George Frederick William Charles, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Tipperary, and Baron of Culloden, is a first cousin of Queen Victoria, a Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the English Army. This Prince is about fifty years of age, and lives in an unlawful way with a Miss Fairbrother, by whom he has had several children, I believe. It might be expected, of a prince so closely related to the Queen, and occupying such a high position as chief of the British Army, that he would set a good example to the younger branches of the royal family. On the contrary, the Duke is well known, everywhere, as a royal rake, and his shameless amours are beyond number. The old prince is slightly bald from his course of early piety, and suffers so dreadfully from the gout, the result of early dissipation, that he is nothing but a wreck, being compelled annually to pay a visit to the mineral baths of Germany, and American travelers upon the continent at Baden, Ems, and Hombourg, will occasionally encounter an old, broken, and bloated personage, limping on a stick, who will quarrel with a waiter, in Hanoverian Deutsch, for the sake of a kreutzer, and when once excited it is very difficult to calm his rage, which, sometimes, degenerates into a helpless imbecility. This is the Duke of Cambridge. [Sidenote: A MAD KING.] From his illicit connection with the lady to whom I have referred, the mock-title of "Duke of Fairbrother," has been given to this illustrious Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Fancy such a Duke of Cambridge holding the baton of Wellington, and leading such soldiers as Havelock, Outram, Colin Campbell, and Napier of Magdala. And this very same imbecile Duke has had command of the English Army, and notably at the Alma, in the Crimean campaign, his conduct was such as to make the spectators doubt whether he was a madman or a coward. In the heat of the fight, the Duke lost all management of him self, and began to make strange noises, and to act in a strange manner, until he was carried from the field, kicking and biting in a maniacal fashion. For the taint is in the blood of the English Royal Family, and may never be eradicated. The Duke of Cambridge is a lineal descendant of George III, who, by his inherent madness, lost half of the British Empire, and who was in the habit of answering reasonable questions, with such replies as,-- "What, what, who, who, where, where, why, why--BLIM!" Should the Prince of Wales hereafter behave himself in an unseemly fashion, his tainted blood may, to a certain extent, be blamed for the outbreak. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVII. FAST YOUNG ENGLAND.