We have characterised these heart-burning efforts after "station," as originating with, and maintained by, the female branches of the family; and they are so--but, nevertheless, their influence on the young men is no less destructive than certain. It is a fact, that, the more restraint that is inflicted on these individuals in the gilded drawing-room at home, the more do they crave after the unshackled enjoyment of their animal vulgarity abroad. Their principal characteristics are a love of large plaids, and a choice vocabulary of popular idiomatic forms of speech; and these will sufficiently define them in the saloons of the theatres and in the cigar divans. But they are not ever thus. By no means. At home (which does not naturally indicate their own house), having donned their "other waistcoat" and their pin (emblematic of a blue hand grasping an egg, or of a butterfly poised on a wheel)--pop! they are _gentlemen_. With the hebdomadal sovereign straggling in the extreme verge of their pockets--with the afternoon rebuke of the "principal," or peradventure of some senior clerk, still echoing in their ears--they are GENTLEMEN. They are desired to be such by their mother and sisters, and so they talk about cool hundreds--and the points of horses--and (on the strength of the dramatic criticisms in the _Satirist_) of Grisi in _Norma_, and Persiani in _La Sonnambula_--of Taglioni and Cerito--of last season and the season before that. We know not how far the readers of PUNCH may be inclined to approve so prosy an article as this in their pet periodical; but we have ventured to appeal to them (as the most sensible people in the country) against a class of shallow empirics, who have managed to glide unchidden into our homes and our families, to chill the one and to estrange the other. Surely, surely, we were unworthy of our descent, could we see unmoved our lovely English girls, whose modesty was wont to be equalled only by their beauty, concentrating all their desires and their energies on a good match; or our reverend English matrons, the pride and honour of the land, employing themselves in the manufacture of fish-bone blanc-mange and mucilaginous tipsy-cakes; or our young Englishmen, our hope and our resource, spending themselves in the debasing contamination of cigars and alcohol. * * * * * CONDENSED PARLIAMENTARY REPORT ON THE MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES. Vide _Examiner_. MR. WILLIAMS--objected-- SIR T. WILDE--vindicated-- SIR R. PEEL--doubted-- MR. PLUMPTRE--opposed-- MR. VILLIERS--requested-- MR. EWART--moved-- MR. EASTCOURT--thought-- MR. FERRAND--complained-- LORD JOHN RUSSELL--wished-- MR. AGLIONBY--was of opinion-- MR. STEWART WORTLEY--hoped-- MR. WAKLEY--thought-- MR. RICE--urged-- MR. FIELDEN--regretted-- MR. WARD--was convinced-- * * * * * TAKING THE HODDS.