cents Abroad," which stands as the representative of American humor, and that most mysterious of journals, "Ally Sloper's Half Holiday," which always conveys the impression of being exceedingly amusing if one could only understand the fun. Everybody—I mean, of course, everybody who rides in third-class carriages—buys this paper, and studies it soberly, industriously, almost sadly; but I have never yet seen anybody laugh over it. Mrs. Pennell, indeed, with a most heroic devotion to the cause of humor, and a catholic appreciation of its highways and byways, has analyzed Ally Sloper for the benefit of the Known Public which reads the "Contemporary Review," and claims that he is a modern brother of old-time jesters,—of Pierrot, and Pulcinello, and Pantaleone; reflecting national vices and follies with caustic but good-natured fidelity. "While the cultured of the present generation have been busy proving their powers of imitation," says Mrs. Pennell, "this unconscious evolution of a popular type has established the pretensions of the people to originality." But, alas! it is not given to the moderately cultivated to understand such types
