A PICTURE ON THE LINE.--Sketch taken at the Equator.

* * * * *

QUITE A LITTLE NOVELTY.

[Illustration: Professor Ginnifer exhibiting Sims' and Buchanan's
Monstrosities.]

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--As Englishmen are so often accused of want of
originality, I hope you will let me call your attention to an occasion
when it was conclusively proved that at least two of the British race
were free from the reproach. The date to which I refer was the 1st of
August last, when "a new and original drama," entitled _The Trumpet
Call_, was produced at the Royal Adelphi Theatre, and the two
exceptions to the general rule then proclaimed were Messrs. GEORGE R.
SIMS and ROBERT BUCHANAN, its authors. The plot of this truly new
and original piece is simple in the extreme. _Cuthbertson_, a young
gentleman, has married his wife in the belief that his Wife No. 1 (of
whom he has lost sight), is dead. Having thus ceased to be a widower,
_Cuthbertson_ is confronted by Wife No. 1 and deserts Wife No. 2.
Assured by the villain of the piece that she is not really married
to _Cuthbertson_, Wife No. 2 prepares to marry her informant. The
nuptials are about to be celebrated in the Chapel Royal, Savoy, when
enter Wife No. 1 who explains that she was a married woman when she
met _Cuthbertson_, and therefore, a fair, or rather unfair, bigamist.
Upon this _Cuthbertson_ (who is conveniently near in a pew, wearing
the unpretentious uniform of the Royal Horse Artillery), rushes into
the arms of the lady who has erroneously been numbered Wife No. 2,