of St. James's Park and Pall Mall. The excitement among the military
somewhat abated when it was ascertained that the Prince and Princess
were receiving the "first working subscribers" to the National Pension
Fund for Nurses. The Prince made one of his best speeches, and the
Princess smiled her best smiles. The Comptroller of the Weather for
the Royal Household had given special orders for sunshine, or a good
imitation of it from one till three, so umbrellas were not needed;
thus symbolically showing that the day of "Gamps" was over, and
that a new era of superior nursing was now an established fact. If
such a state of affairs had continued as was portrayed in _Martin
Chuzzlewit_, their Royal Highnesses might have been receiving the last
thousand _Sarah Gamps_ and _Betsy Prigs_, and addressing them in a
very different strain.

* * * * *

DRAMATIC NOTES.--ALEXANDER the Grateful, in returning thanks for
the toast of "the Avenue Piece," observed that "he objected to this
phrase, as he did not mean to 'av a new piece for a long time, the
present Bill being good enough." This cast a gloom over the assembly,
which then quietly dispersed.

Mr. IRVING, disguised as _Louis the Eleventh_ (the last of the great
French cricketers), is at the Grand, in celestial Islington, where the
Angel is. These angelic visits are few and far between.

We (who's "we"?) hear a favourable report of _Sowing and Reaping_ at
the Criterion,--a play that might have been only "sow sow," if it had
not been for the reaping good performance of CHARLES the Reaper.