actors themselves is to be taken, will cause the utmost excitement
throughout this country and the Continent. On this subject your readers
will be judges--in a petty locality small things seem large--and the
preternatural importance which is here given to it may deceive me into
false calculations.
"You, like the rest of the world, are well aware that a feud of no
ordinary virulence has subsisted between the elder and younger branches
of the house of BEERBUNG, which so long supplied all the Publicans (and
a good many of the sinners) to this locality, and indeed dictated to the
magistrates of Limehouse, and defied the authorities of the Commercial
Docks. You remember that when LEWIS BEERBUNG lost his license, and the
'King's Head' was shut up, things went on anyhow in the parish;
everybody opened public-houses, keeping the shutters down Sunday and
week-day alike, and at last we hardly knew whether our heads were on our
shoulders or not. Then the military came in, and we got on better; and,
subsequently, the other LEWIS BEERBUNG (who was given to oysters) and
his brother, CHARLES DICKS, had the 'King's Head' again. DICKS took in
preachers, and cheated in his measures, and at last ran off to Scotland;
and then the house was let to a third LEWIS, who was son to the first
LEWIS BEERBUNG'S younger brother, a very bad fellow, of whom JACK KETCH
had the last accounts. The BEERBUNGS were always a queer set, and this
third LEWIS, though a clever fellow, could not keep the house (which he
had named the 'Pear and Umbrella'), but had to run for it, and was made
bankrupt under the name of SMITH. Then the whole affair was altered: a
committee was appointed to manage the house, which had a new sign, the
'Three Jolly Colours:' and since that the chairman has kicked out the
rest of the managers, and has got the licence transferred to himself.
The house is now the 'Bee and Bayonet,' and seems to be carried on to
the satisfaction of the neighbourhood. Very good order is kept; the
chairman, who was formerly in the Ham, and, indeed, sausage line, has
married a very nice woman, and tries to keep friends with the most
respectable people about. Indeed, his behaviour to a rich and rascally
tallow-monger, who has been trespassing on the land of some poor
neighbours, and stealing their turkey, has sent up UNLIMITED LOO, as
he's called, in the estimation of all decent folks. Anyhow, he has got
the house which was the 'King's Head,' and, while he gives Imperial
measures, will keep it.
"But as the BEERBUNGS are irrevocably kicked out of the house, they
comfort themselves by squabbling with one another, and talking as if the
question was which had a right to the fixtures. SMITH, the bankrupt, is
dead, but has left a lot of sons, not bad fellows, but with very little
brains among them. And there is a cousin of their's, who at present
calls himself SHAMBORE (but I am told is a real bore to any one who has
to spend the evening with him), and he comes from the elder branch of
the BEERBUNGS, and claims to be the head of the family. SHAMBORE and
SMITH'S boys have hitherto been at daggers drawn, and making everybody
laugh at their absurd quarrels. SHAMBORE has settled just outside the
parish, and is always sticking up placards, some of them very profane,
abusing LOO, or anybody who happened for the time to have the 'King's
Head.' He lives at a place called Frowsy Wharf, and behaves as stuck-up
as if the parish belonged to him; sees people with his hat on; and has
got a long story about some miraculous hair oil which he says will never
dry off his head. Some think he is cracked. The SMITH boys used to make
all sorts of game of him, and call him 'FATTY,' and, when their father
had the house, they used to stone any one who went to see him.
"But somehow, SHAMBORE and the SMITHS have made it up. Why, nobody
knows; but it is thought that the tallow-monger has been at them, and
has promised to stand something handsome if they will unite to bring
actions of trespass against LOO. However, be this as it may last week
down comes one of SMITH'S sons--who calls himself (for they have all
_aliases_) KNEE MOORE--to Frowsy Wharf, in his best clothes, and all
being arranged, knocks three knocks--no more nor less--at SHAMBORE'S
front door. He would not knock two knocks, for fear of being thought a
postman; and SHAMBORE would not let him knock four, because that would
be coming the swell too much. SHAMBORE was peeping over the blind (which
had crochet lilies on it), but of course MOORE pretended not to see him.
The maid opened the door, and MOORE asked if MR. SHAMBORE was in. 'What
name, Sir?' says the girl. But SHAMBORE had bolted through the back
parlour, and was standing on the stairs. 'What do I see?' he shouts out.
'Come in by all means;' and he comes down exactly four stairs--no
more--and waits for the other. MOORE will not take off his hat until the
door is shut, for fear the neighbours should think he's nobody, but he
hangs it on a peg, and makes SHAMBORE a bow.
"'I am glad to call on the head of my family,' says MOORE, kicking out
his leg behind, and making the girl laugh. SHAMBORE makes him say it
again, pretending to be deaf. Then they shake hands, and the girl is
sent out for beer, and they sit down and drink bad luck to UNLIMITED
LOO, and may he soon lose his licence. And it seems they have arranged
that, if they can kick LOO out, and get the house, SHAMBORE'S to keep it
for the good of the family, until a boy--a son of MOORE'S elder
brother--is old enough to take the licence; and, to prevent danger, if
SHAMBORE'S wife dies he is not to marry again. The precious couple sat a
long time, and MOORE brought in MRS. MOORE, and they all grew as thick
as thieves; and when going away, MOORE, who was tipsy, said he had made
a bridge, or was going over the bridge, or something which could not
quite be understood. Meantime, LOO has told the police to keep a sharp
look-out on the cousins, and it will be wiry times for them if they are
laid hold of."
* * * * *
TWO GREAT QUESTIONS.
There are two great questions which at present address themselves to the
political mind, and they are both in connexion with wages. Without
entering into the merits of either, we may say that in England the great
question is, "How wages are?" and in Turkey, "How wages war?"
* * * * *
LOVE IN LOW LIFE.
Whether much love prevails on both sides between husband and wife among
the inferior classes, properly so called, of this country, may be
questioned, but there is no doubt that the wives, at least, are much
smitten.
* * * * *
THE PORTE IN BOTTLE.
If Turkey can be enabled to hold her own a few years longer, she will,
there are good reasons for hoping, arrive at a high state of
civilization. There is little doubt that the Ottoman Porte will improve
by keeping.
* * * * *
FOOD FOR IMPROVEMENT.--A certain Mare in London must be rather badly
off; for its chief present nourishment is chaff.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SHARP'S THE WORD.
_Nice Old Gent (loquitur)._ "UM! I'LL TAKE SOME HARICOT MUTTON,
AND--ER--HAVE YOU ANY ASPARA--"
_Waiter (like thunder)._ "'ARICO AN' 'GRASS!"]
* * * * *
ST. CECILIA AND ST. HELEN.
Touching the subjoined newspaper advertisement:--
ORGANIST.--A VACANCY IN THE APPOINTMENT of ORGANIST for the parish
of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, London, having been created by the death
of Dr. Bexfield, candidates for the office are requested to forward
their letters of application and testimonials on or before the 23rd
day of November instant, addressed to MR. CHURCHWARDEN RICHARDSON,
2, Great St. Helen's, London, by whom all inquiries as to the duties
and salary will be answered.
_Mr. Punch_ begs to ask MR. CHURCHWARDEN RICHARDSON a question. Would
CECILIA PUNCH be eligible for the vacant situation of organist to St.
Helen's parish? For _Mr. Punch_ has heard that it is the practice of
many vestries to exclude female candidates from competition for the
organist's office. Need CECILIA apply? Has it been, by the parochial
powers,
"Resolved, that female candidates be excluded."
CECILIA would be thankful to be spared the anxiety and trouble of making
an application, in doubt whether or not it has been predestined to be
fruitless. One would think that the church of a female saint would admit
a female musician--or can it be that ST. HELEN would have closed her
doors against her sainted sister, the namesake of _Miss Punch_, herself?
To multiply, not to diminish, the means of honourable maintenance for
women ought to be the object of all Churchwardens and Vestries; as it
certainly is the interest of all rate-payers.
* * * * *
A WHIPPING RECORDER.
MR. SAMUEL WARREN, Recorder of Hull, loves to season his sentences with
plenty of whipcord. This propensity of SAMUEL'S has been significantly
rebuked by LORD PALMERSTON, who has remitted whippings and shortened
terms of imprisonment. We understand that the judicial poet of _The Lily
and the Bee_ will--in self-justification--forthwith produce another
poem, to be called _The Cat and her Tails_.
* * * * *
A DIRTY BUSINESS.
The Magistrates of the City of London can scarcely be expected to come
out of the present Commission with clean hands, after having fingered
every ton of coals within a circuit of twenty miles.
* * * * *
FASHION AND INFLUENZA.
"That fairy form muffled in shawls, FANNY! why?
What sorrow hath swoln and beclouded thine eye?
What _can_ have occasioned the tint of the rose
To abandon that cheek for the end of that nose?
"Strange ornament, strip of mere flannel, to deck
That swanlike, that snowy, that statuesque neck!
Why sit o'er the fender in such an odd trim,
With handkerchief stanching those red orbs that swim?"
"For shabe, HELRY! dolt you bake ful so of be;
You bolkey, preteldil that you diddlet see
The state I ab ill; do you walt to be told?
You bust low I've got a bost troublesub cold."
"But how did you catch it, love?--where did you go?"
"I cal't thilk, I cal't tell at all, I dol't low."
"You don't think damp feet may have brought it about?"
"Lo, I've worl Ildia rubber shoes whel I've beel out."
"I think I can tell what has caused a catarrh
Those charms to disfigure, those accents to mar;
The bonnet, my FANNY, was meant for the head,
But FANNY wears hers 'twixt the shoulders instead."
"_Oh_ HELRY!--aid yet it bust surely be oled
Lot clothid the head is the way to catch cold,
Ald followilg Fashiul is what, I suppose,
Bakes be look such al object ald talk through the doze."
* * * * *
RUSSIAN HONESTY.
There is a rigid sense of honesty in the Russian army. Lately, a
sergeant-major was flogged for stealing beyond his rank. There is a
graduated right of theft throughout all Russia. Thus, while a mere
master-shipwright may steal some cartloads of oak, a Lord of the
Admiralty may pocket a whole seventy-four. The god of Russia is not, in
fact, NICHOLAS, but MERCURY.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Nurse Ab--rd--n._ "DID IT WANT A BIT O' TURKEY, THEN?"]
* * * * *
A FERTILITY WELL-GROUNDED.--Periodicals are the dead leaves that
fertilise the soil of Literature.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ABERDEEN IN HIS UNPOPULAR ACT OF THE COURIER OF ST.
PETERSBURG.]
* * * * *
THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL OF POETRY.
[Illustration: A]
A very pleasing advertisement appeared lately in the _Manchester
Advertiser_, an advertisement which all who are interested in literature
will be glad to see. Here it is:--
WANTED, A POET.--A tradesman who wishes to advertise his wares
extensively, wants a Gentleman who can Write Advertising Poetical
Effusions with facility.--Apply by letter, containing specimens of
poetry, to A S, at the Printer's.
Though poor JOHNSON or GOLDSMITH would have been glad of such an offer,
some conceited brethren of the goose-quill may look with contempt at the
idea of the application of poetry to the advertisement of wares. Why not
apply poetry to the advertisement of wares as well as apply Art to their
construction? is not Art-crockery considered a great thing?--and what is
your School of Design for, but to supply us with Art-clothes and
Art-furniture; so that in good time we shall have Art-velvets,
Art-cottons, Art-muslins, Art-silks, and Art-satins, for Art-waistcoats,
Art-shirt-fronts, Art-frocks, Art-slips, Art-gowns; likewise Art-chairs
and Art-tables, Art-fenders, Art-fire-irons, Art-pots and Art-kettles,
Art-coalscuttles, Art-paper for walls, Art-bell-pulls, Art-pump-handles,
Art bedsteads, and Art-washhand basins? The spirit of the age requires
that Art shall be turned to practical account. He that would prosper by
the poetical Art must utilise it. One way to do so, as good as any
other, would be to sing the praises of candlesticks, for instance, or
knives and forks, or haberdashery, or any other description of goods;
what not? Poets have quite exhausted their old stock of subjects; they
want a new stock, and that of a linendraper would be as good as any. The
lines--
O heavenly Muse! the vast assortment sing,
Of JACKSON, JOHNSON, WILKINSON and KING,
for example, might serve for the commencement, and indicate the argument
of a modern Epic of the Manchester School. The place of the hero in the
poem would of course be supplied by a power-loom. But the "poetical
effusions" required as per advertisement would necessarily be lyrical.
Here an abundance of themes opens up to the bard. Suppose that the wares
which the poet is engaged to advertise are stuffs. It will not follow
that his verses should be stuff too. Leaving doggrel to the minstrel of
MOSES, he might aim at a really sentimental treatment of his subject. He
might, with the view of calling public attention to a silk, write
something of this sort:--
LINES TO ISABEL.
I saw thee dancing in the hall;
The beauteous robe that draped thy form
Had just the free and flowing fall
Of some old statue's; but, too warm,
Too glowing were that eye and cheek,
To let thy shape of loveliness
Like marble seem, though rarest Greek,
For all that chaste and graceful dress!
***_At_ 16_s._ 6_d._, _A Superior Article and Striking Novelty.
Now Selling Off at a Tremendous Sacrifice_. JACKSON AND CO., &c.
The foregoing is merely an attempt to show what might be done in this
line, or sort of lines. It is no easy job, as a judicious ancient
observes, to do common themes to a T.
Perhaps it is strange, however, that a Manchester tradesman should have
to advertise for a poet. Is there no young man in his establishment that
turns down his collars and grows his hair in ringlets, and has joined
the moustache-movement, that would answer his purpose? In most large
businesses there are such young men, who let off their poetical steam in
effusions to the moon, &c., and merely waste it. Many of these poor
young fellows are snubbed and ridiculed, and thus have their
self-regard--which is always sensitive--irritated and mortified, till
they are driven to all manner of reckless and evil courses; whereas, by
the useful direction of their talent, rendering it subservient to the
purposes of the shop, they would be enabled to fulfil the aspirations
that are in them with credit to themselves and with advantage to their
employers: provided they would pay that attention to their grammatical
studies, which is necessary to the composition of decent verses, even on
the subject of a merino or a ducape.
* * * * *
THE REAL AND THE IDEAL.--There is as much difference between the real
and the ideal, as there is between a castle in Ayrshire and a castle in
the Air.
* * * * *
THE EXPENSE OF MAKING A BARON.
Those who accept dignities are usually expected to pay for them; but,
perhaps, if a man has "greatness thrust upon him" in the form of a
title, it would be rather hard to make him pay L420 for an "honour" of
which he was not solicitous. Before a man can be "dubbed" a knight he
must "dub up" some L200; but it seems to cost between L400 and L500 to
make a baron. Last year LORD FITZROY SOMERSET was changed into LORD
RAGLAN--a conversion which, though it might have been managed as easily
and as cheaply as the pantomime trick of SO-AND-SO _afterwards_
HARLEQUIN, or PANTALOON, or CLOWN, has, it seems, added upwards of L400
to the annual item of civil contingencies. It is very "civil," no doubt,
to make a commoner into a peer, but when the "contingency" arrives, we
think the recipient of the honour ought to be civilly expected to pay
for it. Perhaps, however, the better course would be to do it cheap, and
we should hardly think the dignity of the peerage can be sustained by
such charges as we find making up the sum total of the cost of a Barony.
The Clerk of the Hanaper, or Hamper, gets L24 13_s._ 4_d._; but why the
title of Baron should be hampered with such an expense it is difficult
to guess, unless it is that the newly-made peer is expected to "wet" his
dignity with a few dozen of something drinkable. Deputy Hamper--by
virtue, possibly, of some bottled beer--gets a guinea; and the "porter
to the Great Seal" has another guinea; but, whether the word "porter"
applies to some officers, or to some beer for the LORD CHANCELLOR'S
department, we have no means of knowing. The sealing of the patent is a
costly affair, including "Sealer, L1 2_s._ 3_d._; Deputy ditto, 10_s._
6_d._; Chaff Wax, L1 2_s._ 6_d._; deputy ditto, 10_s._ 6_d._"; from
which we can only infer that, while two officers are employed in the act
of sealing, two other officers are standing by and "chaffing" the
operation.
The "Royal Household" receives L104 6_s._ 10_d._ for a jollification, no
doubt; though we suspect that this act of _High Life Below Stairs_ in
the Palace is entirely without the sanction of Royalty. Our old friend
"Garter" comes in for L20, which is moderate, considering how invariably
the recipients of dignities are tied by the leg by Garter's stringent
requirements. The bill winds up with one guinea for the engrossing
clerk, who engrosses very little of the profit but a great deal of the
trouble, for he was obliged to engross the warrant and find the
parchment.
It costs in all L420 to make a Peer; and if every Member of the Peerage
is worth what he costs, it is easy to estimate the value of the Upper
House of Parliament. Our own opinion is, that the Lords would be quite
as precious without the preliminary outlay incurred in their
manufacture; but if something is to be paid on the occasion, we think
the money might be better employed than by inciting it in chaff, or any
other kind of wax, and liquidating it in "porter," or Hampers of any
description whatever.
* * * * *
A TAP ON A TUB.
The _Morning Advertiser_, speaking of LOUIS NAPOLEON'S new tariff
reforms, says that he has effected them, "_deaf_ to the howlings of the
iron-masters _and the scowlings of the coal-owners_". One would not
deprive the EMPEROR of one iota of his merit, but we have a "random
recollection" that a "scowl" is a thing to see, rather than to hear. We
do think that our friends the Licensed Victuallers are entitled to
demand better grammar for their money. _Our_ JEAMES would not have so
written.
* * * * *
CORONACH ON THE SCOTCH LION
Och hone-a-rie! och hone-a-rie!
The Scottish Lion lies fu' sair:
Gude faith, he's tauld sae mony a lee.
We never can believe him mair!
* * * * *
THE HOLE-INESS OF RAGS.
The best material for the proposed "Ragged Churches" seems to be
Papier-mache, a material which is now applied to building purposes, and
which proves how the useful and beautiful may even arise out of rags.
* * * * *
THE TURTLE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION
FOR
THE RELIEF OF DESTITUTE ALDERMEN.
[Illustration]
We are glad to inform our readers that a Society, with the above
benevolent motive, is in the course of formation. We need not say that,
in the state of extreme destitution to which the poor Aldermen are
likely, in another year, to be reduced, such a society, like every other
society that has hitherto been started, will supply a great vacuum. The
use of Turtle to an Alderman has become a sort of second nature; and
when, by circumstances over which--unlike the City Funds--he has had no
control, he is deprived of that great humanising and aldermanising
necessity, we need not say that a very great vacuum will be created in
his stomach. It is to fill that vacuum--which, if filled by the
Alderman's own resources, would cause a vacuum in his pocket as great as
the one that already exists in his mind--that a few charitable
individuals have joined together in sympathy and guineas to relieve the
wants of a large luxurious class of their fellow-countrymen.
Until the prospectus, in due satin paper and gilt-edge form, is issued,
we beg to dot down a few of the principal features of this benevolent
association:--
PRINCE ALBERT is to be President of this new charity, if he will only
accept it, in return for the statue which the Aldermen have been trying
to get up in his honour, in the hope that they may be represented on the
pedestal in some humble capacity--either as hanging on to his Royal
Highness's coat-tails, or else kissing his princely boots.
Committees will be appointed to visit the different Wards, and some of
the highest ladies in the land have been most eager in applying for this
charitable office.
Aldermen who have passed the chair will be allowed their three basins of
Turtle a week. Those, who have not yet come to that awful pass, will
only receive their one basin, of the usual size of those which a person
pays five shillings for at BIRCH'S.
On the 9th of November--the anniversary of the grand LORD MAYOR'S
Day--the whole body of Aldermen are to be allowed, in addition to their
Turtle, a small glass of iced Punch.
A select number, also, will be taken in rotation, and given a ride in
glass-coaches, that will be directed to follow the precise route that
the LORD MAYOR'S procession was in the habit of taking every memorable
9th of November. Pocket handkerchiefs will be provided gratuitously, to
stem the grief of such Aldermen for whom the sight may be too much.
Negotiations are in treaty for the Mansion House, which will be
unoccupied as soon as the City Corporation has died its unnatural death.
It is expected to be vacant in a year. A better locality could not
possibly be chosen, on account of the number of pleasant associations
that are connected with that building, which was so proverbially
hospitable with other people's money.
Those Aldermen who are prevented, by illness or modesty, from applying
at the Mansion House, will be relieved at their own mansions.
All Aldermen will be expected to bring their own basins and spoons.
Any Alderman convicted of bringing up his basin to be filled a second
time on the same day, will be denied any further relief for an entire
twelvemonth.
The tickets, under any circumstances, are not to be sold; but it is
hoped, in the event of the expected success of the Association, that
measures will be taken to add venison to the Turtle.
Further particulars will be shortly published, with a list of the
bankers and houses where subscriptions are to be paid, and where the
smallest contributions, in the way of turtle or venison, will be
thankfully received.
A smaller Charity will also be established--at least the attempt will be
made--in connection with the parent one. Its object will be to relieve
the Common Councilmen with Mock Turtle.
It is a source of great consolation, to think that these poor miserable
creatures, when they are turned out of their comfortable quarters, will
not be totally unprovided for in their old age. Ruin, it is true, is
staring them in the face; but still their few declining years may be
rendered comparatively happy, by their being still supplied with those
comforts which the custom of a whole life has turned into nothing less
than positive wants. To prove we bear no malice towards those who are
fallen, we wish every success to these "TURTLE SOUP KITCHENS FOR
DESTITUTE ALDERMEN;" and, as soon as the casseroles are got into boiling
order, we are ready to pay our first subscription.
* * * * *
SHORTCOMING OF THE CITY.
The City of London is not quite PLATO'S Model Republic. It has not
completely realized its idea of corporate perfection. Not permitting the
subjects of its jurisdiction to measure or to carry their own
commodities, it has established corn, coal, fruit, and oyster-meters,
and fellowship-porters, whom it obliges them to employ on terms
prescribed by itself. But it does not carry out the principle of
preventing individuals from managing their own affairs, by prohibiting
them from doing anything whatever for themselves, which it is possible
that somebody else may do for them. It has not established Civic
Barbers, empowered to shave all men who reside within its precincts,
whether willing or unwilling to submit their chins to those officers,
and it does not deny anybody the right of shaving himself.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THERE--THAT WAS A PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER'S FATHER,
PAINTED BY LE SANGE, IN 1802."
"LA! WHAT GUYS OUR GRANDFATHERS MADE OF THEMSELVES!"]
* * * * *
CORPORATE ASYLUMS.
The prisons of the City seem, in general, to have been better conducted
than any other of its institutions. May this fact be accounted for on
the supposition that roguery has an instinctive tendency to provide for
itself?
* * * * *
WHAT BEST CONSORTS WITH THE CONSORT'S DIGNITY.
The best monument on which, at present, (and may it be "at present" for
many years to come!) to inscribe PRINCE ALBERT'S abilities and
amiabilities, is to be found in the columns of the Newspapers.
* * * * *
AN INJUDICIOUS PATRIOT.
[Illustration: W]
We read among the speeches delivered at the late Polish Anniversary
Meeting, one which was made by a foreign gentleman, introduced as a
friend of M. MAZZINI, and which concluded thus:--
"Revolution was called disorder. It might be so, but the only way to
finish with disorder was to make revolution.--(_Cheers._) Therefore
it was that he wished for revolution, though its permanent success
involved the sad necessity of the guillotine." (_Great cheering._)
These daring words were uttered, not in the slummish purlieus of the
Square of Leicester, but at the splendid Rooms of that of Hanover. How
proud and glad we ought to feel of our freedom of utterance, considering
that at a place of fashionable resort, in an aristocratic neighbourhood,
an individual is permitted to speak out thus: declaring himself boldly
on the side of revolution and the guillotine!
Nevertheless, for the cause of European liberty, it is a pity that this
gentleman had not either had his mouth stopped by the spontaneous action
of the muscles which serve to close that orifice, or shut up by cries of
"No, no!" substituted for the "great cheering" which greeted his avowal
in regard to revolutionism and decapitation. The use and applause of
such language must estrange all friends of freedom except those who are
mad. The exiles that indulge in it ought not, perhaps, to be deprived of
an asylum, but they ought to be restricted to one in which they can be
looked after. It is bad enough when patriots are consigned to the halter
by despots, but it is worse when, having rope given them, they use it to
hang themselves. The EMPERORS OF RUSSIA and AUSTRIA are much obliged to
those who talk like this foreign gentleman. The revolution contemplated
by M. MAZZINI is another thing, we hope, than that which is advocated by
his indiscreet friend, and to "make" which will, in truth, be a certain
"way to finish with disorder."
* * * * *
TABLE TURNING AND TRUE PIETY.
A Clergyman, the REV. R. W. DIBDIN, M.A., has published a Lecture
recently delivered by him at the Music Hall, Store Street, upon Table
Turning, which he ascribes to "Satanic Agency," animadverting on all who
differ with him on the subject; among others, on ourselves. Referring to
this periodical he is pleased to say,
"I will only remark that it is conspicuous (like the _Times_
newspaper, which it echoes), for its _consistent enmity to true
piety_;--its advocacy of Sabbath desecration in the Sydenham
Exhibition, and the Sunday delivery of letters by the Post Office.
And I very much wonder that religious people support it as they do."
If any newspaper discusses the questions of the day generally in a
spirit of common sense, and this periodical treats them in the same
spirit, there must be a general coincidence of opinion between this
periodical and that newspaper, which MR. DIBDIN may call an echo if he
pleases. But he has no right to term _Punch_ a consistent enemy to true
piety, because we do not admit that a Christian is bound to keep Sunday
as a Jew is obliged to observe Saturday. And his wonder that religious
people support _Punch_ as they do may be abated by the consideration
that religion is not, in all people, allied with superstition, or with
cant and hypocrisy. Religion _Punch_ has always held, and hopes to hold,
inviolate; but the pretence of it, whether designed to restrict his
liberty, or impose upon his understanding, he has ever denounced and
ever will denounce. Withhold from the child the letter of the sick
parent; deny the fagged artisan his breath of fresh air and half-holyday
once a week, under a religious pretext, and _Punch_ will protest you a
Pharisee, and tell you that you might as well forbid him to extricate an
ox, or a MR. DIBDIN, from a pit into which, he might happen to tumble on
the Sabbath day. And if lies or delusions are propounded to his
credence, tales, whether of table-talking or picture-working, _Punch_
will not be hindered from laughing at them by the circumstance that they
are preached beneath the cover of religion.
_Punch_ never knowingly admits anything into his pages that could shock
the feelings of religious people. For that reason he forbears to quote
from MR. DIBDIN'S pamphlet an assertion that MR. DIBDIN professes to
quote from the devil; a piece of blasphemy too frightfully shocking to
be repeated. The following, however, may be cited as specimens of the
answers elicited by the Rev. gentleman and a MR. B. from a small,
square, three-legged table on casters, by lying their hands on it:--
"1. If there be a GOD, strike three with the leg next the
fire-place.--That leg was raised, and struck thrice.
"2. If there be a devil, strike so many times with this leg.--It did
so.
"3. If the POPE be the head of the Church, strike, &c.--It did so.
"4. If MARTIN LUTHER was a good man, strike, &c.--No reply.
"5. If EMANUEL SWEDENBORG was a good man, strike, &c.--It did so.
"6. If SOCINIUS was a good man, strike, &c.--It did so.
"7. If JESUS CHRIST be come in the flesh, strike, &c.--It did so.
"8. If salvation be of faith and works, strike, &c.--It did so.
"9. If salvation be by faith alone, strike, &c.--It did so.
"10. If DR. ACHILLI be a good man, strike, &c.--No reply.
"11. If DR. ACHILLI be turned Swedenborgeon, strike, &c.--It did so.
"12. If DR. NEWMAN be a good man, strike, &c.--It did so (very
quickly).
"13. If MR. TONNA be a good man, stop moving.--It continued moving.
"14. Strike the day of the month--It struck twenty-eight.
"15. Strike the hour.--It struck seven and a gentle lift of the leg.
[It was half-past seven].
"16. If it be right to go to a Socinian Chapel, strike, &c.--It did
so.
"17. If it be right to go to the theatre, strike, &c.--It did so.
"18. Say how many years it is since HER MAJESTY came to the throne.
"No one present knew the date of her accession. I may here say, that
I asked several questions on this principle, upon facts with which
none of us were acquainted.
"It struck sixteen.
"None of us could tell whether this was right or not, and,
therefore, one of the party left the room to fetch an almanack, and
when we had got the almanack we found that it was right."
Other ages were given by the table, according to the Reverend
experimenter; it also stopped when the Bible was placed upon it, like
the similarly possessed moveables of MESSRS. GODFREY and GILLSON. At
least so he would have us believe, or be accounted altogether
unbelieving. For he declares of Table Turning, that
"Those who have not witnessed its wonders, and disbelieve (or
attempt to explain away) the statements of those who _have_, must be
passed by as impracticable subjects, acting precisely on the
principle of the infidel HUME, who, because he never saw a miracle,
would have us infer that no one else ever did."
This is precisely the style in which Roman Catholic priests argue in
behalf of miraculous images, and if MR. DIBDIN did not profess a vast
abhorrence of Popery, he might be imagined to be one of the clerical
correspondents of the _Tablet_. In another place he says,
"If any one doubts my _veracity_, or questions the _possibility of
my senses being correct witnesses_--in such a case I have nothing to
reply to that person. Such an one puts himself out of the reach of
argument; and by such incredulity makes it impossible to prove
anything to him."
We are called upon to admit the infallibility of MR. DIBDIN'S senses, as
well as his good faith, although we have the opposing testimony of
FARADAY, and although, whilst Table Turning is, as MR. DIBDIN himself
says, practised daily by tens of thousands, there has been no one
satisfactory exhibition of the wonder in public. _Punch_ has tried Table
and Hat Turning. The hat and the table gave signs of beginning to turn;
which ceased, not at his command to stop, but on his reminding the rest
of the party that they were not to push.
PROFESSOR FARADAY, by the way, fares very badly at the hands of MR.
DIBDIN, who not only insinuates a doubt respecting the "spiritual
attainments" of that philosopher, but also uniformly spells his name
with two R's. He has also as above, SOCINIUS for SOCINUS, and for
Swedenborgian, Swedenborgeon. Perhaps he has derived his orthography
from tables, which he mentions as having been found to spell badly;
indeed, trustworthy as tables are esteemed in matters of arithmetic,
they have never been accounted authorities in regard to spelling.
But MR. DIBDIN is not to be laughed at--although he may himself hold up
other people to something less innocent than ridicule. He observes that
"It may seem very wise and great to laugh down a weak brother; but
surely it is neither kind nor brotherly."
Nevertheless, it is not easy to repress a risible emotion when we
picture to ourselves a party of weak brethren sitting round a table to
see if they can get the devil into it. MR. DIBDIN says it is necessary
to keep the hands on the table. Does the evil spirit, then, flow out of
the fingers' ends into the mahogany? and does MR. DIBDIN think that he
has acted as the devil's conductor? We shall next have Calvinistic
clergymen making pump-handles work, and turning mangles to the same
account as tables, by Satanic action.
However, it is certain that the dreadful nonsense in the book before us
was rapped out _either_ by the devil, _or_ by MR. DIBDIN, or his
friends. If we had any doubt on the subject, we should give them the
benefit of the doubt; but we are afraid that none can be reasonably
entertained.
* * * * *
IMPROVEMENT AT GUILDHALL.
Whatever may be said against the Corporation of London, it may be truly
said of that great body, that it is a-GOG for reform.
* * * * *
[Illustration: GENUINE SENTIMENT.
"A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS."
"DEAREST, I'M _DISGUSTED_ WITH MY BONNET!"]
* * * * *
HUMAN COPYING MACHINES.
Everybody says the law has gone to ruin, and if this is the case, we can
only say that the law has gone where it has brought so many--or in other
words, that the lawyers have followed their clients. The "profession"
must certainly be at a low ebb when it is reduced to the degradation of
issuing such advertisements as the following, which has been sent up to
us by several Correspondents, who have cut it out from a Birmingham
newspaper.
WANTED, immediately, in a Country Solicitor's Office, a WRITING
CLERK. He must understand Abstracting, Engrossing, and Accounts.
Salary about 13_s._ a week. Unexceptionable references must be
given.--Apply to ----, Solicitor, Birmingham.
We have been told that "necessity has no law;" but it would seem that
the law is reduced to the last stage of necessity, or it would never
offer such beggarly terms as those specified above to the very meanest
of its myrmidons. "Thirteen shillings a week" is about one-third of the
pay of a journeyman carpenter, and less than a third of what may be
earned by many of those who are out "on strike" for higher wages. The
poor wretch who is offered thirteen shillings a week must, it seems,
understand "abstracting;" but we should fear that he might try his
abilities in endeavouring to "abstract" something from the cash-box of
his principal. It is evident that the lawyers, having been curtailed of
their power to fleece the public, are determined to take it out of their
unfortunate clerks, and if blood can be got out of a stone, an attorney
is just the man to perform the operation.
* * * * *
A MUFF DROPPED, by a young Lady, on Wednesday last, in the Regent's
Park, between the Botanical and Zoological Gardens. It is rather rich in
appearance, but extremely heavy; has very long hair, and nothing
whatever inside. Any one, falling in with the above, is perfectly
welcome to the acquisition, as the Muff became such a dead weight,
continually hanging about, and wanting to be carried everywhere, that
the Young Lady, not being able to bear it any longer, was really
compelled to drop it. The Muff may be known at any time by its having
red hair, and answering to the name of CHARLES.
* * * * *
TOWN AND COUNTRY.
If, by any remote accident, the Russians were to take Constantinople, it
would be a curious realization (says young BAKER STREET) of the "_Russ
in Urbe_".
* * * * *
THE REASON OF PRISON EXPENDITURE.
The following paragraph occurs in the _Preston Guardian_:--
"THE COST OF CRIME.--The REVEREND MR. CLAY, the Chaplain of the
Preston House of Correction, estimates the loss caused to the public
by fifteen pickpockets, whose careers he has traced, including the
value of the property stolen, expenses of prosecution, and
maintenance in gaol, at L26,500."
How many schoolmasters might have been had for the money which fifteen
pickpockets have cost the nation?--and how many more than fifteen boys
might those schoolmasters have prevented from becoming pickpockets?--and
how much larger a sum than L26,500 would have thereby been saved?
Why cannot this great saving of money--to say nothing of vice and
misery--be effected?
Simply because Papists and Protestants, High Church, Low Church, and
Dissenters, cannot agree as to which of them shall have the privilege of
preoccupying the minds of street-children with ideas about which bishops
and doctors differ!
* * * * *
LOVE.
(_A Prose Definition by_ MOSES' _Poet_.)
Love comes from Courtship, and Courtship is a suit that is not made in a
day. It is the slow result of several measures, and these measures
cannot be taken too carefully; but Love at first sight is a ready-made
suit that is entered into at once, and for which, as the result
frequently proves, neither party was in the least fitted.
* * * * *
SHOCK TO RUSSIAN CREDIT.--There has been a hard run on the Banks of the
Danube. It is said to have been owing to a panic in the Russian army.
* * * * *
THE RACE OF MAN.--It is your favourite that generally wins on the
"course of true love."
* * * * *
SCOTLAND HUMILIATED.
Tuesday the 29th of November, 1853, was celebrated as a day of
humiliation in Edinburgh; and the humiliation consisted in making the
day as much like a Scotch Sunday as possible. Recollecting as we do:
1st, That there is more drunkenness in Scotland than anywhere else in
the United Kingdom; 2ndly, That there is more drunkenness on Sunday in
Scotland than on any other day; and, 3rdly, That the day of humiliation
was a close resemblance to a Scotch Sunday;--we may draw the inference
that the "humiliation" must have been complete. We have no doubt the
number of those that were either moved by the spirit, or kept from the
power of moving by the spirit, must have been enormous, on the occasion
alluded to.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ORIGINAL SKETCH BY MR. PUNCH'S LITTLE BOY.]
* * * * *
ADD THIS TO YOUR DICTIONARIES.
CORPORATION. Noun. Derived from _corps_, Fr., "deceased body," _oratio_,
Lat., "speaking," and _ration_, Eng., "victuals," and means a moribund
body, good for nothing but feeding and spouting.
* * * * *
EXCESSIVE MILDNESS OF THE SEASON.--A Hansom Cabman took Sixpence for his
fare, the other day, without saying a single word.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "DO YOU BELIEVE IN THIS TABLE TALKING, MATILDA, THAT
THERE'S SUCH A FUSS ABOUT?"
"OH DEAR NO! WHY, THE OTHER EVENING A TABLE WAS ASKED HOW OLD I WAS, AND
IT RAPPED OUT FORTY! RIDICULOUS; WHEN I'M NOT THREE-AND-TWENTY TILL NEXT
MARCH!"]
* * * * *
"A STATUE TO ALBERT."
(_A Melody after_ MOORE.)
"A statue to ALBERT," said CHALLIS enchanted,
"I'll start in the City; the thought is divine."
The thought was conceived, and he now only wanted
The ear of the public to it to incline.
He wrote a few letters to people to bore them,
And ask them to second his fawning intent;
But so coldly the public appeared to ignore them,
That he saw they too plainly perceived what he meant.
"Oh how," cried SAM WILBERFORCE, "think of enshrining
The PRINCE by himself?--the proposal is dim;
But with it the Great Exhibition entwining,
We'll get in adroitly a statue of him."
The bargain was struck, and the project to dish up
They flew to a meeting, the plan to propound;
"Adieu," whispered CHALLIS, "you're not the first bishop
Who's kept his position by shifting his ground."
* * * * *
A PLAN FOR THE SIMPLIFICATION OF PUBLIC ORATORY.
MR. PUNCH, who has suffered so much from the inordinate long-windedness
of our public orators in general, and of our senators in particular,
that he can thoroughly appreciate the misery which it must have
inflicted upon the nation, has, of his own free motion and consent,
meditated and devised a scheme, by which the nation will be released
from the pain of hearing, and our public men from the labour of uttering
speeches; whilst the former will still have the conviction that its
representatives are taking pains to express its sentiments, and the
latter will still have their vanity gratified by the belief that they
are making a sensation. _Mr. Punch_ has read in the works of MESSRS. HUC
and GABET (two missionaries, in whom the humour of RABELAIS is combined
with the kindly fervour of LAS CASAS) that the Lamas in Thibet--who have
more prayers to recite than they can get through in a day, without
suspending their ordinary avocations--are in the habit of employing what
they call Tchu Kor, or turning prayers. These are large but light
cylinders of wood, placed on an axle, and inscribed with a great number
of prayers in Thibetian characters. The devout Lama gives the Tchu Kor a
push, which sets it in motion for a considerable period, during which he
goes about his secular business, and leaves the performance of his
religious exercises to this pious whirligig.
If _Mr. Punch_ were acquainted with the Lamas, he would suggest to them
that by the help of a little simple machinery and the aid of a turnspit
dog, they might prolong their prayers for a period quite beyond the
strength of their own ingenious but imperfect instrument. But as it is,
he contents himself with recommending that Tchu Kor, or talking
cylinders, shall be introduced into the House of Commons without delay.
So many of the speeches made in that assembly have no sort of interest
for it or for the public, and are dictated only by the desire of the
Members to acquit themselves of a duty to their constituents, that they
might as well not be uttered at all. And as no speech is supposed to
influence a division, or gain over a vote, whilst many give rise to much
bad blood, and to endless misunderstandings, prevarications, rejoinders,
and recriminations, it would be as well that so fertile a source of
mischief should at once be dried up; and that if Members must talk, they
should do so only through the medium of the Tchu Kor.
Each Member might have his peculiar cylinder, surmounted by a bust of
himself, and carved from that tree, whose properties were most in
accordance with the characteristics of his oratory or his politics. Thus
the cylinders of LORD BROUGHAM and MR. DISRAELI, that pungent couple,
might be carved from the prickly pear; those of MR. NEWDEGATE and MR.
HENLEY from the sloe; that of MR. HUME, the Senior of the House, from
the elder; that of SIR ROBERT INGLIS, from the cherry, as he is the BOB
_cheri_ of the high Torics; that of MR. BRIGHT, from the aspen; that of
MR. BROTHERTON, the Vegetarian, from a large turnip; that of MR. LUCAS,
from the bramble; that of MR. COBDEN, from the (good) service tree; and
that of LORD PALMERSTON, the universal favourite, from the poplar. (Oh!)
The members might attend to turn their own cylinders, or the "Turner of
the House of Commons" (for the duties of the Speaker would be at an end)
might go round and set in motion the cylinders of those whose opinions
he wished to circulate. The Irish members might be gratified, yet
without any hindrance to public business, by the simultaneous gyrations
of all their cylinders; a number of others, inscribed with the words
Hear! Hear! or Question! might always be kept going; and if any
honourable gentlemen chose to inscribe on their Tchu Kor words
descriptive of cock-crowing or braying, they might make fowls or donkeys
of themselves without hurting the feelings of others. In short _Mr.
Punch_ is so interested in his scheme, and so anxious for its
development, that he pledges himself to have _Toby_ in readiness to turn
LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S Tchu Kor, on the very first night that the scheme
shall come into operation
* * * * *
AGRICULTURAL BRUISERS.
Thrashing, bruising and milling are now carried to such perfection by
machinery that every housekeeper may thrash his own establishment, every
father of a family may do his own bruising, and every man may have the
luxury of a private mill on his own premises. At the recent Cattle Show,
our attention was invited to a "compact hand mill," calculated to do an
immense amount of bruising, and to give a regular good dressing at the
same time to a certain quantity of flour. The newspapers are continually
asking us whether we bruise our oats, and intimating that if we
vigorously assault our corn it will serve us as well again, from which
we infer that every blow administered to our oats will be the means of
an extra blow-out to our cattle. We wish our agricultural friends would
tell us whether the bruising system would be applicable to anything else
beside corn, and whether we may safely, in addition to bruising our
oats, give occasionally a black eye to a potatoe?
* * * * *
A NOM DE GUERRE.--The French papers talk of ABERDEEN, _apropos_ of the
Turkish Question, as the "_ci-Divan jeune homme_."
* * * * *
CONSERVATIVES IN ILL ODOUR.
In whatever sense of the word the Corporation of London has conserved
the Thames, it has not made that river a conserve of roses.
* * * * *
CORPORATION TABLE TALK.
[Illustration: T]
The serious importance of Table Talking has been recognised by the City
of London Corporation Commission, who have examined, as a witness, one
of the Mansion House tables. The answers which they obtained by its
means are important, as bearing on the question of Aldermanic agency.
No sooner had the Commissioners placed their hands on the table than it
began to move, evidently not from any involuntary muscular action, for
to whatever extent those gentlemen pushed their inquiries, they did not
push the table.
The following interrogatories were then put to the table, which rapped
out the corresponding replies in the usual manner by striking with one
of its legs, once for the affirmative, and twice for the negative, or
giving the floor a knock at each of the several letters required to form
a word, as the Chairman ran his pencil over the Alphabet:--
1. How old are you? The table rapped so many times that the
Commissioners were tired, and directed it to stop, which it did.
2. Are you older than the oldest inhabitant?--Yes.
3. Did you know WALWORTH?--Intimately.
4. Was WHITTINGTON a man or a myth?--Both.
5. Was he LORD MAYOR OF LONDON?--Yes.
6. Three times?--Yes.
7. Used he and the Aldermen to dine together?--Sometimes.
8. What was the principal delicacy at their banquets?--Rapped out "Ox."
9. Was it roasted?--Yes.
10. Whole?--Yes.
11. With a pudding in its belly?--Yes.
12. Was there venison pasty?--Yes.
13. Did a Member of the Corporation ever eat a whole one?--Yes.
14. Name the individual?--Spelt "GOG."
15. Was he an Alderman?--Yes.
16. Who was MAGOG?--Rapped "Mace."
17. Do you mean that he was Macebearer?--Yes.
18. For what was he celebrated?--Drink.
19. How much would he imbibe at a sitting?--Answered "Hogsheads."
20. Of iced punch?--No. Of ale?--Yes. Of canary?--Yes. Of
Malvoisie?--Yes. Of each?--Yes.
21. Were statues erected to GOG and MAGOG to commemorate their
exploits?--Yes. In eating and drinking?--Yes.
22. Are you in suffering?--Yes.
23. From the effects of overloading?--Yes. From Gout?--Yes. In one of
your legs?--Yes. Can you move that leg?--No.
24. Does the recollection of what you have had to bear disgust you?--The
table heaved violently.
25. Does conscience torment you?--Yes.
26. On account of the charities which you have served to consume?--Yes.
27. Have you often groaned under your burdens?--Yes.
28. Give the number of tureens of real turtle which you have borne in
your time.--Rapped to the number of twenty thousand, and was continuing,
when the time having arrived for the adjournment of the sitting, the
examination of the table was postponed to another day.
* * * * *
FACTS FOR COCKNEY NATURALISTS.
Setters are a kind of dog kept exclusively in poultry-yards, for the
purpose of assisting the hens in the work of incubation.
There are curious couples to be met with in the natural as well as in
the social world. Thus Rooks and Pigeons are almost always found in
company; while the Oyster but rarely appears without a Swallow.
The habits of the London rabbit (specimens of which may be obtained at
any poulterer's) are extremely curious, and interesting to the
naturalist. Though wild at times, it is easily domesticated, and will
eat from the hand as well as from the pie-dish. It frequents in the
day-time the tops of water-tubs and the bottoms of areas: while at night
it is generally found on the tiles. When pleased, the animal makes a
soft purring noise; but at night its cries are loud and piercing, and
seriously disturb the neighbourhood which it infests. Its ears partake
rather of the "crop" order than the "lop," and unlike the country
species, it has a long tail. Unlike that species also, it is said, in
lodgings especially, to be omnivorous.
Salmon of large size may be caught pretty freely in the Serpentine
nearly all the year round--with a hook.
The author of "_Nasology_" asserts that human beings are distinguished
chiefly by the nose; and the remark may be extended to the inferior
creation, for there is scarcely a creature but has some prominent
feature for the naturalist to lay hold of. Thus you may always know a
woodcock, like an inn keeper, by the length of his bill, while a
woodpecker more nearly resembles an apothecary, from its keeping bark
continually on tap. In the same way, too, cocks are distinguished by
their combs, and foxes by their brushes.
It is a singular fact that country cats have generally not half the
appetite of London ones. The voracity of these latter animals is indeed
prodigious; and hardly less surprising is the variety of their diet. We
have ourselves repeatedly known instances, where in a single night the
cat has been discovered to have eaten about a pound of beefsteak, and
more than three quarters of a leg of mutton; and we are informed by a
scientific friend of ours, who lives in lodgings, that he has even met
with cases well authenticated by his landlady, where in less than a week
her cat has consumed half a caddy of his tea, as well as an entire
bottle of his brandy.
* * * * *
SOMETHING LIKE LEATHER.
RUSSIAN HIDES WELL TANNED. By OMAR PACHA & CO. Tanners to the SUBLIME
PORTE, Moldo-Wallachia.
* * * * *
CENTRALIZATION IN THE CITY.
Whatever may be the nature of the thinking principle of man, there is no
doubt that the soul of business, Punctuality, is material. This
psychological truth has been judiciously recognised in the practical
philosophy of the City of London, which has devised a method of insuring
the virtue in question, based on a profound conviction of its
materiality. Of Committees for General Purposes, MR. THOMAS ROGERS, in
evidence before the Corporation Commission, stated that
"In order to induce Members to attend punctually the Chairman waits
five minutes. At the expiration of that time he drops his hammer,
and then all who are present have a right to dine with the
Committee, but all who come after the five minutes are excluded from
the dinner."
No doubt the attendance is generally full--at the commencement of the
proceedings as well as after the subsequent repast. But in case the
majority of the members are behind time, do the minority eat up the
dinner provided for the whole number? Should the persons present at the
fall of the hammer amount to just thirteen, does the popular
superstition, that objects to a baker's dozen at the mahogany, prevent
them from sitting down to table in a party of that number? If so, does
one gentleman retire, or is one more taken in from the excluded set, and
is the fortunate, or unfortunate, individual selected by lot? These are
questions that suggest themselves to most thinking minds, though they
did not occur to those of the Commissioners.
"_Domine Dirige Nos_" ought no longer to be the civic motto. Considering
their characteristic principle of managing matters by appealing to the
centre of the human system, the stomach, a better motto for the
Corporation would be "_Medio tutissimus ibis_."
* * * * *
AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION.
PUNCH _and_ ALDERMAN CHALLIS.
_Punch._ Well, my EX-LORD MAYOR, is PRINCE ALBERT to have a statue?
_Alderman C._ Ah! that he shall, please the pigs!
_Punch._ You mean to say, if it please the Aldermen.
[CHALLIS _retires chap-fallen_.
* * * * *
EUROPEAN CONCORD.--We are happy to announce the Definite Concert of the
Four Great Powers. Perhaps it ought rather to be called a Quartet; but
that does not much signify: nobody need care what the coalition is
named, if it results in harmony.
* * * * *
LEGAL CURIOSITY.
[Illustration: M]
Mr. Punch has been unjustly accused of being hostile to the Lawyers. He
repudiates the charge; and, in proof of his regard for a class whom he
firmly believes not to be much blacker than they are painted, he
subjoins a specimen of an honest attorney's bill. _Mr. Punch_ offers it
to the profession as a model, and is convinced that if bills of costs
were framed on its principle, he should hear less of strikes in the
higher Courts--that wholesome striking by which an attorney is abated,
and the roll lightened.
_In the County Court_,} JIGGER
_and that of Common_ } _v._
_Honesty_. } SQUASH.
ATTORNEY'S CHARGES.
JANUARY 1.-Attending plaintiff JIGGER, who stated that he
was a Vestryman of Marlebone, and that in the course of a
debate upon Hungarian politics, which naturally arose out
of a paving and lighting question, the defendant SQUASH,
also a Vestryman, had called him a hignorant hupstart,
intimating most unjustifiably, that he, SQUASH, would
sooner request the opinion of a jackass upon the point at
issue than that of the plaintiff. Informing JIGGER that he
had better mind his shop and not mind SQUASH. No charge.
FEBRUARY 10.--JIGGER calling and desiring to restate his
grievances, which had rankled in his mind, taking down an
almanack and pointing out to him that the month, which
contained twenty-eight days only, was much too short for
me to listen to such nonsense, and advising him to go
about his business, and also attend to it. No charge.
MARCH 12.--Attending JIGGER, who came in the evening with
a paper, in which he said he had put his case in the
strongest possible light. Convinced him that he had not,
by burning his paper in my naphtha lamp, and recommending
him to go home and take his wife to the play. No charge.
APRIL 19.--Perusing the first page of a letter from
JIGGER, in which he again stated his wrongs, and entered
at some length into the Hungarian question, and the
suspected levities of MRS. SQUASH, the defendant's wife,
and putting the said letter into the fire. No charge.
MAY 24.--Being at the Derby, and JIGGER coming up very
tipsy, and insisting on entering into his affairs between
the races, attending Policeman A 172, and instructing him
to move JIGGER. No charge.
JUNE 29.--Attending JIGGER, who came in great glee to tell
me that he had served a County Court summons on SQUASH,
when I apprised him of my opinion that he was a great
blockhead, but as he dissented from this view of the case,
taking instructions to conduct the case for him, and
subsequently writing to SQUASH to tell him to give me a
look in. No charge.
JULY 1.--Attending SQUASH, and telling him that I hated to
see a couple of neighbours and fellow parishioners
squabbling and scandalising one another, and that they
must meet and make it up; when SQUASH entered at
considerable length into the Hungarian question, and also
gave me some anecdotes of JIGGER'S rascality, and his
daughter JEMIMA'S vulgarity. He consented to withdraw the
jackass, but adhered to the hignorant hupstart. No charge.
AUGUST 3.--Having previously procured adjournments of the
summons, my clerk's attendance to get JIGGER out of the
way on a fool's errand, so that when the cause was called
on there was no plaintiff, and the matter dropped. No charge.
SEPTEMBER 4.--Attending JIGGER, who had been talking to
some jackanapes of a lawyer's clerk, and had been told
that the County Court summons might be resuscitated by a
Bill of Revivor in Chancery, which he wanted me to file,
and instructing JIGGER, as a preliminary, to go and kick
his new adviser. No charge.
OCTOBER 11.--Attending SQUASH, who complained that my
client was taking the law into his own hands, and throwing
dead kittens, with insulting inscriptions affixed to their
necks, into his, SQUASH'S, shop, with intent to injure him
in his trade of a sausage maker. To mollify SQUASH,
ordering 3 lbs. of sausages; and N.B., presented same to
my clerk, not having much faith in the defendant's
zoological knowledge.
Paid for sausages. 2 6
NOVEMBER 5.--Attending JIGGER, who insisted on my coming
to the window to see a Guy, which he had prepared in the
likeness of SQUASH, and which he was causing his sons and
apprentices to carry about, with a song containing pointed
satire upon the Houses of Austria and of SQUASH. No charge.
DECEMBER 24.--Being out in the evening, ordering some
spirits for my own Christmas festivity, and accidentally
seeing SQUASH and his wife, instructing them to meet me in
ten minutes in the parlour of the Jolly Snobs, and
fetching JIGGER and his wife to the same place; addressing
the parties on their folly, and insisting on their all
joining in a friendly bowl of Christmas Punch, to which
proposition they ultimately assented: SQUASH, in broken
accents, declaring that, in his heart, he preferred JIGGER
to LORD PALMERSTON for real political knowledge, and
JIGGER avowing that some gentleman, of whom he had read in
the Sunday papers, called HARISTYDUS, was an unjust party
compared to SQUASH. Left them shaking hands, and the women
crying over one another. No charge.
Bowl of Punch 5 0
------
Total Bill of Costs for the year L0 7 6
------
_This is my Bill_,
BOLT UPRIGHT, _Attorney_.
* * * * *
PALMERSTON PERPLEXED.
If the energetic Home Secretary had only mentioned to us--confidentially
of course--that he contemplated inviting everybody who can use a
pen--every goose, in fact, possessed of a quill--to write to him on the
subject of any and every grievance, we should have dissuaded him from
the too adventurous act. The daily, and indeed hourly contents of our
letter-box would, if set before his Lordship, have convinced him, that
the corrector of public abuses will find himself continually buried
under a Mont Blanc of foolscap, and enveloped in a mist of envelopes.
LORD PALMERSTON will have less labour thrown upon him by his official
post, than the Penny Post will consign him to every hour of the day.
We, however, remind his Lordship to lay down a rule excluding all
anonymous letters from the number of those to which he is ready to give
attention. Already one enormous hoax has been played upon him by a wag,
who, under the signature of "OBSERVER," has made a complaint against the
City Police of "charging the public with drawn swords" on Lord Mayor's
Day, and turning the Poultry into a sort of Peterloo. The Home Secretary
has already demanded an explanation from the civic authorities; but it
has turned out that the horses which rode over the people belonged to a
mare's nest, while the only charge upon the public by the City Police is
a charge of so much in the pound by way of rate, which is, no doubt,
rather a heavy one. We certainly acquit the police of the massacre
imputed to them by LORD PALMERSTON'S anonymous friend, who seems to have
a little of the assassin in his own composition, for he does his utmost
to murder, by a stab in the dark, the characters of those whom he is too
cowardly to assail in a straightforward manner.
* * * * *
NICHOLAS'S DREAM.
I wandered in a rosy dream,
Where Danube's waters pour;
And there I saw the Crescent gleam
Upon the farther shore.
When lo! it seemed to pale and wane,
And through the sky go down;
Athwart the flood I leaped amain,
And clutched a Turkish Crown.
Oh! trust not visions, when, to Ill,
Ambition they incline;
That Crescent bright its horns will fill,
Whilst I shall draw in mine!
* * * * *
CURIOSITIES OF THE CATTLE SHOW.
The annual aggregation of "fatty deposits," at the Bazaar in Baker
Street, has just taken place as usual. It is, perhaps, as well that the
exhibition should be of brief duration; for, in these days of "nuisance
removal," we are not sure that the overfed beasts might not have been
regarded as so many accumulations of offensive matter, and ordered to be
got rid of accordingly.
The yearly gathering of agriculturists is, of course, the signal for the
circulation of all sorts of puffing hand-bills setting forth the virtues
of some new inventions for puzzling the weak agricultural mind, and
making a demand on the agricultural pocket. We fancy we see a little
turn for irony in one of the announcements put into our hand, which
invited our "particular attention" to an article called the "Farmer's
Friend," which has proved "an efficacious cure of fret and cholic." If
the farmers have not yet left off fretting, here is a friend indeed; and
it is to be had as low as 1_s._ 8_d._ a bottle. We should suspect that
the proposed antidote to "fret and cholic" among the farmers would be
found, if analysed, to contain a good share of alcohol. Among the
"drinks for cattle" advertised at the Bazaar, we find one of a rather
startling description, which is recommended "for the disease called
Hoven Blown Blasted Fog sickness"--a malady which we hope neither man
nor beast is likely to be afflicted with.
* * * * *
THE RELIGION OF THE HEELS
We cultivate sacred music; but until recently, from a remote period of
antiquity, we have had no sacred dancing. A gentleman, however, has just
brought out an "Evangeline Waltz," which he advertises in conjunction
with a "Flirtation Polka." The gentleman probably conceives himself to
have a "mission" to diffuse the Evangel of CUPID by the instrumentality
of capers.
* * * * *
USE AND ABUSE.--The Cab and the Driver.
* * * * *
[Illustration: WHAT A SHAME!
_Young Lady (inclining to Embonpoint)._ "I SHALL WANT HIM AGAIN THIS
AFTERNOON--FROM TWO TO FOUR."]
* * * * *
THE HERO OF A HUNDRED HURDLES.
Two gallant officers, a Lieutenant and a Captain of the Fusileers, have
lately been running a flat race and a hurdle race against each other.
The amusement was manly enough, and quite unobjectionable; though there
is something at the first glance rather odd in the idea of two British
officers competing which can run the fastest, when we recollect that
never to run is the usual practice of our soldiers. We are quite sure
that the competitors on this occasion will never use their running
powers in the field of action, except in pursuit of an enemy. The races
were well contested; the flat race being won by the Lieutenant, who
"beat his opponent by three feet," which seems rather unfair, as no man
ought to be allowed more than two feet to compete in a running match. In
the hurdle race the Lieutenant commenced well against the Captain, but
was unable to run him through--having unfortunately slipped in taking
the fifth hurdle. The incident is suggestive of a little parody on the
favourite military song of
"March! March!"
Jump, jump! Captain and Subaltern,
Why my lads, do you not tighten your girdles?
Jump, jump! make a fair start of it;
There goes the Subaltern over the hurdles!
Comrades shall many a day tell of the horrid way--
(E'en the bare thought makes the life-blood to curdle)
How the poor Subaltern--as his luck took a turn--
Pitched on his head ere he reached the fifth hurdle.
Jump, jump, &c. &c.
* * * * *
THE BEST WAY OF MAKING WAY IS TO TAKE IT.
Some persons have such a taking way with them that "if you give them an
inch, they will take an ell." Now we should say the Russians had this
same grasping manner about them, and if the Turks had yielded to them a
single inch, by this time they would have taken the Dardan-elles.
* * * * *
THE GREAT REFORMER OF THE AGE--TO-MORROW.
* * * * *
THE PRINCE, THE PIGS, AND THE PARASITES.
We think we have at last found a key to the flunkeyism of those citizens
who are desirous of getting up an ALBERT Testimonial. The recurrence of
the Smithfield Club Cattle Show has presented the Prince Consort again
before us in the character of a prizeholder by virtue of a wonderful pen
of pigs, which proves His Royal Highness's continued devotion to porcine
development. We all know the effect of a fellow feeling, and we are
satisfied that the "greasy citizens" must entertain a natural sympathy
with those precious feats of princely care which excite so much
admiration in Baker Street. The Aldermanic mind would easily find an
excuse for gratitude, in the fact that PRINCE ALBERT seeks to give
importance to the pig; and they would infer that he who would aggrandise
the ordinary pig would not desire to make little of the London Alderman.
For our own parts, without wishing to draw a nice distinction, we can
appreciate the views of His Royal Highness, and though he may continue
to fatten pigs for many years to come, we should not attribute to him
any desire to see the London Corporation fattening on the spoils it has
so long been allowed to appropriate.
* * * * *
TASKING A BISHOP'S FACE.
In the course of a speech delivered the other day at Southampton, the
BISHOP OF OXFORD is reported to have remarked that
"There should be Bishops over the Clergy who would weep when they
wept, and rejoice when they were glad."
Under existing circumstances that would be a difficult arrangement. What
with poor curates weeping on their L70 or L80 annual pittances, and rich
pluralists rejoicing at the same time in their several thousands a year,
a Bishop, in order to sympathize with both, would have to weep with one
side of his face and smile with the other.
* * * * *
THE HAPPIEST HUSBAND UNDER THE SUN.
ADAM had one great advantage over all other married couples--an
advantage which has been lost to us with Paradise--HE HAD NO
MOTHER-IN-LAW!!!
* * * * *
[Illustration: ABERDEEN SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE.]
* * * * *
THE TROUSER MIND.
[Illustration: T]
This kind of mind struts about in fanciful costumes. It flaunts
in vagaries, and is always masquerading its betters. It is a
mind of colours, but colours without any union, or harmonious
combination--giving one the notion of an Irish rainbow, in which all the
hues had quarrelled, and resolved to live apart. Nothing is too broad
for it, like a Palais Royal farce. Its legs are scored like a leg of
pork--only the scoring is fearful in length, so that nothing can wipe it
out, like the debts a young man runs up at college. It is lined all over
like a zebra, and as the zebra is the animal that is next to the donkey,
the description may be said to fit it like a second skin. There is about
such a mind the emptiness of vanity coupled with all its noise--not
unlike the noise which coppers make when they jingle in an empty pocket.
Everything about it is brassy and loud--in fact it is a perfect
ophieleide of loudness that is always in full blow. It gives you the
headache to look at the owner of such a mind. Better to be right in the
middle of the orchestra than sit next to such a mind at the theatre: the
one is the soft murmur of Midsummer silence compared to the Cochin-China
cock-crowing of the other. It never whispers, but bawls, like the waiter
at a cook-shop. The mind bellows, like the poor fellows outside
RICHARDSON'S show--and the greater the bellowing the poorer the
entertainment, generally, within. Its presence is a continual jar--a jar
of sour and offensive things, like one of GOLDNER'S preserves. How it
swaggers! One would imagine the whole street belonged to it. It cannot
sneeze like other people, but makes ten times more noise than any sneeze
demands. It coughs to give notice of its arrival at any place--it bangs
the door to give notice of its departure. Its insolence insists upon the
best of everything--the seat nearest the fire, the best bedroom, the
best cuts at dinner, and the best attention from everybody. It always
takes the wall--it never gives way to anybody, not even to a lady. If
she wants more room, let her go into the mud! It keeps its hat on in the
presence of its superiors; but this is done more from ignorance than
bravado, for it never suspects for a moment that it has any superiors.
It stops contentedly in the middle of the room, arranges its two locks
of japanned hair, that descend like two pitcher-handles on each side of
its stony face; opens its legs, and admires its trousers with an air of
the most supreme satisfaction. The Trouser Mind rarely looks upward. The
head is to it a matter of very secondary importance, excepting as being
a block that carries so much hair. Its thoughts are all downward; and if
a person is introduced to it, the first survey is always to his boots
and trousers. It measures mankind by its nether garments. The other half
of the body is quite superfluous. In fact, the human body would, in the
opinion of the Trouser Mind, be greatly improved, if it could be so
contrived as to wear two pairs of trousers--one above and one below--and
each pair to be totally different. In the upper regions, a thunderstorm
of a pattern--in the lower, an earthquake.
* * * * *
A Confounded Bully.
Did NICHOLAS mean, say, ye schoolmen so clever,
To entreat he might not be confounded for ever;
Or, did he intend, with presumption unbounded,
To prefer a request to be never confounded?
The former supposed to have been his petition,
There is hope for him yet in unfeigned contrition;
The latter's past praying for--merely delusion:
Old NICK has already been put to confusion.
* * * * *
A CITY PROVERB.
(_To be imbibed whilst eating Turtle._)
"SPARE THE BIRCH (in Cornhill), and you'll spoil the Alderman."
* * * * *
THE MARCH OF INTELLECT.--Everybody walking into everybody else!
* * * * *
PROPOSALS FOR A NEW ART OF PUFFING.
It has long been felt that all the old arts of puffing have been
exhausted, and the consequence is that some of the most renowned masters
of the arts formerly in vogue have retired from a field in which nothing
more can be gathered. The poet has departed from the Mart of MOSES, and
the Muses that once hung round the brilliant jet of WARREN have deserted
those extensive premises in the Strand where every blacking-bottle used
to be, as it were, a jet of the Fount of Castaly.
The harp that once in WARREN'S Mart
The soul of Music shed,
Now mutely lies in WARREN'S cart,
Or under WARREN'S bed.
So sleeps the source of MOSES' lays,
So ROWLANDS' puffs are o'er;
And heads once wreathed in poets' bays
Are thumped for rhymes no more.
No more by stanzas, songs, and odes,
WARREN his blacking sells;
The van alone the carman loads,
The name of WARREN tells.
Thus MOSES' muse so seldom wakes;
The only sign she gives
Is when some silly rhymes she makes,
To show that still she lives.
Poetic puffing having been blown to its utmost extent until the
over-inflated windbag has burst and collapsed, the oratorical style of
puffing having departed with the late lamented GEORGE ROBINS, and the
narrative or anecdotal order of puffing having been abandoned by ROWLAND
AND SON, of scented memory, nothing remains but to invent a novelty.
Acknowledging, as we do, that "there is nothing new under the sun," we
sit down on a day when there is no sun to be seen, and on a misty
morning in December we ask ourselves whether something new under a fog
may not be perceptible. From the huge cauldron of pea-soup, which is
emblemed in the London atmosphere, we fancy we discern something, and a
new art of puffing is revealed to us in the shape of a Proposal to
combine the Commercial with the Comic, and to establish on the ruins of
WARREN'S fitful lyre and MOSES' muse's measures a system of comic
puffing, containing a joke in every announcement. In order to show how
the thing may be done, we give--gratis--a few specimens. We will begin
with a few jokes for Royal Tradesmen.
1st. The QUEEN'S shoemaker may advertise himself as "purveyor of shoes
to the whole of HER MAJESTY'S foot," and he may also add that "the good
footing on which Royalty stands with the people in this country is
entirely due to &c. &c., who makes the QUEEN'S shoes, and who sells
highlows, &c. &c. &c."
2nd. The QUEEN'S glover may announce that "the affection entertained by
the whole nation for the Royal Kids is entirely due to the fact that HER
MAJESTY buys all her gloves of &c. &c."
3rd. The QUEEN'S perfumer may ask conundrumically: "Why is Royalty in
such excellent odour in England? Because all the scents used in the
palace are purchased at &c. &c."
4th. The QUEEN'S hairdresser may--with a disregard to orthography which
is allowable in a perruquier and a punster--hazard the remark "that the
true secret of the grace and beauty which adorn the hair to the throne
is to be found in the fact that HER MAJESTY'S hair owes its
attractiveness to the hand of Nature and the pomade sold only by &c. &c.
&c."
We could multiply instances over and over again. But as our object is to
suggest a new mine of wealth to those literary men of our day who look
to the art of puffing as a mode of obtaining an occasional blow out, we
shall not proceed to forestall them in their labours, and take out of
their mouths one morsel of that bread which, to the utter consternation
of the poet, is now selling at elevenpence the quartern.
* * * * *
AN OLD LAMP AND A NEW ONE.
The scheme of the ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS for instituting a _fete_ under the
name of _Fete des Ecoles_, to promote learning in connexion with faith,
is a happy one. Everybody will agree in the sentiment expressed in his
pastoral, that "Religion and Science are the two lamps which enlighten
the world." And if by religion he means Popery, it may be permitted to
congratulate him that, happily for the human race, one of the lights
which he alludes to has put out the other's burning.
* * * * *
AN IMPROVEMENT.--The Russian army boasts of a PRINCE STIRBEY. We think
it would be an improvement, and only a just compliment to the aggressive
spirit of the Russians, to call him PRINCE DISTURBEY.
* * * * *
PROPHETS IN THE PARLOUR--GYPSIES IN THE KITCHEN.
[Illustration: W]
When SUSAN, maid-of-all-work in the regular and respectable family of
MR. POTTS--small Cityman, with ambition under his waistcoat to be some
day considerably bigger--when the aforesaid illiterate and superstitious
SUSAN, wishing to better herself--(a vanity that is unconsciously shared
with her even by MR. and MRS. POTTS themselves)--gives ready ear to
EGLANTINE PRIGDUCK, gypsey from Barnes or Norwood--EGLANTINE dealing in
husbands of every variety and at the shortest notice--and, giving ear to
the prophetic gypsey, gives her at the same time an opportunity to draw
into her Maelstrom pocket or wallet certain silver spoons, afterwards
identified by MR. POTTS--his own initials lovingly intertwining with the
initials of MRS. POTTS, with the family crest of a rampant lion licking
his tongue at posterity indubitably marking them as his property--
When, we say, SUSAN weeps and knocks her knees together, in a paroxysm
of terror before the worthy and respected MR. SIXMUNCE--and the
indomitable EGLANTINE looks callously innocent, calling all the stars to
witness that "the gal giv her the spoons as her own goods and nobody's
else's--"
When SUSAN is confronted with this alleged fact--the respectable part of
society of which MR. and MRS. POTTS are such very distinguished members,
shakes its head, and wonders how ignorance at eight pounds a year, tea
and sugar included, can be such a fool as to believe in a gypsey!
However, the benevolent MR. SIXMUNCE commits EGLANTINE to
Tothill-Fields, and--with one of those paternal remonstrances that have
won for him the proud designation of the Father of the Bench--dismisses
the grateful SUSAN to her kitchen, MR. and MRS. POTTS, with a sudden
benevolence, which causes them some after astonishment and
self-congratulation on their goodness, consenting to give the creature
another trial.
Now at the very time that SUSAN was opening her homely hand, that gypsey
EGLANTINE might read in its hard page the marriage lines of the hopeful
maiden (who is to give sixpence at most for the glad tidings; the spoons
being purely an after-thought of the gypsey's own)--at the very time
MRS. POTTS in her parlour is reading _Raphael's Prophetic Messenger_;
for the which she--the educated, finished MRS. POTTS; for was she not
beautifully finished at Athens House, Wandsworth?--for the which she
has, in the best faith and best current silver, disbursed
two-and-sixpence! Ignorance crieth out in the streets, and everybody
gives ear to her. Our _Messenger_ has, to be sure, a more winning
introduction than even the smiles and musical cajolery of EGLANTINE
PRIGDUCK. For it has a beautiful picture in which the events of 1854 are
brought out in bold red, and blue, and orange-tawney. LOUIS NAPLOLEON is
engaged chatting with BRITANNIA--(who is asking him to run across and
take a cup of tea in London, the British Lion at her side manifesting no
objection whatever)--the while a very hairy savage has a dagger upraised
at the EMPEROR'S back, and is evidently screwing himself up to "the
sticking place." There are mourning-coaches going to "take up" at
Windsor Castle, with other graphic amenities significant of what must
happen in the year 1854. And for this the enlightened MRS. POTTS (that
gypsey is still with SUSAN in the kitchen) has given two-and-sixpence;
and that too with the mighty resolution of getting her good half-crown's
worth out of it. Well, MRS. POTTS begins with January, turning very pale
as she learns this fact:--
"_The square of_ VENUS _and_ SATURN _denotes severe affliction to a
lady of the highest rank_. The tranquillity of France is disturbed;
much excitement reigns in Paris, Lyons, Toulouse, and Rome. Turkey
and the regions of the Tigris and Euphrates are sorely afflicted."
This lady--whoever she may be--has very sore afflictions throughout
twelvemonth; but then RAPHAEL must earn his half-crown's worth.
In February, MRS. POTTS is informed--(and thinks with a shiver of little
WILHELMINA who has not yet had the scarlet fever)--in February:
"MARS retrogrades to the opposition of the Moon in the radix of the
PRINCESS ALICE, and indicates a liability to feverish complaint or
accident."
MRS. POTTS has conjugal fears for the health of POTTS, and resolves to
insist upon gutta percha soles. In March--
"The retrogradation of MARS in VIRGO in opposition to VENUS, also
_retrogade in_ PISCES, _will stir up civil broils in Portugal;
treachery and conspiracies amongst the priesthood are directed
against the_ QUEEN _and Government of that country_."
Already, the poor QUEEN OF PORTUGAL sleeps in the tomb of the BRAGANZAS;
but even RAPHAEL cannot be always infallible; not even for half-a-crown!
April is big with events; or rather with one event that must swallow up
every other. MRS. POTTS is a playgoer, and with the sensibility of her
sex, would "ten to one rather see the _Corsican Brothers_ than
_Hamlet_." Therefore she reads the subjoined with corresponding
perturbation.
"Scandal or death awaits one renowned in the theatrical world."
This is in April! Perhaps on the first of April? It cannot be BARRY, the
deathless Clown, who shall be snatched from us? If, then, it should be
the--the--the "renowned"--but no! we will not, we _cannot_ think of it!
Ha! ha! ha! _Sardanapalus_ is himself again!
MAY is full of danger as of hawthorn. What _can_ the loyal MRS. POTTS
think of this?
"MARS hastens, _as it were_, to apply the torch to the train of evil
he has previously laid. _The highest power in the land is grievously
afflicted._ It is the earnest prayer of RAPHAEL, that the direful
influence of SATURN on the ascending degree and radical place of the
luminaries in our beloved Sovereign's horoscope may be averted."
But this is nothing. "The highest power" is continually threatened; a
prediction that, in the days of QUEEN BESS, would--we doubt not--have
helped RAPHAEL to the highest gibbet. Again RAPHAEL turns the penny upon
"our beloved Sovereign." In June, he says--
"I DARE NOT fully enter into ALL the important significations of
these positions and configurations. _I sincerely pray that the
health of our beloved Sovereign_ may be preserved, in which I am
assured her subjects will universally join."
(Do we not behold RAPHAEL on his bended knees, "sincerely praying," with
the half-crown in his mouth?) In July, however, our prophet makes
merchandize of the QUEEN'S children.
"Saturn transits the place of the Sun in the nativity of the
PRINCESS HELENA, producing a tendency _to disease in the chest_,
&c., at the end of June and beginning of July. The 7th and 8th _are
evil days_ for the PRINCE OF WALES, and the 19th for the PRINCE
ARTHUR. _Their attendants should carefully avoid accident._"
These would have made very "evil days" for our prophet; evil as pillory
and cart-whip could have shaped them. But we live in liberal times, and
the Astrologer may turn his half-crown upon the probable diseased chest
of the little PRINCESS HELENA, and the threatened dangers of PRINCES
ALBERT and ARTHUR!
MRS. POTTS reads in August that "the KING OF NAPLES should beware of
female intrigue, poison, or the assassin;" and--controlling her
emotion--turns over to September, where she learns among other not
impossible events that "great cruelty is displayed towards _some female_
about the 27th." MRS. POTTS thinks October a little slow. "Public
writers and scientific men are unsuccessful:" and what of that? "The
fine arts prosper!" Bother the fine arts: and straightway MRS. POTTS
passes to November, _when_
"Much excitement reigns throughout the land; the long talked of
invading army may, under these influences, make its appearance, and
ere many months '_the wolf will come_.'"
With the intuitive calculation of woman, MRS. POTTS wonders where on
earth she and POTTS are to sleep, if the Russians--which, of course, is
meant by the wolf--is quartered upon 'em?
But this is nothing to what is threatened in December. MRS. POTTS
continues to read with--very naturally--increasing fear and amazement.
Fear for HER MAJESTY the QUEEN, and amazement at things in general!
"Heaven preserve!"--cries the prophet in ominous tones--"Heaven preserve
the health of our Sovereign, and also of her people!"--ending with the
new version of a Dead March, set after this fashion:--
"Dark and gloomy clouds hover over us; and I regret to add that
during the year 1855 the significations are still fearfully evil. I
cannot at present discover one ray of hope."
What? Not for half-a-crown? Suppose, then, we make it
three-and-sixpence!
Now, whilst the POTTSES continue to read the _Prophetic Raphael_--(it is
the vagabond's "thirty-fourth year")--in the parlour--should they
wonder at, should they punish poor SUSAN with the gypsey in the kitchen?
Take care--oh, ye masters and mistresses!--of the half-crowns, and in
good time the spoons will take care of themselves.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
A GOOD HATER OF BLUE-STOCKINGS.
"If anything could increase my extreme horror of Blue-Stockings, it
would be the terrible suspicion I cannot divest myself of that every
Blue-Stocking drinks. I fancy that the only person she pays her devoirs
to--and those only in secret--is OLD TOM; and that it is as much as she
can do to keep her lips away from him. The suspicion is a very ungallant
one, but I cannot help imagining that when two Blue-Stockings get
together, they do love a good soaking. In fact, who was the goddess who
first gave her countenance to Gin? PALLAS, to be sure; and her very
origin was the result of a drunken frolic, for are we not told that she
came into the world during one of JOVE'S splitting headaches? Now PALLAS
is the confessed patroness of all Blue-Stockings; and as a public-house
is to this day called, in honour of her, a "Gin Pallas", it is not very
unreasonable to suppose that her _protegees_ are addicted to the same
terrible practice! It is sad, indeed, to think--and I only hope it is
not true--that the Tree of Knowledge should, with elderly ladies, be a
Juniper Tree."--_Anon._
* * * * *
PHRENOLOGICAL ORGAN MUSIC.
[Illustration: T]
The Philharmonic Concerts are tolerably good; those of the Sacred
Harmonic Society are pretty fair, but there is a musical entertainment
now going on which, if it realises the object it aims at, must beat
every other quite out of the field. A lady, MRS. HAMILTON, under the
title of "Practical Phrenologist," professes, by advertisement, to give
public performances, described by her as "Phrenology illustrated by
Music." The shallow punster will of course remark that he imagined that
the only organs susceptible of musical expression were those of the sort
invented by ST. CECILIA, and not such as were discovered by GALL and
SPURZHEIM; except that the phrenological organ of tune might, perhaps,
sing for itself. However, HANDEL may be considered to have illustrated
the organ of Veneration in his Oratorios; WEBER that of Marvellousness
in his _Der Freischuetz_ and _Oberon_; BEETHOVEN that of Ideality and the
organs of the other sentiments proper to man, in combination with those
of the reflective faculties, in his symphonies and sonatas; BELLINI and
DONIZETTI the organs of Adhesiveness and Amativeness. ROSSINI might also
be adduced as an illustrator of Gaiety or Mirthfulness, and Imitation,
or the dramatic organ. But MRS. HAMILTON'S music, which is to illustrate
Phrenology at large, and consequently all the organs, must, if it
accomplishes as much as it attempts, be equal to HANDEL'S, BEETHOVEN'S,
WEBER'S, ROSSINI'S, BELLINI'S, DONIZETTI'S; indeed to the music of all
the great composers put together. She must be a sort of musical
SHAKSPERE--than whom nobody else ever succeeded in giving illustrations
of Phrenology, or the philosophy of human nature, at large.
To illustrate the whole of Phrenology by Music in one evening must be
impossible. The shortest way to do it would be by means of a symphony,
consisting of no less than thirty-five movements, if we are to consider
the "Love of Life" and "Alimentiveness" as established organs. The
latter of these might he elucidated, musically, by the introduction of
"_The Roast Beef of Old England_;" for the former, just now, the best
notion would, perhaps, be the Russian National Anthem turned into a
fugue, to signify PRINCE GORTSCHAKOFF'S troops saving themselves as fast
as possible from OMAR PACHA. But a series of performances would be
required by the extensive nature of the subject; for any one organ,
taken in all its combinations, might be played upon for a whole evening.
Some of the organs are susceptible enough of musical treatment:
"Philoprogenitiveness," or the instinct of paternal and maternal
affection, but more especially of the latter, has its melody in the
music of nature, as heard in the nursery, or issuing therefrom, mellowed
by distance--the mellower from that cause the better. The effect in
question MRS. HAMILTON (who appears to be a Scottish lady) might produce
by the judicious employment--it would have to be judicious--of the
bagpipes. "Acquisitiveness" rejoices in the jingling of money, which
might be expressed by means of the triangles, introducing the
appropriated air of "_Still so gently o'er me stealing_." "Self-esteem"
would blow its own trumpet, of course; the want of it being expressed by
transition to a minor key. "Destructiveness" could be disposed of by a
crash. "Combativeness" might come out in the drums and fifes. "Firmness"
might persist in a violoncello accompaniment. "Cautiousness," slow and
sure, would speak in a gentle _adagio_. A lively _allegretto_ would
represent "Wit." The music of Masonry would supply some hints for
"Constructiveness." There are organs, however, which may rather puzzle a
composer. No harmonious measures that one can well imagine would give
any idea of "Form" or "Size," and "Locality" would seem to be quite out
of the musical way.
MRS. HAMILTON informs the public, that she will lecture on living heads
from the audience, assisted by the celebrated MRS. CARTER, "the JENNY
LIND of Scotland." Hence, it seems that the music will be, partly at
least, vocal. It may be surmised that MRS. HAMILTON'S lecture consists
principally of recitative, which would be more suitable than an _aria_,
a _bravura_, a _canzonet_, or a part in a duet, to the statement of
anatomical and physiological facts. MRS. CARTER, we are told, will sing
Scotch, English, and Irish songs. There is an Irish song called
"_Donnybrook Fair_," which alludes strongly to the shillelagh, and may
therefore be conceived to be very pertinent to bumps. England,
doubtless, has ballads adapted to various organs besides the grinding;
and in addition to "_John Andersen my Jo_," and many other songs of the
affective faculties, there is a particular Scotch song that might be
very useful to a lecturer on Phrenology. MRS. HAMILTON, in lecturing on
living heads, may be obliged to describe the upper story of some
gentleman as being similar in its build to that of the late MR. RUSH.
Any unpleasant feeling, or objection on his part to such a statement,
might be quelled by MRS. CARTER immediately striking up, "_A man's a man
for a' that_."
Whether Phrenology is made any clearer or not by MRS. HAMILTON'S musical
illustrations of it, we dare say that those illustrations are anyhow
very well worth hearing.
* * * * *
FINE FEEDERS.
It appears that the Sheriffs of London are fined from L500 to L600, in
the guise of a subscription to the LORD MAYOR'S Dinner. Now this is a
tolerable fork-out, for any one who can stand it, even if destined to
the promotion of a high object, but considering what kind of purpose it
is actually squandered on, we must call it a knife-and-fork-out that is
quite intolerable.
* * * * *
THE CZAR'S CHECK.
The EMPEROR OF RUSSIA has drawn his money out of the Bank of England,
which he seems to identify with that of the Danube, whereon a handsome
check was presented to him by the Turks.
* * * * *
PRETTY LITTLE THOUGHT.--The Squirrel jumps from branch to branch, the
Flirt from beau to beau.
* * * * *
A REAL SCOTTISH GRIEVANCE.--LORD ABERDEEN.
* * * * *
KNOWLEDGE.--The Offspring of Thought, but much oftener an Adopted
Child.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "A BURST WITH THE HARRIERS IN THE WEST."
"I AX YER PARDON FOR STOPPING OF YE, SIR, BUT COULD YE LEND ME A GIRTH?
MINE'S A BROKEN."]
* * * * *
MRS. JANE GIMLET ON "CRUELTY TO WIVES."
"_Yeast Lane, Grinnidge, Haithedesemburhatingfiftethre._
"HONNURD MISTUR PUNCH,
"Heerin from them as nose u, that u wos allus a stikler for wimmins
rites, i use no serrymony in a dressin of u wuns more, on beharf of my
seks, as may well be called a fare seks to distinguish hit from yurn, as
is allus tretin ourn so unfarely. For Surr, feemul flesh an blud cante
abear no longer the way in wich husbans is a goin on, not that I speke
of JON, wich is a good cretur, tho in respek of bein a man, he cante
help aggrawatin sumtimes, but have never liff his hand upon me, an nose
better than to try it on agin wun as can scrub ten flores a day, or git
up a wekes wosh for a large famly in fore an twenty hours. But sum of my
naybors as air not blesst with a good sperrit and constant maniwal
heksersise, do get put upon terribul, an hime sure if u could see the
pore creeturs a shoin of eche huther their oonds an brooses, for hall
the world like hold soldiers after a battel, an here wun on em sain, 'My
man give me this here gashly oond on my cheke bone with a smoothin
hiren, last Wensday wos a weke;' an hanuther, tellin ow her JIM take an
run a bradorle into her sholder, an swore hede skru her to the wall; an
a thurd hexplainin ow her husban cum home drunk wen she wos aslepe, an
tride to pitch her out of winder (wich she live up three pair o stares)
an sed hede thro her litel wuns a top of her, and ood a done it too,
honely her naybors cum in an purwented him, just as she wos amost spent
with screechin an prayin, an hangin on by her highlids;--if u cood see
an here all this an more too, as I sees an heres hevery day ude fele ure
blud a bilin in ure wanes, fit to bleech ure werry skin. An then wots
our remmydie? 'Lor,' I sez to NANCY JONES, the huther day, wen I see her
cummin doun the lain with a blak hi, and her gownd tore, an hever so
much of her bak hare torn hout by the rutes, wich her BILL had held
hisself on by it, wile he punched her ed, 'Lor' I sez 'NANCY, if JON
pull my hare so, od rabbit it, hide polecee him.' 'Donte tell,' sez she
'wot's the gude of poleecin of im? Poleece wood get him siks moneths an
ard labor, an hoos to purwide for me an litel JAK, an ROSE JULEENER, an
HAGONES, an SOFIER, wile hese enjoying of hisself in prizzen? He do kepe
us now, and wede better liv and be bete, than keep hole bones an git no
bred.'
"An she do speke no more than the plane truthe, Surr. Poleecin of a
husban punishes the wife and not im. Prizzen gives im a warmer rufe over
his ed than he ad afore; prizzen fare cunis more reglar than his hone,
an cante be no planer nor harder nor scantier than wot he ave leff;
prizzen reggulashuns kepes im clener an elthier an cumfurtabeller than
he cood be in hour corts an hallies, an if prizzen labour wos from siks
in the mornin till siks in the hevenin, its honely wot hese bin hused
to. But the wife of his buzzum, as ave bin harf murdered by him, have to
slave and drive to kepe bred in the mouths of _his_ children (an say
NANCY JONES, 'if it wosn't for the children, Ide ave give im back his
ring at the werry fust nok he giv me'), an must wurk arder than hany
HUNCLE TOM as ever wos, or go to the workus, wich few peepul can abide,
an hall this she must do in the hexpektashun of seein of im out agin, an
of the preshus hidin she'll git at their next appy meetin. An so many a
pore creetur nevver peeches on the man as is a killin of her, lest she
shood bring herself to dounrite starvashun. But, Surr, if husbands wos
to get as good as they gave, an have a preshus good hidin with a
catoninetales hevery time they bete their wives, praps the smart of
their own flesh wood teche em not to make huther peepul suffer, and if
they wos flogged nere their one homes, the other brutes as node em, and
as is naterally kowherdly, would kepe their hands off their wives wen
they sede wot theid get by betin of em. An so I ope ule try to bring
about corpral's punishment for such offences, wich i suppose it is so
called becos the corprals does the floggin in the harmy, and hoblidge
your
"Humbel charcoman,
"JANE GIMLET."
* * * * *
THE LIVERY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
After the very conspicuous manner in which the City Corporation has been
busying itself in the matter of PRINCE ALBERT'S Statue, the Livery of
the City of London should be immediately altered to that which is
usually worn at Court. As the Aldermen and others do not mind appearing
before the public as flunkeys of PRINCE ALBERT, the least they can do is
to wear His Royal Highness's livery.
* * * * *
THREE THINGS MODERN YOUNG MEN CULTIVATE.--The acquaintance of a young
lady with plenty of money--shirt collars as high as a garden wall--and a
moustache.
* * * * *
NEGLECTED SCOTLAND.
[Illustration]
A sensible Scotchman writing from Haddington to the _Times_, says that
"the real grievances of Scotland are not her insulted Lions, nor her
deserted Holyrood," but lie in "her ill-paved, worse-lighted and
undrained market-towns, and in the incurable apathy of the inhabitants
to sanitary reform."
This gentleman says that, on Tuesday last, at a meeting of the
inhabitants of Haddington, it was proposed to adopt the drainage clauses
of the New Police Act. After an earnest and solemn appeal from their
parish minister imploring them "to unite with heart and hand in bringing
the influences of pure air and water to bear on the wretched homes of
their poorer brethren," followed by an awful warning from a medical
officer of the town, "the householders (many of them wealthy men)"
rejected, by a majority of ten to one, a bill for their assessment, in
order to have their streets and houses cleansed, at the rate of 10_d._
in the pound.
A week previously, the SCOTCHMAN states, the Haddingtonians had devoted
a day to fasting and humiliation in the hope that the pestilence might
be averted from them.
Fasting involves self-denial. The Haddington fasters cannot deny
themselves to the amount of 10_d._ in the pound. They cannot fling that
tenpence into the gutter, to sweep it, although the gutter is poisoning
their poor neighbours, and may poison themselves too.
Christians are supposed to wash their faces when they fast. Whether the
Haddington housekeepers accompany their fasting with any ablution may be
doubted, since they refuse to pay 10_d._ in the pound for washing their
town. By preference, for cheapness sake, they would rather perhaps fast
in sackcloth and ashes; but as all sackcloth is now used up in sacks,
whilst ashes are carted away for manure, their fasting possibly consists
in wearing their usual clothes, and sitting still in their usual filth,
and doing nothing. Whether they abstain from anything else--from haggis
or sheep's head, or collops, or whiskey-toddy--in addition to abstinence
from wholesome exertion--we do not know.
As to the Scotch Lion playing second fiddle in the Royal Arms, he may
bless the sometime DUKE OF ARGYLE and his stars, and be contented to
have any place there to fiddle in at all. By all heraldic right he ought
to be ousted altogether, and his place should be occupied by the more
appropriate emblem of a Pig; a whining, grunting, odoriferous Hog
Rampant, sprawling in the filth of towns.
* * * * *
GARE LA GAROTTE.
Our friend and contemporary the _Sunday Times_ (whose zeal for the
spread of Democracy, for the non-suppression of Betting Houses, and for
the purification of the Turf and the Church, we gladly recognise), in
commenting upon an excellent article in which the daily _Times_
dissuades the charitable from encouraging street mendicancy, has the
following startling remarks:--
"While on this part of the subject, we would suggest the impolicy of
withholding from the metropolitan mendicants, whether impostors or
not, the scanty means of support....We would counsel the old ladies
and gentlemen _not to hold their hands_, lest the sturdy vagabond,
who now contents himself with extracting pence from their humanity
by whining, _should take to strangling them in the dark streets_, as
some members of the fraternity have lately done in Manchester."
Really, _Mr. Punch_, who believes that in his time he has done no bad
service to the cause of real Democracy (by which he means a system for
the benefit of the many and not of the few), begs to say that these
utterances by the "Champion of Democracy," are more worthy of one of the
ruined clients of the _Sunday Times_, the Betting House Keepers (who may
now be properly termed vagabonds), than of a respectable journalist with
his faculties in order. Threatening decent people with strangulation
because they decline to assist imposture, is rather a strong argument.
Luckily, there be things called Policemen.
* * * * *
_PUNCH_ AND HIS PIPPINS.
The "immediate apple of our eye" is an American apple, which we happen
to have in our eye at the present moment. It is not an apple of discord,
but an apple which comes home to our very heart's core with its
assurances of friendship. A Correspondent, who signs himself "THE
AMERICAN ENTHUSIAST," has allowed his enthusiasm to take the very
sensible turn of a present of apples to _Punch_, who, while receiving
it, proceeds to cut it up; and, like some critics, shows his taste by
making mince-meat of it. We have perused the whole of the apples with
great satisfaction, and though we might find a spot here and there, the
blemish is only on the surface; for when we descend a little lower than
skin deep, we find the apple quite worthy of the appellation of the
American Prince of Pippins, which we hereby confer on it.
* * * * *
INTEREST FOR PRINCE ALBERT'S STATUE.
Give PRINCE ALBERT a Statue?--Yes, certainly, at the proper time; may it
not arrive for a thousand years! But when it does arrive, up with the
Statue; a Statue which shall have been merited by a highly useful life,
whereof the promotion of the cosmopolitan fair in Hyde Park will have
been one only among the remarkable acts. In the mean time, that the
memorial may be worthy of the hero, put the money already subscribed
towards it out to increase and accumulate; by which means, in addition
to the interest which our descendants will take in the work, we shall
also transmit to them compound interest that will help to pay for it.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A CASE OF REAL DISTRESS.]
* * * * *
Political Ins and Outs.
Everybody thought LORD PALMERSTON a thorough-going Reformer, but since
he has left the Cabinet it would appear--from the _Times_--that his
Lordship refused to remain in, because he is an out-and-out Tory.
A COLLECTIVE BEING.--A Tax gatherer.
* * * * *
HARD DEALING WITH A HAWKER.
[Illustration: K]
Know, all men, that Falconry is no longer a British pastime, but Hawking
continues to be practised, though, like Shooting, it is not lawful
without a license, and in that case is punishable by a swinging fine.
The _Sussex and Kent Mail_ contains a distressing illustration of this
fact; which we subjoin:--
"TUNBRIDGE WELLS. PETTY SESSION,
Nov. 12.
"_Before_ J. DEANE, ESQ.
"HAWKING WITHOUT A LICENSE.--MICHAEL DERLEY was brought up in
custody, charged with selling mats without a license. The accused
did not deny the charge, but contended that he had a right to do so,
as he manufactured the articles himself. He had done the same thing
in hundreds of towns, and had never before been interrupted; _he had
his mother and brother to support, both of whom were deaf and dumb_.
"MR. DEANE inquired if the prisoner had been cautioned, and on
receiving a reply in the affirmative (from P. C. MORGAN) intimated
that he could not allow the statement of the prisoner to influence
his decision. The tradesmen of the town, as well as persons taking
out licenses for hawking, must be protected, and he (the prisoner)
must pay a _fine of_ L10, _or go to prison for seven days_.
"The prisoner requested MR. DEANE to inform him under what Act he
was committed.
"MR. DEANE declined to give the information.
"The Clerk to the prisoner--You can find that out when you get to
gaol."
Is there any mistake here? Was it for stealing mats that the prisoner
was committed instead of being sent to gaol for selling them? If not,
does there exist a law so atrocious as to warrant his committal?--if
there is no such law, breathes there such a magistrate as MR. DEANE? And
does Mr. Deane continue to hold a place on the Bench?
The poor man appears to have had a judge, as well as a mother and a
brother, afflicted with deafness, if not dumb. MR. DEANE was deaf to his
appeal for mercy, and dumb when challenged to justify his punishment. We
cannot say, we hope that DERLEY obtained the information which he was so
kindly informed that he might seek for in gaol. If no Act existed to
warrant his incarceration, he would have a legal remedy for what
morally, at any rate, was a false imprisonment.
* * * * *
DEBATE ON THE HUDSON QUESTION.
(_By slight Anticipation._)
IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT--Monday, 13th February, 1854.
HOUSE OF LORDS.
Their Lordships met at 5, but rose immediately, in order to afford
various Peers an opportunity of hearing what was going on elsewhere.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Petitions having been presented, notices of motion given, and questions
disposed of.
MR. ROEBUCK rose to bring on the motion which he had placed on the book.
He said he should be very short (_A laugh_). He could not express his
loathing and contempt for the vulgar and brutal ribaldry which could
find matter for a grin in a man's appearance. He should be temperate, as
all the world knew he always was (_Hear, hear_), and should merely read
to the House an extract from a document to which the Hon. Member for
Sunderland had sworn, and which that Hon. Member had placed on record in
a Court of Justice, in which MR. HUDSON--(_Order_) What was the use of
the servile pedantry that adhered to rotten forms? (_Order_.) Well, in
which the honourable--very honourable--right honourable--would that
do?--Member swore that he had expended certain moneys, or used other
means, in bribing and corrupting members of the legislature to favour
railway schemes in which he was interested. Conceiving that a legislator
who could bring such a charge against his fellows was utterly unfit to
sit among them, he should--without the least personal feeling--move that
MR. GEORGE HUDSON be expelled the House of Commons (_Hear, hear_).
MR. HENRY DRUMMOND seconded the motion, but only for the purpose of
saying that he perfectly believed every word to which MR. HUDSON had
sworn (_Hear, hear_). He had last session given Lords and Commons, aye,
and Ministers and Knights of the Garter too, his opinion of the extent
to which corruption was carried in these days, and he reiterated his
assertions. Still, though offences were to come, woe to them by whom
they came, and therefore he should support MR. ROEBUCK.
The SPEAKER having put the motion,
LORD JOHN RUSSELL, as leader of that House, said that he should make
very few remarks on a very painful subject. He had carefully looked into
Magna Charta, and also into the Bill of Rights, and was inclined to
believe that neither made any provision for the case of a railway
director who should endeavour to promote steam-traffic by unlawful
means. So far they were in the dark. But it was desirable, nay,
necessary, to consider rather the spirit of the constitution than its
exact letter, and he thought that if the House would refer the matter to
a Select Committee, they might attain their object. The instruction to
that Committee would be to inquire, first, whether steam carriages were
known in the days of KING JOHN, and if not, whether any portion of Magna
Charta appeared to bear on the case. Next, he thought, the Committee
might inquire whether, at the Revolution, steam travelling had been
invented, and how far the Bill of Rights might have contemplated
wrongful Railway Bills. On receiving the report the House would
determine on its next step. (_Hear._) He moved an amendment in
accordance with his suggestion.
MR. DISRAELI was the last person to infuse into a question any element
not patently consanguineous with it; but, with all deference to the
noble Lord, he must respectfully inquire whether the noble Lord's
suggestion did not tend to the implicit stultification of the House.
Why, the noble Lord asked the Committee what he had already told them
himself, and did not ask that which it was momentous to register;
namely, whether in the chancery archives a damnatory record had been
deposited. (_Hear, hear_.)
COLONEL SIBTHORP said that the noble Lord professed a great deal of
virtue, which was all humbug. _Facilis descensus Averni_. He believed
all Ministers to be knaves, especially when they most pretended to
decency. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._ He should leave the House
(_laughter_); but before he went, he would just say that if the noble
Lord, instead of wallowing in turtle and champagne (_laughter_), would
introduce wise measures, he should be supported by wise men, himself
amongst the rest. _Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur._
MR. G. H. MOORE said that had MR. HUDSON been an Irish Member he would
have been expelled long ago, but such was the beastly bitterness of
England towards his, MR. MOORE'S, unhappy countrymen that, as MR. HUDSON
usually sat near the Irish Members, he was allowed to remain there in
the hopes that he might contaminate the high and pure morality which
they had learned from their beloved priests, and which shed a holy and
blessed light around their path, to the utter discomfiture of the
bigoted, blatant, and blasphemous Protestants.
MR. LUCAS confirmed MR. MOORE'S statement as to the virtues of the
Irish, and the wickedness of the English, and made an animated attack
upon the Church of England, adding an affecting history of the
persecutions to which Catholics were exposed in Protestant countries.
MR. DUFFY, MR. SCULLY, CAPTAIN MAGAN, and other Irish Members having
dilated upon this branch of the subject for about two hours, LORD
PALMERSTON suggested--he hoped that as--a--a--an Irish proprietor, he
might be permitted to offer a hint to Irish gentlemen (_laughter and
cheers_), that they were a little departing from the points which
perhaps offered themselves most prominently; at any rate--a--a--so it
seemed to him. (_Hear._) Perhaps it might be advantageous on the present
occasion to--a--a--sink the POPE. (_Great uproar on the Irish bench._)
Of course he meant nothing offensive to His--a--a--Holiness.
(_Laughter._) Honourable gentlemen had certainly travelled very far, but
they seemed to have avoided Hudson's Bay. (_Shouts of laughter and
cheers._) He thought, really, that as the Hon. Member for Sunderland was
present, he might be asked whether he had anything to say for himself.
English gentlemen were not in the habit of acting harshly or
inconsiderately. (_Loud cheers._)
AN IRISH MEMBER (_indignantly_). "Are Irish?"
LORD PALMERSTON (_laughing_). "_Qui capit ille facit_", you know."
There were then calls for--
MR. HUDSON, who rose and said, "My position is noways pleasant, and I
shall not intrude long upon the ouse. In the first place I never said,
exactually, that I had bribed members of the legislature, but only that
I had applied shares in a way calculated to promote the interests of a
certain company. What I've said, I've sworn to; and what I've sworn to,
I stick to, of course. I don't see anything to be ashamed of in what I
have done; but people differ on these points, and every man has a right
to his own opinion. The ouse can do as it likes. But one thing I do mean
to say, and that is, that if the ouse has a bad opinion of me, I've a
precious bad opinion of a good many people in the ouse, and out of it
too. What was I? A provincial shopkeeper, who was lucky enough to make a
deal of money. Very well. Did I court Dukes, and Markisses, and M.P.'s,
and orficers in the Guards, and dowagers, and debbytarntes, and all
that? Not I. They courted me. They came to my ouse, and ate my dinners,
and flattered my family, because I'd got a load of money, no matter how;
and because some of 'em thought they'd get a slice, the others wanted me
to put 'em up to dodges to get money for themselves. Same in this ouse.
I couldn't come in here, when I was rich, as the right hon. gentleman in
the cheer has seen and knows, but a mob of young aristocrats, aye and
old ones too, all gathered round my white waistcoat, and were all
fawning and affable, and jocose like. Now, see how they keep away; and
if I run against them, some cut me, some only nod. Is it because I'm
worse than I was? No, only because I'm worse off. My golden sunshine
brought out the vermin, and now that's gone they're gone too. You may
expel me, but you can't make me forget, when I had my big ouse which the
French have taken, how Lords, and Barnets, and Guardsmen, and the Hort
No Bless, and their females crawled and cringed and fawned to the rich
Yorkshire linendraper. And if I git right, as I don't doubt to do, I
shall have 'em round me again. Money does the trick in England, and it's
despicable cant to say it don't. I am in the ands of the ouse."
The Hon. Member's address caused considerable sensation, especially
among certain strangers in the privileged galleries. MR. HENRY DRUMMOND
was observed to rub his hands with much enjoyment. LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S
amendment was negatived without a division, MR. ROEBUCK'S motion was
then carried, and, on the motion of MR. WILSON, a new writ was ordered
for Sunderland, vacant by the expulsion of MR. GEORGE HUDSON.
* * * * *
THE FASHIONABLE ZOOLOGICAL STAR.
We are sorry to see that the Zoological Gardens have lately got into the
"Star system." Not content with a good working company of bears and
monkeys, they must have particular "Stars" to bring the million in. Some
time ago it was a hippopotamus, who made all London run after him. Then
there was the baby elephant, who was a source of great interest to
mothers. After them followed a chimpanzee, and a serpent-charmer, and a
whole forest-full of humming-birds, and we cannot recollect what else.
All of them, however, were great attractions in their way; in fact, it
may be said that the animals lately have completely taken the shine out
of the actors. As the theatres have gradually become more empty, the
Zoological Gardens have perceptibly become more crowded. What actor,
recently, has had anything like the success that for a whole season ran
panting, pushing and squeezing after the Hippopotamus? It was a fight of
parasols to get near him--it was a joy greater than that of a new gown
to have seen him! What is the reason of this strange preference? Is it
because the public prefer Nature to Art?--or is it because the actors
speak, and the animals do not?
However, the "Star system" is not likely to be so ruinous here as at
most places of entertainment. We need not say that the Zoological Stars
receive no salaries, beyond their board and lodging; and they are not
likely to ruin their managers with salaries like those. They are paid
regularly every day at the usual feeding hour, and we have not heard of
an instance of any animal, no matter how popular he may have been,
having struck for more beans, or refusing to make his appearance unless
he had a double allowance of paunches.