Page:The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches.djvu/35

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INTRODUCTORY TO "MEMORANDA"
21

the ratio of births and deaths; the percentage of increase of population, etc., etc.—in a word, everything in the realm of statistics that can make existence bright and beautiful.

Also, in my department will always be found elaborate condensations of the Patent Office Reports, wherein a faithful endeavour will at all times be made to strip the nutritious facts bare of that effulgence of imagination and sublimity of diction which too often mar the excellence of those great works.[1]

In my department will always be found ample excerpts from those able dissertations upon Political Economy which I have for a long time been contributing to a great metropolitan journal, and which, for reasons utterly incomprehensible to me, another party has chosen to usurp the credit of composing.

And, finally, I call attention with pride to the fact that in my department of the magazine

  1. N. B.—No other magazine in the country makes a specialty of the Patent Office Reports.