"P.S. Will you believe it, the fashionable world is now running, 'like mad,' after two little monkeys they call _Aztecs_? The ladies actually kiss them! It makes one sick merely to think of it." * * * * * FEARFUL ACCIDENT TO A GREAT CIVIC AUTHORITY. The _Times_, in describing the late accident on the Great Northern Railway, assures us, first, that the LORD MAYOR escaped with a trifling injury, but on the next day informs us that his Lordship continues "to swallow with difficulty." As his Lordship was on his way to the Cutlers' Feast, and as his Lordship's tenure of office ceases on the 9th November, _Punch_ does not see how the _Times_ can reconcile its first with its second statement. * * * * * MR. PUNCH IN CHINA. [Illustration: S] Since each _gobe-mouche_ is speaking of Nanking or Peking, And as each critic, wit, or professional diner, Explains that you can't choose but see that the Mantchews Must soon be entirely driven from China, And that a high price on our Pekoe and Hyson Must be the infallible end of the clatter, _Mr. Punch_, who's a strong _goût_ for Souchong and Congou, Determines to go and see what is the matter, It boots not to say _how_ he goes; for to-day Young and old, grave and gay, so affect locomotion, That the press every hour produces a shower, Of "Rough Notes of a Slide on the Great Frozen Ocean," Or "A Midsummer's Ramble from Stamford to Stambol;" Or "The Steppes of the Cossacks, by one who has walked in 'em;" And I'm sure that whate'er _Mr. Punch's_ plans were, If _these_ tourists could prosper, _he_ wouldn't be baulked in 'em. Like the witches, perchance, he might choose to advance, And so order his coachman to bring out his brougham; Or ask Phoebus to lead forth that spirited steed, Which is furnished, in turn, by each Muse, with a groom; But, however, we'll fancy him safely in Quansi, Or Quantong, where, taking his place 'mid the great, he, Like any philandering son of a mandarin, Sits enjoying his opium _cum dignitate_. Rich and stately pagodas he finds on the road, as He goes through the land, for the most part erected, When the smallest house-tax on Gaul, Briton, or Saxon, Would have stood not the least chance of being collected. Wide canals, dykes, and sluices he sees, too, whose uses Were applied both to traffic, to drainage, and tillage, When a hard rain had undone both Paris and London, To the mud they were made of restoring each village. And they show him the pages of China's first sages, Which were printed for sale in the towns of the Tartar; When, with us, scarce a spark of wit gleamed in one clerk, And DE MONTFORT "his mark" set to our Magna Charta. They declare, too, that banking quite flourished in Nanking, And that printed bank-notes were in vogue at the hour When our yeomen and reeves exchanged bannocks for beeves,