All the _post_ captains, who were formerly Twopennies, will take the rank of Generals. In the Thames Navy, 2d mate Simpkins, of the _Bachelor_, to be 1st mate, _vice_ Phunker, fallen overboard and resigned. All the men who are above the age of 100, and are in the actual discharge of duty as policemen, are to be immediately superannuated on half-pay--a liberal arrangement, prompted, it is believed, by the birth of the Prince of Wales. * * * * * PUNCH'S THEATRE. NORMA, OSSIAN, AND PAUL BEDFORD. A vestal virgin with a husband and two children, a Roman Lothario, with an Irish friend, a Druidical temple, a gong, and an _auto-da-fe_, mix up charmingly with Bellini's quadrille-like music to form a pathetic opera; and sympathetic _dilettanti_ weep over the woes of "Norma," because they are so exquisitely portrayed by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this lady's genius--which is shed like a halo over the whole opera--that nobody laughs at the broad Irish in which _Flavius_ delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of _Pollio_:--than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to Covent-Garden to grin, return delighted. But Apollo himself could not charm away the rich fun that pervades the English adaptation; nor the modest humour of its preface. It has been, hitherto, one characteristic of the lyric drama to consist of verse; rhyme has been thought not wholly dispensable. Those, however, who are "familiar with the writings of Ossian," (and the works of the Covent-Garden adapter), will, according to the preface, at once see the fallacy of this. Rhyme is mere "jingle,"--rhythm, rhodomontade,--metre, monstrous,--versification, villanous,--in short, Ossian did not write poetry, neither does this learned prefacier--so it's all nonsense! To burlesque such a work as "Norma," then, is to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH. Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint having been dropped in one of our "Pencillings," an Adelphi scribe has acted upon it. An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had at half-price. A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out "her wood-notes" (being a Druidess she worships the _oak_) "wild," with a volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide sound asthmatic. In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford. The children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. _Pollio_ is made a most killing Roman _roue_ by Mrs. Grattan; but _Norma's_ attendant does not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent-Garden _Flavius_.