(_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.) And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end. However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick. Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced: _Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired for---- (_Duke._ No objection--no objection!) [Sidenote: _A Royal Duke's Household_] One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and the people." On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:-- FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons, and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions have fallen--can't sensible people read the signs of the times and be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly grants to its pensioners--when the allowance is flung at his Royal Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a tail of four Equerries and three clergymen? [Illustration: THE MODERN DAMOCLES]