Our contemporary, _Household Words_, has given an account of Canvas Town in the new world, but we doubt whether a description of one of the Canvas Towns--or Towns under Canvas--in the old world, would not reveal a greater amount of depravity and corruption than anything that exists even in Australia. A Canvas Town in England is no less bent on gold discovery than a Canvas Town at Port Phillip--the only difference being that the candidate's pocket, instead of the earth, is the place that the electors or gold diggers are continually digging into. In the Colonies the inhabitants of a Canvas Town are huddled together irrespective of rank, and frequently the best educated persons are found doing the dirtiest work, just as may be seen in a Canvas Town in England before election time. The inhabitants of a Colonial Canvas Town think only of the gold and the quartz, just as at home the inhabitants of a Canvas Town think of nothing but filthy dross and drink--the quarts taking of course precedence of the pints in the estimation of the "independent" voters. * * * * * MORE ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL. MR. DISRAELI calls "invective a great ornament in debate." According to this species of decoration, Billingsgate ought to be the most ornamental place of debate in the world; and MR. DISRAELI himself, than whom few orators deal more largely in invective, deserves taking his rank as the most ornamental debater that ever was born. * * * * * CIVIL (VERY CIVIL) WAR AT CHOBHAM. [Illustration: T] The gallant fellows now assembled under arms and over ankles in the mud and dust of Chobham, were on Tuesday, the 21st of June, led--or rather guided--into one of the most civil wars to be found in the pages--including the fly-leaves--of history. It having been understood that a battle was to be fought, every one seemed animated with the spirit of contention, and the struggle commenced at the Railway Station, where a company of heavy Cockneys, several hundred strong, besieged with great energy the few flys, omnibuses, and other vehicles, that were to be met with. The assault was vigorously carried; but the retaliation was complete; for the cads, drivers, and other marauders, having allowed the besiegers to fall into the snare, drove them off to the field, and exacted heavy tribute as the price of their ransom. Some few took refuge by trusting to their heels, rather than undergo the severe charge to which they would have been exposed; and they arrived, after a fatiguing march of nearly five miles, much harassed by the ginger-beer picquets and tramps that always lie on the outskirts of an army.