THE YEAR OF EXPECTATIONS. (From "Punch.")

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 561, 30 August 1851, Page 3

THE YEAR OF EXPECTATIONS. (From " Punch.")

Tun present year, 1851, seems to be The Year of Expectations. Every one is expecting something ! Every lodging-house-keeper is expecting to let her lodgings at three, and four, and five times the ordinaryrent ! Every house-agent is fondling the same beautiful expectations. We have heard of a sanguine agent who actually expects to let the grand house, at Albert Gate, opposite Mr. Hudson's. What he expects to get for it tve should be nfraid to mention ! Every little hotel end coffee house-keeper expects to have his house filled from top to bottom, and is forming most absurd expectations as to the prices he shall get for beds fitted up in sculleries, garrets, and dust-bins I Every theatrical manager expects to have " crowded audiences," " overflowing houses," not merely in the play-bills, but positively insida the theatre every night! , Every sbopkeepor is madly expecting to sell oft every bit of his stock this year, and expects if he does not make his fortune that it will be entiiely the fault of not having sufficient goods to supply the demands of his innumerable customers I Every young lady is expecting to be brought up to town, for " Pa's been promising it ever so long, and he can't refuse now, for there never will be such an opportunity for seeing London, as this present year . Every wife expects, of course, the same. Every country yokel expects to come up to Lunnun this year, and expects to find our divty streets paved with tbe traditionary pavmg-ctones of gold, and to see the Queen riding about all day in a carriage and six with the crown on her head, the sceptre in one hand and tho ball in the other. Every bigotted Englishman, belonging to the fine old John JJull School of stop-at-home Englishmen, expects to see every foreigner with long moustachois and long beard and hair and dirty habits, similar to the class men. Frenchmen be has been in the habit of meeting in Leicester Square, and expects that London will bo troubled with nothing less than the Plague in consequence It would be difficult, and perhaps very tedious, to put down all the expectations that have been raised like so many cucumbers, under tbe glass frame of the Great Exhibuion, more especially the expectations of all those Who t\PECT THIS YEAR TO M \KE IHEIU FORTUNES. We can only say, that among so many expectations, more or less fragile, that it will be a very great wonder if a few of them aie not broken. And that is the only expectation we venture to form on the subject, and about the only one we expect to see fully realised this year.