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PICK-ME-UP PEPPER.—­The Proprietors beg to inform their Friends and Patrons that they can supply this highly combustible and explosive compound in felt safety cases, carefully packed at their bomb-proof establishment in Barking Marshes, at the usual retail prices, viz., 1s. 1-1/2d., 2s. 9d., 11s., 21s., and 31s. 6d., &c, &c.

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SHADOWS FROM MISTLETOE AND HOLLY.

[Illustration:  Tossing up for Turkey at Christmas Time.]

Dear Mr. Punch,—­I venture to address you on a subject that I feel sure will enlist your kind attention and sympathy.  How am I to get through Yule Tide?  Ought I to give up the dispatch of “cards,” or ought I to send them to all my relatives, friends, and acquaintances?  If I drop the custom, people who like me will think I am outting them, and persons with whom I am less popular will imagine that economy, not to say meanness, is the cause of my ceasing to trouble the Post Office.  Suppose that I “hang the expense,” and do send the cards.  Well, I am in this position; it is a matter of the greatest difficulty to get a suitable greeting to all those who receive my annual benediction.  If I have “Wishing you and yours every happiness,” with my appended name and address lithographed, the greeting seems cold, and even inappropriate, if addressed to, say, a favourite Maiden Aunt; and unduly familiar if forwarded to the acquaintance I saw for the first time in my life the day before yesterday.  Then if I trust to the ordinary Christmas Cards of commerce, I am often at a loss to select an appropriate recipient for a nestful of owls, or the picture of a Clown touching up an elderly gentleman of highly respectable appearance with a red-hot poker!  If I get a representation of flowers, the chances are ten to one that the accompanying lines are of a compromising character.  It is obviously cruel to send to a recently-widowed Uncle some verses about “Darby and Joan,” and my Mother-in-law is not likely to feel complimented if I forward to her a poetically expressed suggestion that there is no pleasanter place than her own home—­away, of course, from her Son-in-law!  And yet these are the problems that meet the would-be Yule Tide card distributer at every turn!  I remain, my dear Mr. Punch, yours sincerely,

ONE WHO WISHES TO AVOID A ROW.

P.S.—­If this arrives late, thank the cards that have overtaxed the postal arrangements.

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THE UNITED SERVICE DIARY FOR 1891.

[Illustration:  Extremes Meet.]

January to March.—­Soldiers on leave.  Sailors at sea.  Civil Servants reading the morning paper.

April to June.—­Soldiers at play.  Sailors in harbour.  Civil Servants reading the morning paper.

July to September.—­Soldiers at sea (autumn manoeuvres).  Sailors at play (ditto).  Civil Servants away (ditto).