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QUEER QUERIES.--OUR DEFENCES.--I am informed that Mr. STANHOPE is
expected shortly to go abroad, "in order to recruit." Can even the
blindest military optimist any longer deny that the British Army is
a nefarious imposture, when the Minister for War is forced into an
ignominious attempt to raise a body of foreign mercenaries by his own
personal efforts?

HALF-PAY PATRIOT.

SCIENTIFIC.--Could you kindly tell me what "the Great Ice Age" means?
My Pater took me to hear some fellow lecture about it the other day,
but I couldn't understand much of what he said. I thought he was going
to talk about strawberry ices and lemon ices, which I like awfully,
but he didn't even mention them! Don't you think _twelve_ is the great
Ice Age--I mean the age when boys ought to be allowed to eat as many
as they like? N.B.--I am just twelve.

TOMMY.

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WORTH SEEING.--"We understand that to the Exhibition of "Instruments
of Torture," and now on view in London, have been lately added
the Medici Collar, a Piano Organ, and a "Shakspeare for the use of
Schools."

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