 

 miscarriages have now become quite notorious. How surprised were we to 

 find that her object in the late proceedings was to confirm, not to dissolve the 

 liaison ! Certainly in this country such a course would not of course lead to 

 so felicitous a result. This liaison, now so happily rendered indissoluble, has 

 been already crowned with a pledge of affection ; but such a gift has been 

 dearly bought at the price of her voice. Report though may be " a mighty 

 great liar." 



ARISTOCRATIC MENDICITY. It is a very usual thing for the wealthy no- 

 bility to increase their riches by securing the public alms in the shape of a 

 snug sinecure or pension ; but it is not usual for these titled mendicants to 

 desert their offspring, and leave them without a maintenance, at the mercy 

 of strangers in a strange land, and then allow them to be settled on a chari- 

 table fund. The following, whose truth we have no reason to doubt, speaks 

 for itself. Blush, thou titled barbarian, whoever thou art ; and hide thy dis- 

 grace by lasting banishment from a land that disowns thee as a member of its 

 peerage. " Much interest has been excited at Liege by a young English lady 

 of great beauty and accomplishment, who has been abandoned by her father, 



Lord , to the charity of the proprietors of a 'pension,' where she was 



placed by his Lordship three years past. The Noble Earl having neglected 

 to pay for his daughter's maintenance for the last two years, and having taken 

 no notice of repeated applications, the unfortunate girl, who is little more 

 than sixteen, was menaced with being turned adrift. But the king of Bel- 

 gium having been applied to, his Majesty, with that goodness which charac- 

 terizes him, referred the subject to the Minister of the Interior, who has 



directed a sum to be paid for the education of Lord 's daughter out of 



the charitable fund." 



NEW-FASHIONED OMNIBUS. A new-fashioned omnibus is about to be 

 started, in which the company are to sit back to back in a seat running along 

 the centre." Morning Chronicle. 



In this era of fast-travelling inventions, it is not surprising that alterations 

 and improvements should be made in the popular London conveyances yclept 

 Omnibuses. We poor unimaginative creatures have made many a peregrina- 

 tion in these wooden conveniences from the ' far west' to All-max in the east, 

 without ever perceiving that they had any fault except that of not allowing 

 ' ample room and verge enough' for the sitting members of humanity. We 

 may who cannot ? plead guilty^to having ogled a pretty girl on the opposite 

 side, and at a respectful distance, in a well-stuffed omnibus ; and on the other 

 hand, as an offset for the aforesaid pleasure, we have occasionally been stuck 

 down vis-a-vis to a crabbed old gentleman, whom we would have given a 

 guinea to have cut rather than have met. Some gentleman, no doubt im- 

 pelled by nerves more sensitive than our own (and, thank God, we lose this 

 silly nervousness daily), has conceived the humane design of preventing 

 people from blushing in each other's faces. Fine ladies, foppish gentlemen, 

 and shy debtors ought to present the inventor of the new dos-a-dos Omnibus 

 with a service of plate. How desirable for the Harlequin administration that 

 owned Lord Stanley and Sir J. Graham as its members, would it have been, 

 if such an omnibus had then been in existence ! Principle and no Principle 

 might have travelled cheek by jowl together, or back to back, as occasion 

 might require, without the latter incurring the reproaches of the men dis- 

 posed to act up to the spirit as well as the letter of the pledges made at their 

 entrance into office. Thank God, this cannot now happen. 



