to this amusing study, in the City of New York, amounts to 2,450,000
hours per annum.

* * * * *

ENGLAND'S QUANDARY.

Conjecture and expectancy, O PUNCHINELLO! have been the order of the day
in this European turmoil, with regard to the position of what are called
neutral Powers. People have been looking at England with much curiosity
to see what she really does intend. With the facilities which our
_special wire_ affords, I am enabled to report a highly interesting
soliloquy delivered by the Rt. Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, to his bed-post, at
his home in Spring Gardens, London, after a hot night's debate at St.
STEPHEN'S. Our reporter concealed himself in the key-hole and took
_verbatim_ notes. As in the case of the speeches delivered by the rival
monarchs to their armies, which you published a week in advance of the
speeches themselves, the following can be relied on:

"I'm tired of answering questions. Let me think awhile. Is war the only
alternative? They blame me for not talking out. Fools, they don't know
where they stand. At home and abroad, difficulty. Our workmen
emigrating; the Irish irreconcilable, (curse that word!) nothing
cheerful that side.

"France can rock _her_ irreconcilables to sleep to the war lullaby of
that man we have so trusted only to betray us; _our_ irreconcilables
only wait for war to side with our enemy. Prussia, grasping bull-dog as
she is, makes capital out of it, and calls us to her side, while our
stupid people burn with a Prussian fever, which may turn to a plague