_Or, Procédé Humbugaresque._
There is at present in London a gentleman with an enormous beard, who
professes the science of animal magnetism, and undertakes to deprive of
sense those who come under his hand; but as those who flock to his
exhibition have generally left all the sense they possess at home, he
finds it difficult to accomplish his purposes. If it is animal magnetism
to send another to sleep, what a series of _Soirées Mesmériques_ must take
place in the House of Commons during the sitting of Parliament! There is
no doubt that Sir Robert Peel is the Lafontaine of political
mesmerism--_the fountain_ of quackery--and every pass he makes with his
hand over poor John Bull serves to bring him into that state of
stupefaction in which he may be most easily victimised. While Lafontaine
thrusts pins into his patient, the Premier sends poor John into a swoon,
for the purpose of, as it is vulgarly termed, _sticking it into him_; and
as the French quack holds lucifers to the nostril, Peel plays the devil
under the very nose of the paralysed sufferer. One resorts to _electrics_,
the other to _election tricks_, but each has the same object in view--to
bring the subject of the operation into a state of unconsciousness. If the
Premier would give a _Matinée Politique_, it would prove a formidable
rival to the _Soirée Mesmérique_ of the gentleman in the beard, who seems
impressed with the now popular idea, that genius and a clean chin are
wholly incompatible.
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(H)ALL IS LOST NOW!
'Sir B. HALL is still Sir B. Hall. Where is the peerage--the "B-all and
end-all" of his patriotism? Really the Whigs ought to have given the poor
dog a bone, considering with what perseverance he has always been
[Illustration: STANDING FOR MARROWBONE (MARYLEBONE).]
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When a person holds an argument with his neighbour on the opposite aide of
the street, why is there no chance of their agreeing?--Because they argue
from different _premises_.
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