The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-15 00:00:00

A CAPITAL BIT OF FIIN.

(Meaning the New Christmas Number of it !)
The longest-lived of all the rivals of Punch—the
one only prosperous rival of Punch—not a " Shil-
ling's worth of Nonsense" but 07/6 Penny's worth of
FUN comes out just now so hilariously close upon
the' eve of Christmas that, looking at it, we some,.
Low seem to see it double ! Yes, sure enough,
in the left-hand corner of it—under date Decem.
ber 15, 1864, " Price Twopence." The Christmas
Number of "FuN" it is, in fact, and—as our head-
ing intimates—A Capital bit of Fun, too To
begin with, a thoroughly original little comical
story, about a regular Yankee Munchausen,
one Z3l) Sump—written'by that right-good story
teller, Ciptain Mayne Reid, and intit:ed (with
a sort of a bindbad illustration at the
top of it) " Trapped in a Tree : a Back-
wood's Adventure." After that—an extravagantly
ridiculous celebr tion of " The Cattle Show" by
Our S-pecit Bucolic Commissioner. Four comic
cuts—every one of them really and truly comical—
in the middle of this excellent number of Fun
for Christmas. Here (in proof of their having
"something" in them—that is, in the way of real
comicality) are the themes of these four principal
cuts of Fun in the way of embellishment.
On, TIIE CiavErt DHRAB I—Mistress : " Why, Bridget,
surely you are not wiping your hand on the drawing-room
tablecloth ?" Bridget : " Sure, 'tis on the dark part, mum ;
an' I was but dustin' the dlariftin' dirt off a the tiand o' me,
for fear when I'd be washing I might make a baste of a
mess on the clane towel below,"—[ Vistress is perfectly
satisfied, of course.]
KNIGHT OF THE BROOM to professional friend, alluding
to De Bro:s n's cigarette (loq.)—" Hi, Villiam, 'ere's a
curiosity ! 'ore's a 'eavy swell a smokin' brown paper I"
Mucif TOO CRUEL.—(Florence reproachfully)—" Oh I
Cousin Tabby, for shame; you are really too cruel; here
is another evening gone, and leap-year nearly over, and
you have not yet proposed."
LADY—" Well, Freddy dear, did you share the sixpence
I gave you last time with your little sister ?"
FREDDY DEAR—" Yes, M'm."
Lady—" And what did she say ?"
Freddy dear—" She said, perhaps you'd give us a shil-
ling this time,"
Two other rather funny pictures there are (neither
of them, however, nearly so well drawn as the four
just mentioned)—under one of which we read—
" Consolation.—lavalid (after a lull in conversation)
—Well, Bill, what are you thinking about ? Friend
(who has called to cheer him up)—Well, Joe, I was
thinking what a precious long coffin you would
take "—and under the other—" Small•Beer,—
Cabby (vociferously)—Ere Porter! Porter ! Porter !
Somewhat obese functionary—Now then, stow
that, can't yer! If you was stout how
would you like to be calved Porter ?' To
wind all up befittingly with a very odd sort of an
enforcement of the old proverb, "laugh and grow
fat," FuN's Christmas Number ends with a ridicu
lonely laughter-moving celebration of Bantingism

AN AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION.

Mr, G. A. S ala's " Quite Alone,"

The following completely satisfactory explanation
of a curious little incident in Modern Authorship,
is the Advertisement prefixed to Mr. Sala's new
novel," Quite Alone"—the story recently completed
under unusual circumstances in All the Year Round,
and issued from the press by Messrs. Chap-
man and Hall in its completed form as a three
volumed novel, only this very day, the 15th of De•
cember. Mr. Sala's Explanation, as given in this
"Advertisement" wa have spoken of as corn.
pletely eatisfactory. And it, surely, must prove
so to every ene—but himself! Certainly to the
public at large, to Mr. Charles Dickens, to the
Messrs. Chapman and Hall, to that anonymous
"other hand" of whom Mr. Sala speaks as of a
collaborateur. Having said whioh, we commend
the following to very general perusal, as the last
scrap of pleasant writing endited by a Sixteen
Years' Favourite among English lovers of Light
Literature :

ADVERTISEMENT.

The concluding poi lion of tliede volumes—tlA,L is to say.

from page 185, vol iii., to the end--is not mine. " Quite
Alone" has been finished during my absence from Eng-
land by "another hand." It is now my duty, in fair-
ness to the public, and in justice to my publishers and
myself, briefly and candidly to explain how it has come
about that a work put forth under my name contains
many pages not written by me.

I will at once drop the convenient, but very frequently
disingenuous, plea of ill health. I was, it is true, when
I left this country more than a year since, exceedingly
unwell, and have had since then several attacks of in-
fluenza, a calenture or two, a low fever, and a touch of
what seemed to be premonitory of the voinilo mgro ; but,
on the whole, I have been no more an invalid than could be
expected in the case of a traveller rushing from one trying
climate to another, and have, thank God, "kept my health"
in a remarkable degree.

When I quitted home, in November, 1863, the novel
of " Quite Alone" was about halt finished. It was entirely
owing to the exceptional kindness of Mr Charles Dickens
that its publication was commenced in "All the Year
Round:" it being, I believe, the rule with the proprietors
of that periodical never to commence a serial story with-
out the whole of the manuscript having come into their
hands. But Mr Dickens was good enough b hope, and
I was sanguine enough to jrelieve, that I could, within
four or five months from the date of my departure, remit to
him the concluding portion of the work, lam sure I
did my best to bring about this consummation, so de-
sirable to us both ; but I signally failed. Page by page,
like so many drops of blood, about two hundred slips of
manuscript oozed from me between spring and summer.

They were written with a hard lead pencil on slips of
carbonised paper placed ,upon tissu3. I was obliged to
"manifold" ray m umscript, to guard against the uncer-
tainties of the post. They were written at intervals of
many days, and of thousands of miles, They were written
in

a hammock in Cuba, on board steamers, in railway cars,
n hotel verandahs, in the midst of noise, confusion, smoke,
cursing and swearing, battle, murder, and sudden death.
In the month of August I broke down altogether, and
the mails went out without any more of my tissue paper,
I had lost the thread of my narrative. I had forgotten the
very names of my dramailis personce. I was in a new coup•
try—a new world, among strange scenes and strange people,
hurrying from place to place, badgered and baited and
hated, always abused, often in peril of my life, and under
all hazard compelled to send home every week from six to
eight columns of matter to a London newspaper. To those
who may accuse me of idleness or carelessness, I can only
plead that I was the correspondent for 12 months in the
United States and Mexico of the Daily Telegraph.

As regards " quite Alone," I had undertaken a task which
I was utterly unable to accomplish. It was the Thirteenth
labour of Hercules : tho last straw; and it broke my back.
When I endeavoured subsequently to catch up the lost link
I found that it was too late. The conductors of "All the
Year Round," reduced to desperation by the non-arrival of
any more copy, and anxious to keep faith with their readers,
confided my unfinished story to "another hand," by
whom it was brought to a close, sans Bien quc mad. Till I
returned to Engtand I never knew who that other hand
was. Under the circumstances it is impossible for me to
complain of the manner in which the selection was made;
and I am sure that I am infinitely beholden to the gentle-
man who, at a very brief notice, addressed himself to such
an unthankful task.

Returning, then, to commence fresh labours and incur
fresh literary responsibilities. I found, to my dismay, that
" Quite Alone, was advertised for re-publication in a col-
lected form. In common justice to Messrs. Chapman and
Hall, in whose interest the book was originally projected,
I could not deny my consent to its being so re-published.
Those gentlemen had treated me throughout with infinite
liberality, courtesy, and forbearance, and I felt that I had
no right to spoil their market and to keep their capital
lying dead, when the delay to which they had been sub-
jected was duo simply to my own lackes.
In conclusion, I beg respectfully to say that if the public
will receive the fiist edition of `‘ Quito Alone,. in a tolerant
and charitable spirit, and if the demand for it should warrant
the issue of another edition, it will be my duty and pleasure
to complete it according to the original plan mapped out,
and to the very best of my ability. And that charity and
tolerance I arm confident enough to hopo for from a public
whose laborious servant I have been for sixteen years.
GEORGE AUGUSTUS GALA.
61, Guildford-street, Russell-square,
December, 1861.

At the Central Criminal Court yesterday Alfred
Thomas Jackson was tried on the charge of murder.
ing a fellow-workman named Roberts id Clerkenwell. The
jury found him guilty of manslaughter, and he was sen-
tenc?d to penal servitude for life. Another case tried during
the day was that of Mr. Withers. Ho was charged with
having caused the death of Mary Deakin. It will be re-
membered that she rushed into the street, in Barbican, with
her dress in flames. She was so much injured that she
died a few days afterwards in the hospital. Before her
death, however, she state, that she had met with the acci-
dent while endeavouring to escape from Withers, her em.
ployer, who wished to take liberties with her. Upon this
he was charged with manslaughter. ThP jury esterday
acquitted him,