Throughout England, particularly in those rural districts where the study of physics is yet in its infancy, great importance is attached to the weather on Twelfth Day. The occurrence of rain, or wind, or sleet, or snow, or hail, or the appearance of the Aurora Borealis over the roofs of the Bank of England is considered a most favourable augury, and in some counties determines the day on which the sowing of the Spring wheat commences. But the slightest indication of the Zodiacal light is dreaded as a sure forerunner of the turnip-fly, and the connection of a parhelion with protracted drought is established by a long series of observations, reaching as far back as the Reformation. Most lawyers are of opinion that under the provisions of an old Act of Parliament, still unrepealed, it is illegal to solicit a Christmas box after twelve o'clock on the 6th of January. If Twelfth Night falls on a Sunday, the harvest will be late; if on a Monday, the back door should be carefully looked to on the long evenings; if on a Tuesday, pilchards will be caught in enormous quantities; if on a Wednesday, the silkworms will suffer; if on a Thursday, there will be no skating on the Serpentine during the rest of the year; if on a Friday, the apple crop will be a failure; and if on a Saturday (as this year), you should on no account have your hair cut by a red-haired man who squints and has relations in the colonies. The sceptic and the latitudinarian may smile superciliously at these predictions, but they have been verified by inquiries conducted at centres as wide apart as Bury St. Edmunds, Rotherham, Dawlish, Rickmansworth, Kirkcudbright, and Cape Clear. * * * * * CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR SIR CHARLES DILKE.--Packet of Court Plaster and some Household Bread. * * * * * NEW YEAR'S "_NOTE_" TO CORRESPONDENTS. MR. PUNCH, in spite of his emphatic and repeated Notices and Explanations, being still copiously afflicted with Communications from Persons whom he has not invited to take the liberty of addressing him, issues the following =Note=, and advises such persons to study it closely. He calls them "Correspondents," but does so only for convenience. A Correspondent means a person who not only writes, but to whom the recipient of the letter also writes. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who address _Mr. Punch_ are, and will be, unanswered, except by this Note. Let all understand that he is answerable for the real or supposed value of No literary or artistic matter which may be sent him, unasked. This is law. Let all understand that at the earliest possible moment after his discovery that such matter is useless to him, it is Destroyed. This is fact. Notice also that stamped and directed envelopes, for the return of such matters, will not operate to the fracture of his rule.