Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the 509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland had really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one undeniable test of an ex-Governor’s due claim to a pension, since on the question of a man’s hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours’ bordeaux. I repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, “Drunk and Disorderly,” so should any commission on pensions accept as valid grounds for a pension, “Insolvent and a Bankrupt.” To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not invited him to breakfast to-morrow. A GRUMBLE. I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of course--I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in the same position to enjoy it as I was--years ago. I am delicate about the figures, for Mrs O’D. occasionally reads these sketches, and might feel a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat--I wonder is life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance with it? My impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all the same elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young people, and witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in abundance. There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with even more than bygone splendour: the horses are as good--the dogs as good--the trout-streams as well stocked--the grouse as abundant--foreign travel is more easy--all travel is more facile--there are more books and more illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages--very tangible advantages too--I do not think the present occupants make the house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple reason, that they never try.