The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Major Jack Downing. Ore Vol., pp. 256. Frederick

Warne and Co.

Anyone who relishes orthographic humour will be
fit to die of laughing at Major Jack Downing.
For ourselves we will acknowledge at once, quite
frankly, that the facetiousness of " Pliceman X.,"
that the oddities of " Artemus Ward," nay, that the
whimsicalities even of the renowned " Sam Slick,"
of Slickville, have ever been all but beyond our
endurance—at any rate for anything at all like con-
tinuous reading. The humorous comes to us al-
ways the most delightfully when it comes covertly,
slyly, dryly, cordially—tickling us into laughter !
It is alien to our fancy, it is beyond our powers
of appreciation, when it comes to us—upon the broad
grin ! When it comes to us not with a merry
twinkle of the eye, but with a blatant guffaw (or
horse-laugh, as-we may say) pealed to us through
a horse-collar ! A jokemaster of this openly

avowed character is, for ourselses at least, pretty
nearly as dispiriting as one of those most incor-
rigible bores occasionally to be met with in society
—your persistently Funny Men ! Fellows who are
always lying in wait for the concoction of a pun,
creatures who are the loudest laughers at their own
jests, men who are for ever poking fun at you, with
an obtrusive forefinger, just in between the small
ribs—farceurs who are everlastingly, in season and
out of season, dragging their inane jocularities in
by the head and shoulders ! Some people
there are who evidently enjoy this sort
of thing. We don't. Popular with others
the Funny Men may be—not with us.
Facetim done to order—in cold blood--with
a sort of malice prepense—are, for us, anything
rather than exhilirating—are for us, in truth,
dispiriting to the very last degree. So it
has been always in our regard with reference
to that awful product of the late Mr. Thacke-
ray's dullest and drearest notion of the droll
—that detestable ass, Policeman X. Where the
drollery of it lay, we never, for the life of us, could
conjecture! Cockney solescisms, bad grammar,
and execrable spelling, no more conveying to us any
sense of the genuinely ludicrous in writing, than
the beating out from a cracked piano of a hideous
jumble of discords could convey to us a sense of the
humorous in music. Of all kinds of make-believe
fun in this way, the Yankee is, perhaps, every-
! thing considered, about the best. As—all things
considered—the vulgar illiterate Cockney lingo
(a la Policeman X.) is about the very worst. And
Sam Slick, among all the Yankee drolls who have
ever breathed and talked and written, stands forth,
1 as we may say—facile princeps—nernine contradi-
cente. Yet even with regard to Sam Slick a very
Ilittle of hini somehow goes a great way'. We can
read him enjoyably only in snatches. We take him up
I to put him down again. If we read him continuously
for any length of time the grin provoked by him
must inevitably, by the simple force of re-
action, relax into a yawn ! Yet Sam is a droll
fellow, too, in his way. And so for that matter,
likewise, is Mr. Artemus Ward. And so, too, is
Major Jack Downing, of the Downingville Militia.
Some may go the length of actually delighting in
the latter's whimsicalities— as many do in the
whimsicalities of Sam Slick and Artemus Ward.
For those who really relish Sam Slick and Artemus
Ward, Major Downing cannot but be welcome when
he comes to them thus bearing in hand these his
I latest lucubrations.

Convention Between Great Britain and

Greece.

(REUTER'S EXPRESS.)
ATHENS, Aug. 19.

The following document has just appeared:—
" Convention between Great Britain and Greece as to the
judgments given by British Courts and Tribunals in
lonian Lawsuits prior to the Annexation.
"Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland and his Majesty the King of the
Hellenes, desiring to regulate by a special convention the
effects to be produced in Greece by judgments or sentences
passed previous to the annexation of the lonian law-
suits, have appointed as their plenipotentiaries, to wit :
Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Hon. Edward Morris Erskine, her
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to his
Majesty the King of the Hellenes ; and his Majesty the
King of the Hellenes, the Sieur Pierre Brailas Armoni, his
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Councillor of State, officer of
the Royal Order of the Redeemer, Knight Grand Cross of
the highly distinguished Order of St. Michael and St.
George, who, having exchanged their full respective
powers, and found them to be in good and proper form,
have agreed upon the following articles :
"Art. 1. All judgments or definitive sentences delivered
in Turkey or in countries beyond the pale of Christendom
prior to the 21st May. (2d June), 1864, the date of the an-
nexation of the lonian Islands to Greece, by consular tribu-
nals or British courts, between lonian subjects or between
lonians and the subjects of any other State, provided they
had at that time acquired the authority of an adjudged cause,
shall be valid as well in Greece as before the Hellenic con-
sular authorities abroad, without revision of the ground of
the lawsuit. They will be clothed with the executory form
by the Hellenic judicial authority before whom execution
shall be demanded, without any other formality than the
production of an authentic copy of the judgment or sen-
tence, at the end of which the Ambassador or elm*
d'Affaires of her Britannic Majesty at Constantinople shall
have appended the words, definitive, and passed as a
matter adjudged,' with the date and his signature. Their
execution shall take place at the suit of the interested
party, in the forms and by the ways and means authorised
by the Hellenic laws, or, if any mode is specified in the
wording of the judgment or sentence, then by that mode,
provided it be not contrary to the laws of public order in
Greece.
"Art. 2. The definitive judgments or sentences delivered
by the British courts and tribunals, under the above-men-
tioned conditions, which should not have acquired the
authority of an adjudged cause up to the date of the an-
nexation of the lonian Islands to Greece, shall be declared
provisionally executory by the Hellenic tribunals, and put
in execution, notwithstanding all appeal, upon the produc-
tion in each case of an authentic copy, having the visa of
her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador or Charge d'Affaires
at Constantinople, and attesting that it is definitive and
provisionally executory, but subject to appeal or opposi-
tion, or to any other duly specified cause. But if they are
subsequently assailed by the course open, the Hellenic tri-
bunals shall decide.

"Art. 3. Lawsuits commenced and not concluded before
consular tribunals or British courts before May 21 (June 2),
1864, shall continuo their course before the Hellenic tri-
bunals.

" Art. 4. The present convention shall continue in force
for five years, reckoning from the exchange of the ratifica-
tions. When that period has expired, judgments or sen-
tences emanating from British courts and tribunals, which
shall not up to that time have been put in force by the Hel-
lenic tribunals, shall no longer enjoy the advantages con-
ferred by the present convention, but will retain all their
other effects according to the Hellenic laws.
" Art. 5. This present convention shall be ratified, and
the ratifications exchanged at Athens within the space of
six months, or earlier if possible.

"In token whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have
signed this convention, and appended thereto the seal of
their arms.

~"Done at Athens the 14th (26th) July of the year o:
grace 1865.
(signed)

" PIERRE BRAILAs ARZONI.
" E. M. ERSKINE."