an honest candour that did the proprietor credit he admitted that. The modern Daniel was named Day as well, and he was described as the "most infantile lion-tamer that ever appeared in public."

He was produced at the door of the show wiping his hands on the anterior of his little tunic, and covertly sucking sweetstuff; and certainly for a child of his tender years, who was "just about to begin," he looked as undaunted a little hero as could be imagined. I paid my threepence and went in, and shortly afterwards saw him "begin," and still more shortly afterwards wished that he'd leave off. Not on account of the frightful peril he was in. A less eatablelooking boy cannot be conceived. He was arrayed in blue, and covered with indigestible-looking spangles, as though they had been poured over him. But the lions, even though they thought their teeth equal to the task, had no desire to eat him. They didn't want to be bothered with him at all. There was a jolly coke fire in a great brazier not far from the cage, and it was evident that the meat-man had been already round, and peaceful as a pair of old donkeys they were resting their mangy muzzles on their paws, and blinking and winking at the comforting glow. When the young lad stepped into their lair one of the monarchs of the African forest lazily looked round, and, discovering it was only Daniel, betook himself to blinking at the fire again, while the other yawned frightfully, and, raising itself languidly to its feet, resigned itself to be tamed with a docility that must have been re-assuring to the female part of the auditory who, a moment before, had drawn horrible conclusions from the lion's gaping jaws. Lion-taming, like every other difficulty in life, may be accomplished by perseverance; and really there is very little in it-certainly not threepenn'orth when the tamer and the to-be-tamed are in the habit of repeating the performance about fifteen times a day.

The waxworks were much more exciting more bloodstirring; for there were effigies of departed monarchs that had sat on the English throne, quite as lifelike as the weakkneed old lions; and there was a chamber of horrors-three chambers in fact, any one of which might be backed to give a visitor the "creeps" in half the time anything Madame

Tussaud has as yet produced. They certainly do go in for everything strong at the Onion Fair. Signor Picketo's waxwork collection was not housed in a vulgar booth, but in a brick-built shop-a tenement that, by good luck, happened to be to let in the very heart of the fair. I am decidedly of opinion that the exhibition, being in a private house, was a great advantage, especially as regards the chamber of horrors. Perhaps, on the other hand, the limited accommodation was somewhat against Signor Picketo's “ Kings, Queens, Statesmen, and Warriors," and accounted for nine Kings and Queens holding a levée in the kitchen, and for Garibaldi and Mr. Gladstone and Pope Pius IX., and about twelve other persons of eminence, elbowing each other in the shop parlour, and staring in blank dismay at the shameful lack of accommodation. Likewise, if Signor Picketo had been master of the situation, it is likely that he would not have bestowed the Grecian Daughter administering infantile nourishment to her aged parent in a cupboard that still smelt strongly of cheese. But, as before remarked, I believe these little advantages were fully compensated by the manner in which the various rooms of the house enabled the Signor to lay out his horrors-to lay them out literally.

The principal part of the exhibition was on the first floor, which consisted of three rooms, as dingy and gloomy as rooms of a house not long uninhabited invariably are. The front

room was in possession of the present Royal Family and King Solomon, and the apartment adjoining was tenanted by modern murderers-an awful assemblage, so closely packed that they jostled each other's decriptive card askew. But the crowning horror was in the further room. As you approached the half-open door you could see a bedstead foot; that was in no way startling. From the position of the chamber' it would naturally be used for sleeping in. You put your head in at the door, and then you saw a sight that was enough to make you scream out "Police!" There was a bedstead by the wall just where a bedstead usually stands, and with a bed on it- -a bed made with sheets and bolster and pillows, exposing six children, each one with its throat cut in a manner so horrible that the shocked feelings of the beholder were immediately comforted by the reflection that their

death must have been instantaneous. Gore on the little waxen faces, gore on the sheets and on the hands that had been thrown up to protect their tender lives; and there was the murderess--she had left the razor in the windpipe of her last victim with her throat cut as well, standing upright in her sprinkled nightdress, to welcome you, with a label round her neck that provided the edifying information that "this woman was nurse to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales." It is difficult to describe how appallingly real it all looked. Had the representation been on view at a public show-room it would have been only ridiculous and disgusting; but being in that small room, to which just such a family of youngsters in so poor a house might have retired to rest, it was, from a dramatic and sensational point of view, a perfect success. The women and the young men and their sweethearts crowded round the bedstead, and gauged the depth of every gash with their sorrowful eyes, which in many cases were watery and red. Perhaps this last mentioned fact was due to their recent explorations among the onion groves.

But those and similar horrors which need not be enumerated were not all the curiosities offered for public exhibition by Signor Picketo, at his shop in the Bull Ring. He was possessed of a curiosity, that was not of wax, but that was flesh and blood, and human and alive-a something that, according to the placard in the shop window, "would speak and shake hands with any party as wish to talk with her." It was a terrible sight indeed-a lady who was in part a lioness, and who was regarded so choice a novelty that she was kept quite apart from the rest of the show, and lodged at the top of the house. An extra penny was charged to see the lioness lady, and a young man guarded the foot of the rickety stairway. Ushered into the back attic, bare and empty, save for a form on which the company was to sit, one saw that the open door disclosed a passage, at the end of which was another door, the bright streak at the bottom of which betrayed that there was a light within; and, moreover, there came from that room the civilised sound of the clinking of teaspoons against teacups.

When six visitors had assembled, the young man knocked for the lady-lioness. She came immediately, emerging from

the chamber where the tea-things were, hastily wiping her lips as she came. Her appearance, as she came and stood before us, was startling. Comely of shape, and attired in white muslin, and with her magnificent hair streaming over her shoulders, she seemed not so awful. But then her face.

There was the lioness. Her broad forehead was covered with a tawny-coloured horny skin, and it was wrinkled like that of the lion; her eyebrows were shaggy, and one side of her nose was just as is the lion's nose, the other nostril being white, and small and delicate. Both her cheeks were covered with coarse straight hair. It would not have been in the least surprising if she had roared her displeasure at being interrupted while at her tea; but, on the contrary, after having, in a mild and gentle voice, bid us "Good evening," she civilly proceeded to inform us that she was born in Graham's Town, in Southern Africa, in the year 1846; that her father was a soldier in the 86th Regiment, and that during the Kaffir war, and before she was born, her mother was taken prisoner; and that the kraal in which she was lodged was attacked by a lion, which nearly succeeded in carrying her off. Thus she accounted for her leonine appearance, further assuring us that she was very happy under Signor Picketo's protection, and that he permitted her to sell little books of her history, which were one penny each. After this the lioness lady gracefully curtsied, and I have no doubt sought once more the social teapot.

AN AMATEUR COMIC SINGING MATCH.

"AN Amateur Comic Singing Match" is a friendly vocal contest, open to all comers on payment of a small entrance fee, and for the champion a prize, and, perhaps, a certificate of merit, such a one as would be of substantial use to him in the event of his being urged by daring ambition to take to real business on the music hall stage. The notion was not only original, but possessed all the elements that bespeak the generous soul, and, at the same time, the perfectly undimmed vision in the direction of personal profit. It was a clever conception, yet one the growth of which in such a mind can scarcely be regarded as miraculous. A hundred times, at least, must the enterprising gentleman in question have gazed with pride and sweet content on the crowd of intellectual faces directed in ecstacy towards some great and inimitable artist, and have observed the rapture with which, on the instant, every twitching mouth ieaped, as it were, to meet the chorus to that popular and classical composition, "The Bloke Wot Deals in Tripe." He must have marked the facial contortions in which they, all unaware and involuntarily, followed the singer's performances-contortions that were the exact counterpart of those which were made by the "Bloke" himself, and in which indeed lay his chief talent and claim on public support. It must have been evident to the proprietor's observant eye that there were scores of young fellows, his constant patrons, who possessed in all probability as fine a mental capacity as those stars of their adoration, Funny Finch and the Nobby Coster, and who yearned for an opportunity to show themselves worthy disciples of those great teachers.

This was one view of the case; but there was at least one other. Your Funny Finches and your Nobby Costers, however transcedent they may be as vocalists, are, after all, but men, and possess the weakness that prompts ordinary mortals