Other bills of considerable importance in themselves, though not of political interest, became Law, and have been productive of great good to the community. The Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses has saved many a thoughtless fool from ruin, and dispersed, though not destroyed, the bands of brigands who then preyed upon the unwary. The prisons of London gave abundant and conclusive testimony of the vast number of persons, especially the young, who had been led into crime by the temptation held out by Betting Houses. MR. FITZROY's Act for the Better Prevention and Punishment of Aggravated Assaults upon Women and Children has done much, though not all that is required, to lessen the brutality of the lower orders, and the Smoke Prevention Act has removed in part one of the disgraces of our metropolis. The Vaccination Extension Act was a sanitary measure of great importance, as the mortality from small-pox had long been greater in England than in any other country in Europe. On the 16th of December LORD PALMERSTON resigned his office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, but he was subsequently induced to resume his position in the Government. On the 20th of August the Parliament was prorogued by commission, and a Parliamentary Session of an unusually protracted and laborious character brought to an end. The year had been generally very prosperous, but the scanty harvest, and the unsettled condition of the labouring classes, who resorted to the desperate and suicidal agency of "strikes" for bettering their condition, added to the probability of a war with Russia, brought it to a gloomy close, and it was as much as _Punch_ could do to sustain the nation in moderate cheerfulness. * * * * * NOTES. THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM.--The July of 1853 was particularly wet. THE CAMP.--A fact. FANCY PORTRAIT.--Need we say of MR. CHARLES KEAN. A GENTEEL REPROOF was really required to check the somewhat indelicate curiosity of lady-visitors to the camp. POISONOUS PUFFS still disgrace many provincial papers and a few metropolitan ones. Newspaper readers have the remedy in themselves by adopting the advice given in this article. A STARTLING NOVELTY IN SHIRTS was barely an exaggeration in 1853. A DETERMINED DUELLIST.--See Note to p. 39. THE NEW ACT.--The Cabman is the picture of a man then about town, and a member of a very respectable family, to annoy whom he drove a Hansom Cab. A GOOD JOKE.--See _Introduction_. ANOTHER POTATO BLIGHT, &C.--MR. SERJEANT MURPHY, of facetious memory. MORNINGTON'S CHALLENGE.--LORD MORNINGTON, formerly MR. WELLESLEY TYLNEY LONG POLE, recently challenged LORD SHAFTESBURY, who declined the folly. _Pop Goes the Weasel_ was the name of a popular tune. EAST INDIA HOUSE.--MR. HOGG was a distinguished director of the East India Company and M.P. THE AMERICAN CUPID.--MR. HOBBS, the celebrated lock-picker, to whom reference has been frequently made in preceding Volumes.