An unsatisfactory christmas present.--We can well understand and
sympathise with you in your disappointment on discovering that you had
been deceived as to the amount of intelligence possessed by the Learned
Pig that you had been induced to purchase as a Christmas present for
your invalid Grandfather. It must have been very annoying, after having
imagined that you had provided your aged relative with a nice long
winter's evening amusement resulting from the creature's advertised
powers of telling fortunes and spelling sentences with a pack of
ordinary playing cards, to receive a letter from the housekeeper
bitterly complaining of its performance, which seems merely to have
consisted of eating all the tea-cake, biting a housemaid, getting
between your Grandfather's legs and upsetting him in his armchair, and,
finally, when pursued, trying to obtain refuge in the grand piano. You
cannot be surprised after this experience, that it has been intimated to
you that if you do not take the creature yourself away at once, it will
be forthwith handed over to the first policeman that passes. Yes, spite
the pig's reputed intellectual gifts, we would advise you to close with
the pork-butcher's offer you mention. When the creature has been cut up,
send your Grandfather some of the sausages. This may possibly appease
the old gentleman, and serve to allay the irritation that your
unfortunate Christmas gift appears to have occasioned.
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THE NORTH WALLS.--The Sporting Correspondent of the _Sunday Times_ tells
us that Colonel NORTH is "having a new ball-room"--(he wouldn't have an
old one built, would he? But no matter)--"the walls of which are
composed of onyx." Of course, a Billionaire pays all the workmen
punctually and regularly; therefore, "Owe-nix" walls are an appropriate
memorial. _Si monumentum quæris, circumspice._
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