A REMARKABLE case of mendicity has occurred at Shrewsbury. The Mayoralty of that Borough was, up to the 10th instant, going a-begging. Out of the candidates for the office of Mayor proposed to the Town Council, one was rejected, and the other two declined their election, and paid £50 each rather than serve. A Correspondent suggests that this is a scandalous state of things. Yes; but scandalous to the municipality of Shrewsbury or to its population? Some light on this question may be thrown by accounts received from another borough-Southampton. Thereat, indeed, a Mayor was elected on the 9th of November; but after proceedings of which some idea may be briefly presented thus from the local papers SCENE-The Council Chamber at the Audit House. Present- The Town Council, with a Privileged outer Few, and a dense body of the General Southampton Public. Enter the Mayor and Corporation, and take their seats. severally appear in succession, they are saluted by the South- Southampton Public. Make room for a First-Class Passenger. Southampton Public. What's the price of meat and paper? Southampton Public. What's the ticket for soup? Southampton Public. Well done, Evergreen ! Where's poor BILLY GAMLEN? Look at his trousers! (An allusion, like most of the preceding and subsequent questions, genius for apt nomenclature, has designated the Cabinet Council- Printed by Joseph Smith, of No. 30, Loratae Road, Holloway, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, in the County of Middlesex, at the Printing Offices of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., Lomba GORGED VULTURES ON THE TOWERS OF "THE Towers of Silence!" HEN the Prince left Government Silence where with a look, half kiss, half prayer, PUNCH'S INVENTORS' COLUMN. MR. PUNCH does not see why he should be without an Inventors' Column. He starts one with a few of the patented inventions which have recently been sent him by imaginative Gentlemen-and Ladies. Like the words in a Latin Dictionary, he classes them as "Masculine" and "Feminine," hoping none of them will turn out neuter. Balloon for Pic-Nics.-Goes up into the air with a motion as smooth as silk, and stays there all a summer's day. Special corners arranged for flirtations. Champagne bottles can be thrown over the side when done with. Kisses inaudible on the earth's surface. F. Diving-Bell for Pic-Nics. - Diving Belles... pun too obvious. Warranted not to throw cold water on matrimony. Champagne bottles can be dropped into the sea. Kisses invisible to people on shore. M. Aaron's Rod, redivivus.-Very useful in the City, and also in the West-End. Scourges, of its own accord, all swindling members of Syndicates, all men shady on the Turf, all women who talk scandal and do worse than what they say of their neighbours. Warranted to draw blood from the thickest cuticle. M. The New Cinderella's Slipper.-Will only fit the foot of a Lady who has no guile in her heart, and who knows the true meaning of love. F RAL PROBYN, LORD CARING- Where, O where, are they? Not where political palaverers stray, Not where deep Dulness reads, without a fear, What stirs e'en kindred Dulness to a sneer; As for gorged Vultures-Princes need not range In search of them. They haunt the Stock Exchange. Right plausibly the gorging Vulture works: He'll say, with countenance most kindly wise, The man who lives by books which others write, The Perpetual Motion.-This cannot be offered to the Public, having been at once purchased by MR. GLADSTONE. M. The Alkahest.-Turns Tory into Whig, Whig into Radical, Radical into either. Supposed connection with the modern trinity -£. s. d. M. The Magic Inkstand.-Enables anyone using it to write leading articles for the Times, and poems for Punch, which will bring him in many thousands a year.* M. The Perennial Roseate Bloom of Youth.-This recipe is never failing so, Ladies fair, attend unto it and you will be beautiful for ever. Read Punch. F. MR. PUNCH is informed that, in consequence of a distinguished member of the Metropolitan Board of Works having got his feet wet during the late high tide, immediate steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence of a calamity which has four or five times reduced the poor water-side population of the South of London to the greatest misery. Uncle. "NOT IF YOU ARF, MY DEAR. WHEN I WAS YOUNG, THE MEN SHOT TEE BIRDS, AND THE WOMEN STAYED AT HOME TO COOK THEM." Lady Angelina (approaching EDWIN, who is still reading the placard). Dear me! MR. BROWN! I am so pleased to see you! Edwin (steadily and cautiously raising his hat). LADY ANGELINA! Lady Angelina (aside). How cold he is! I must give him a little encouragement. (Aloud.) I am so glad to see you. We used to be great friends. Will you not take my hand? [Offers it to him. Edwin (very pale). I would with pleasure; but the fact is, a gulf divides us Lady Angelina (quickly). Which surely is not impassable. See, you are but two yards from me. You used to take my hand once(sighs)-but that was long ago! Edwin. The fact is, I am a little unsteady Lady Angelina. Do not talk of the past. I can forgive everything, if you live but for the future. Edwin. I might slip Lady Angelina (archly). I am no QUEEN ELIZABETH, to elude you, if, in your ambition, you seem to soar too high. Will you not take my hand? Edwin. I can restrain myself no longer! [Cautiously lets go of the pole, when the skates hurriedly fly from under him, and he falls upon his knees. Lady Angelina (bashfully). This is very sudden ! Edwin (clinging to her hand). It is, indeed! Lady Angelina (in an ecstasy). And so you love me! (Seeing other skaters.) But rise, rise, my EDWIN, the cold heartless world hems us in on every side. Edwin (cautiously attempting to rise). I obey you reluctantly. My place is at your feet. [Slips, and tumbles on his knees. Lady Angelina (fondly). Nay, although I love to see you thus, you must rise. We are observed by the frivolous and facetious. Edwin. I obey you. (He staggers unsteadily to his feet, and then suddenly slips into the arms of LADY ANGELINA.) You must forgive me. I could not help it. Lady Angelina (aside). How he loves me! (Aloud.) My EDWIN, I could forgive you everything! Curtain. "THE SERVANTS." Cook. "THEN, SHALL YOU GO AS 'OUSEMAID?" Young Person. "No, INDEED! IF I GO AT ALL, I GO AS LADY 'ELP!" SCHOOL FEES AND FLOGGING. ACCORDING to the Metropolitan, as quoted by the Pall Mall Gazette:"The masters of a Board-School at Tipton have adopted a novel plan of enforcing payment of school fees. Three children have been 'severely flogged by the masters of the schools which they attended, owing to their having neglected to take their school-pence with them.' It seems, also, that at one school there is a regular flogging hour, at which non-paying children are whipped." If this is true, it is visiting the sins of the parents on the children with a vengeance. Worse, in some cases it is visiting the poverty of the parents on the children. It appears that: "The School-Board, however, are not horrified at the occurrence, and have not prohibited the practice, but only express their dissatisfaction at 'undue' flogging." It would be a great satisfaction if a flogging highly due were inflicted on offenders who-always unless the Metropolitan has been hoaxed-richly deserve it. Satisfactory as is the knowledge that a savage garotter has been handsomely whipped, it would satisfy retributive feeling much more to know that the cruel pedagogues who flog poor children to extort school-pence from their defaulting but perhaps indigent parents, had been flogged themselves, for their dastardly brutality, to within an inch of their lives. There was once an eminent hero of the Prize Ring, celebrated in connection with Tipton. What man-not to speak of the Tipton School-Board-would not wish such an athlete as the Tipton Slasher could be appointed to slash their backs with a cat-o'-nine-tails? THE PEN AND THE POPPY. ACCORDING to the London and China Telegraph, two prizes, one of £200, the other of £100, given by MR. J. W. PEASE, M.P., for the two best Essays on the Opium Trade, have, after much deliberation, been awarded by the Committee of Examiners; the first prize to MR. SPROAT, Agent-General for British Columbia, the second to the REV. F. S. TURNER, Secretary of the Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. MR. PEASE, who appears to be no Free Trader, is an active member of the Anti-Opium Society. He offered the prizes with Anti-Opium intentions. The Prize Essays have been doubtless conceived in an Anti-Opium spirit. Yet they are announced under the title of 66 "Too Opium Essays." many Essays upon all manner of subjects are found to produce upon their readers the effect of opiates. Let us hope, however, that the Opium Essays may possibly prove so interesting that, on the contrary, they will deserve to be entitled "Anti-Opium Essays," by answering their purpose, and not that of the narcotic they have been written against, but for which, in the latter too likely case they may serve as substitutes. THE LITTLE BIRDS TO LESBIA. (A Round Robin from Songland to the Softer Sex.) "A considerable demand for small birds, especially robins and wrens, has arisen within the last few months for the decoration of ladies' hats, this being the latest requirement of fashion. Not only are the birdcatchers of the Seven Dials and Whitechapel unusually busy, but we have the authority of the proprietors of a large West-End establishment for saying that, great as is the supply, it does not at all equal the demand."-Lancet, Nov. 13. The fashion now so prevalent of ornamenting ladies' hats and bonnets with small birds, has given such an impetus to the activity of the birdcatchers, both here and in France, as to cause well-grounded fears for the annihilation of our favourite little songsters."-Daily News. LESBIA! are Ladies' hearts more cold Wept over one dead sparrow? O Sex, whose softness lords of rhyme, Invoke in songs and sonnets; To trim your hats and bonnets ? This crowning woe you well might spare: Of slaughtering Seven Dials? Ah! deign to picture, if you please, Which well may claim your pity! As is your smoky city. Conceive how feathered bosoms throb "Twas gentle LESBIA bade us.' How many songs you stifle; The moment's modish trifle. The robin, e'en, who all may dare, O shame, to think that gentle she But if compassion may not move |