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[Illustration: LEGAL IMPROVEMENTS.

THE CHANCERY JUDGES WILL BE EXPECTED TO TAKE THE INFANT SUITORS OUT
FOR AN AIRING IN THE PARK. N.B.--AFTER 4 P.M.]

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A QUERY BY "PEN."--There was a "Pickwick Exam." invented by CALVERLEY
the Inimitable. Why not a "Pendennis" or "Vanity Fair" Exam.? _À
propos_, I would just ask one question of the Thackerayan student, and
it is this:--There was one _Becky_ whom everybody knows, but there was
another BECKY as good, as kind, as sympathetic, and as simple, as the
first _Becky_ was bad, cruel, selfish, and cunning. Where is BECKY the
Second to be found in W.M. THACKERAY's Works?

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HER NOTE AND QUERY.--Mrs. R. was listening to a ghost-story. "After
all," observed her nephew, "the question is, is it true? True, or not
true 'there's the rub!'" "Ah! 'there's the rub!'" repeated our old
friend, meditatively. "I wonder if that expression is the origin of
the proverb, 'Truth is stranger than Friction?'"

* * * * *

LOCAL COLOUR.--"I should like to give all my creditors a dinner,"
quoth the jovial and hospitable OWEN ORLROUND. "Where shall I have
it?" "Well," replied his old friend JOE KOSUS, "have it at Duns