the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short, was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a diamond ring in it. Nor has _Punch_ a single good word to say for the King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year, "to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844, _Punch_ profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners' ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit in June, 1843:-- TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence of six years--intensely painful to all parties--the monarch returns to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince, who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only." * * * * *