and imperfect notions on the subject. He spoke from personal
observation and personal experience, when he said that many
children of great abilities had been induced to believe, from what
they had observed in the streets, at and before the period to which
the honourable gentleman had referred, that all monkeys were born
in red coats and spangles, and that their hats and feathers also
came by nature. He wished to know distinctly whether the
honourable gentleman attributed the want of encouragement the bears
had met with to the decline of public taste in that respect, or to
a want of ability on the part of the bears themselves?

'MR. X. X. MISTY replied, that he could not bring himself to
believe but that there must be a great deal of floating talent
among the bears and monkeys generally; which, in the absence of any
proper encouragement, was dispersed in other directions.

'PROFESSOR PUMPKINSKULL wished to take that opportunity of calling
the attention of the section to a most important and serious point.
The author of the treatise just read had alluded to the prevalent
taste for bears'-grease as a means of promoting the growth of hair,
which undoubtedly was diffused to a very great and (as it appeared
to him) very alarming extent. No gentleman attending that section
could fail to be aware of the fact that the youth of the present
age evinced, by their behaviour in the streets, and at all places
of public resort, a considerable lack of that gallantry and
gentlemanly feeling which, in more ignorant times, had been thought
becoming. He wished to know whether it were possible that a
constant outward application of bears'-grease by the young
gentlemen about town had imperceptibly infused into those unhappy
persons something of the nature and quality of the bear. He