MISS HANNAH MARIA JULIANA SHUM AND HER BEAU. There was a damsel--one Miss Hannah Maria Juliana Shum, charged by the books of Covent Garden watch-house, with having robbed a young gentleman of a golden sovereign. The young gentleman made such a pathetic appeal against the publication of his name--being, as he said, "a young man just verging into the affairs of the world," that we shall content ourselves (and our readers also, we hope) with saying, he was simply a young gentleman of little person--and that little made the most of, _secundum artem_; that is to say, the boot-maker had lengthened him at one end, and the hair-dresser at the other; whilst his tailor had done all, that padding could do, to increase his bulk longitudinally. The damsel--Miss Hannah Maria Juliana Shum, was not the purest damsel in existence perhaps--certainly not the purest in attire; and her face, pretty as it was, would have been all the prettier for a commodity of soap and water. But in describing the persons of this rather ill-matched pair, we shall forget their adventures. They were thus then:-- The young gentleman left his home on the preceding night with the intention of going to the play, but in his way thither he met Miss Hannah Maria Juliana Shum. And she looked at him from under her black arched eye-brow with such a look as he could in no wise resist. Now, since he could not resist, he should have turned his back and fled; but instead of flying he stood still, and asked her how she did. She replied, that she should be very well if she was not so very cold; and sighing deeply, she added, "Oh! what a delightful thing is a glass of nice hot brandy-and-water on such a piercing night as this!" Here was a direct appeal to the young gentleman's generosity, and gallantry, and all that sort of thing, and everything in the world almost; and he could no more resist the appeal than he could the sparkling of her jet-black eye. So he gave her his arm and his heart together, and looking round, he saw the words "Fine Cognac Brandy, neat as imported," staring him full in the face from the windows of a tavern, most opportunely opposite. What was to be said for it? Nothing at all. In his opinion the brandy-and-water was inevitable, and they went into the tavern and drank a glass; and so delightful did they find it, that they had another, and another, and another. But still, as Miss Hannah Maria Juliana Shum poetically remarked-- "The sweetness that pleasure has in it, Is always so slow to come forth," --that they had another glass or two to help it to come forth faster, and it did--to such a degree, that the young gentleman took up the song and sang-- "As onward we journey, how pleasant, To pause, and inhabit awhile These few _gassy_ spots, like the present, That 'mid the dull wilderness smile[34]!"