(_By the Foreign Correspondent of the "Comic Almanack."_)
The Spanish are, as you know, very nutty on their late revolution.
Several provinces have pronounced; but as they all have a peculiar
_patois_ of their own, it is difficult to catch their pronunciations.
America is in a more settled, though certainly not in a more settling,
state than it was some time ago. It has resorted freely to the old way
of paying new debts, and in return for our specie, has sent us a species
of whitewash, which is all that we can get as an equivalent. It is a
glorious thing to see a whole nation throwing off its bonds; and the way
in which America has released herself from the bonds she was under to
her creditors, is a proof that she knows how to be free herself, and to
make free with others. On the other side of the Channel, Young France
finding it impossible to beard Old England, has taken to bearding
itself; and the war-party show, by their chins at any rate, that they
would be much improved by a good lathering. New South Wales, as you are
by this time aware, is to have a representative assembly; but it is not
yet decided what the legislative body is to consist of. It would perhaps
be the fairest plan, that each of the prisons should send so many
members to the Botany Bay parliament; but others think that each class
of offenders should have its own representatives. Whether the Honourable
Member for Newgate would sound better than the Gallant Representative of
the Housebreaking Interests, is a question that may be decided
hereafter; and it will be a very nice point, whether conviction shall be
a necessary qualification for a seat in the legislature of New South
Wales, or, whether the fact of having committed an offence, shall render
a person eligible as a candidate. It will perhaps be difficult to draw
the line where the elective franchise shall begin, but it is generally
believed, that nothing under a pickpocket ought to be entitled to vote,
though, whether the claimant to the suffrage must have been positively
caught in the act, is a nicety on which I leave it to the lawyers to
deliberate.