To which will be
added, "Ten Minutes' Advice" upon making one shilling go as far as two. If
you can give me a three-halfpenny puff in your admired publication, you
will confer a favour on
Your sincere friend,
JOE HUME.
* * * * *
THE ROMANCE OF A TEACUP.
SIP THE FIRST.
In England one man's mated to one woman,
To spend their days in holy matrimony--
In fact, I _have_ heard from one or two men,
That one wife in a house is one too many--
But, be this as it may, in China no man
Who can afford it shuts himself to any
Fix'd number, but is variously encumber'd
With better halves, from twenty to a hundred.
These to provide for in a pleasant way,
And, maybe, to avoid their chat and worry,
He shuts up in a harem night and day--
With them contriving all his cares to bury--
A point of policy which, I should say,
Sweetens the dose to men about to marry;
For, though a wife's a charming thing enough,
Yet, like all other blessings, _quantum suff_.
So to my tale: Te-pott the Multifarious
Was, once upon a time, a mandarin--
In personal appearance but precarious,
Being incorrigibly bald and thin--
But then so rich, through jobs and pensions various,
Obtain'd by voting with the party "in,"
That he maintain'd, in grace and honour too,
Sixty-five years, and spouses fifty-two.
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