“Peace be with you—bless your eyes! Our country is now suffering the direst of calamities, compared with which the punishment of Tarantulus” (we suppose our correspondent meant Tantalus) “was nice, and the agony of a dyspeptic ostrich in a junk shop is a condition to be coveted. We are in the midst of plenty, but we can’t get anything that seems to suit. The supply of old man is practically unlimited, but it is too tough to chew. The market stalls are full of fresh girl, but the scarcity of salt renders the meat entirely useless for table purposes. Prime wife is cheap as dirt—and about as good. There is a ‘corner’ in pickled baby, and nobody can ‘fill.’ The same article on the hoof is all held by a ring of speculators at figures which appal the man of moderate means. Of the various brands of ‘cemetery,’ that of Japan is most abundant, owing to the recent pestilence, but it is, fishy and rank. As for grain, or vegetable filling of any kind, there is none in Persia, except the small lot I have on hand, which will be disposed of in limited quantities for ready money. But don’t you foreigners bother about us—we shall get along all right—until I have disposed of my cereals. Persia does not need any foreign corn until after that.” It is improbable that the Rev. gentleman himself perished of starvation. .... We are filled with unspeakable gratification to record the death of that double girl who has been in everybody’s mouth for months. This shameless little double-ender, with two heads and one body—two cherries on a single stem, as it were—has been for many moons afflicting our simple soul with an itching desire that she might die—the nasty pig! Two half-girls, joined squarely at the waist, and without any legs, are not a pleasant type of the coming woman. Had she lived, she would have been a bone of social, theological, and political contention, and we should never have heard the end—of which she had two alike. If she had lived to marry, some mischief—making scoundrel would have procured the indictment of her husband for bigamy. The preachers would have fought for her, and if converted separately, her Methodist end might have always been thrashing her Episcopal end, or _vice versâ_. When she came to serve on a jury, nobody could have decided if there ought to be eleven others or only ten; and if she ever voted twice, the opposite party would have had her up for repeating; and if only once, she would have been read out of her own, for criminal apathy in the exercise of the highest duty, etc.