THE NEW TURK 245291 ALTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN HOUNDATIONS 1902 LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. / (LATE T. DAVISON.) "WELL, men alive!"-as Walking Stewart used to address the Cashier and Clerks of a Life Assurance Office, where he held an annuity,-"well, men alive, here I am again!" Although somewhat later than usual, I am still in good time. The winter is not far advanced-its first snow is now lying on the ground. At all events January is not out, and the Comic is. I do not pretend to compete with the fast ones among my Contemporaries, whom "Time gallops withal,” till the Old Mower is blown and distressed by the rattling pace he must go at to keep up with them, to say nothing of the desperate leaps he must take that Christmas may fall about Michaelmas, and the New Year begin in October. "There is a time" it is written, " for every thing," but the saying does not seem to be applied to Annuals: the "quarter of an hour too soon" recommended by Lord Nelson, is stretched into a quarter of a year. To judge by the distance at which certain Editors lay hold of it, Time's forelock must be a thousand times longer than a Chinese pigtail!- but is there not something approaching to cruelty to animals, in hauling him along by it till he breaks his shins over his own calendar, or knocks his head against one of his own date trees? He is, we know, a notable Edaax |