THE COMIC ALMANACK AN EPIIEMERIS IN JEST AND EARNEST, CONTAINING MERRY TALES, HUMOROUS POETRY, QUIPS, AND ODDITIES. BY THACKERAY, ALBERT SMITH, GILBERT A BECKETT, "THE APPROACH OF BLUCHER.-INTREPID ADVANCE OF THE 1ST FOOT." With many Hundred Illustrations BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AND OTHER ARTISTS. SECOND SERIES, 1844-1853. LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 & 75, PICCADILLY SIMPLE RULES FOR INTERPRETING ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. ALWAYS avoid reading the preamble, which is likely to confuse rather than to enlighten. It sets forth not what the act is to do, but what it undoes: and confuses you with what the law was, instead of telling you what it is to be. When you come to a very long clause, skip it altogether, for it is sure to be unintelligible. If you try to attach one meaning to it, the lawyers are sure to attach another; and, therefore, if you are desirous of obeying an act of Parliament, it will be safer not to look at it, but wait until a few contrary decisions have been come to, and then act upon the latest. When either one thing or the other shall be right, clause says you may make sure that both will be wrong. any HINTS ON ECONOMY. Ir is customary to advise that a shilling should be made to go as far as it possibly can; but surely this would be to throw a shilling away, by making it go so far as to prevent any chance of its coming back again. A penny saved is said to be twopence earned; so that if you have twopence and save a penny, you have twopence still; and if the twopence be saved till the next day, it will be fourpence; so that at the end of the week it will amount altogether to ten shillings and eightpence. We recommend all very young beginners to try the experiment by putting a penny away to-day, when, if the proverb holds good, it will have become twopence by to-morrow. "A pin a day is a groat a year;" and it will be advisable if any one doubts the fact, to go and offer three hundred and sixty-five pins at any respectable savings' bank-when, if the proverb be literally true, he will be credited to the amount of fourpence. "Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day;" and, therefore, if you mean to do a creditor, it is better not to put him off, but to tell him honestly that you have put him down amon the things to be done immediately. HINTS TO EMIGRANTS. A DEALER in pencils should not go to Pencil-vain-here; no a man stand a better chance at Botany Bay because he mig a knowledge of botany. To very hot climates, where there is no glass in the w would be madness in the glazier to take the panes to em |