In order that the softest possible lining may be given to the carriages,

let the interior be covered with copies of Sibthorp’s speeches as

densely as possible.

We have not yet been able to find a remedy for the remarkable practice

which prevails in some railways of sending a passenger, like a bank-

note, cut in half, for better security.

[pg 166] THE POLITICAL EUCLID.—NO. 2. PROP. I.—PROBLEM. To describe an

Independent Member upon a given indefinite line of politics.

Sawyers in the woods form a letter L. et C R, or Conservative Reform, be

the given indefinite line—it is required to describe on C R an

independent member.

A geometric diagram. With the centre Reform, and at the distance of

Conservatism, describe G B and M—or Graham, Brougham, and Melbourne—the

extremes of the Whig Administration of 1834.

With the centre Conservatism, and at the distance of Reform, describe G

B and P—or Graham, Buckingham, and Peel—the extremes of the Tory

Administration of 1841.

From the point Graham, where the administrations cut one another, draw

the lines Graham and Reform, and Graham and Conservatism.

Then Graham and Conservative Reform is an independent member.

For because Reform was the centre of the Whig Administration, Graham,

Brougham, and Melbourne

Therefore Graham and Reform was the same as Reform with a shade

Conservatism.

And because Conservatism is the centre of the Tory Administration,

Graham, Buckingham, and Peel

Therefore Graham and Conservatism is the same as Conservatism with a

shade Reform

Therefore Graham and Conservatism is the same as Graham and Reform

Therefore Graham is either a Conservative or a Reformer, as the case may

require.

And therefore he is a Conservative Reformer—

Wherefore, having three sides, which are all the same to him—viz.

Reform, Conservatism, and himself—he is an independent member, and has

been described as a Conservative Reformer.

Quod erat double-face-iendum.

PROP. II.—PROBLEM. From a given point to draw out a Radical Member to a

given length.

Let A or his ancestors be the given point, and an A s s the given

length; it is required to draw out upon the point of his ancestors a

Radical member equal to an A s s.

A geometric diagram. Connect the A s s with A, his ancestors.

On the A s s and A his ancestors, describe an independent member S R I,

Sir Robert Inglis.

Then with S R I, Sir Robert Inglis, draw out the A s s to G L and S A,

or great literary and scientific attainments.

And with S R I, Sir Robert Inglis, let R Roebuck, be got into a line

upon A, his ancestors.

With the A s s in the middle, describe the circulation of T N, or

“Times” newspaper.

And with SRI, Sir Robert Inglis, as the centre, describe the Circle of

the H of C, or House of Commons.

Then R A, or Roebuck on his ancestors, equals an A s s.

For because the A s s was in the middle of T N, or “Times” newspaper.

Therefore the rhodomontade of G L and S A, or great literary and

scientific attainments, was equal to the braying of an A s s.

And because S R I, or Sir Robert Inglis, was in the centre of H C, or

House of Commons.

Therefore S R I on G L and S A, or Sir Robert Inglis on the great

literary and scientific attainments, was only to be equalled by S R I

and R, or Sir Robert Inglis and Roebuck.

But Sir R I is always equal to himself.

Therefore the remainder, A R, or Roebuck on his ancestors, is equal to

the remaining G L and S A, or great literary and scientific attainments.

But G L and S A, or the great literary and scientific attainments, have

been shown to be equal to those of an A s s.

And therefore R A, or Roebuck on his ancestors, is equal to an A s s.

Wherefore, from a given point, A, his ancestors, has been drawn out a

Radical member, R, Roebuck, equal to an A s s.

Quod erat sheep-face-iendum.

PROP. III.—PROBLEM From the greater opposition of two members to a given

measure to cut, off a part, so as it may agree with the less.

Let P C and W R, or Peel the Conservative and Wakley the Radical,

represent their different oppositions to the New Poor Law, to which that

of W R, or Wakley the Radical, is greater than that of Peel the

Conservative—it is required to cut off from W R, or Wakley the Radical’s

opposition a part, so that it may agree with that of P C, or Peel the

Conservative.

A geometric diagram. From W, or Wakley, draw W T, or Wakley the Trimmer,

the same as P C, or Peel the Conservative.

With the centre W or Wakley, and to the extremity of T trimming,

describe the magic circle P L A C E.

Cutting W R or Wakley the Radical in B P, his Breeches Pocket.

Then W B P or Wakley and his Breeches Pocket, agrees with Peel the

Conservative.

For because the circle P L A C E is described about W or Wakley

Therefore W B P or Wakley and his Breeches Pocket, is of the same

opinion as W T or Wakley the Trimmer.

But W T or Wakley the Trimmer, agrees with Peel the Conservative.

Therefore W B P or Wakley and his Breeches Pocket, agrees with P C or

Peel the Conservative.

Wherefore, from the greater opposition of W R, Wakley the Radical, to

the New Poor Law, is cut off, W B P, Wakley and his Breeches Pocket,

which exactly coincides with the minor opposition of P C or Peel the

Conservative.

Quod erat brazen-face-iendum.

THE VALUE OF STOCKS—LAST QUOTATION. During a rural ramble, the ex-

premier was diverted from the mental Shakesperian sustenance derived

from “chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy,” by an importunate

appeal from a reckless disorderly, who was doing penance for his anti-

teetotal propensities, by performing a two hours’ quarantine in the

village stocks. So far from sympathising with the fast-bound sufferer,

his lordship, in a tone of the deepest regret, deplored, that he had

himself not been so tightly secured in his place, as, had that been the

case, he would still have been provided with

A man with his feet in stocks. BOARD AND LODGING FOR A SINGLE MAN.

THE LINEN-DRAPER OF LUDGATE. Shop fronts are daily “higher” raised.

Our master’s “ire” as often;

Would they but raise our “hire” a bit,

’Twould much our mis’ries soften!

THE SHOPMEN—POOR DEVILS

[pg 167] SPANISH POLITICS. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) “Pampeluna,

Oct. 1.

“An event has just occurred which will doubtless change the dynasty of

the Spanish succession before I have finished my letter. At eleven

o’clock this morning, several officers were amusing themselves at

picquet in a coffee-house. One having played the king, another cried

out, ‘Ay, the king! Vivat! Down with the Queen! Don Carlos for ever!’

This caused a frightful sensation, and the National Guards are now on

their way to blockade the house.

“One o’clock, P.M.—The National Guards have joined the Carlists, and the

regulars are at this moment flying to arms.

“Two o’clock.—The royal troops are defeated, and Don Carlos is now being

proclaimed King of Spain, &c.”

(FROM ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT.) “Madrid, Oct. 2.

“The nominal reign of Don Carlos, commenced at Pampeluna, has been but

of short duration. A diversion has taken place in favour of the husband

of the Queen Regent—Munos, who, having been a private soldier, is

thought by his rank and file camaradoes to have a prior claim to Don

Carlos. They have revolted to a man, and the Carlists tremble in their

boots.

“Six o’clock, A.M.—The young Queen has fled the capital—Munos is our new

King, and his throne will no doubt be consolidated by a vigorous

ministry.

“Seven o’clock, A.M.—News has just arrived from Pampeluna that the

Carlists are so disgusted with the counter-revolution, that a counter-

counter-revolution having taken place amongst the shopkeepers, in favour

of the Queen Regent, the Carlists have joined it. After all, the Queen

Mother will doubtless permanently occupy the throne—at least for a day

or two.

“Eight o’clock.—News has just arrived from Biscay of a new revolt,

extending through all the Basque provinces; and they are only waiting

for some eligible pretender to come forward to give to this happy

country another ruler. Advices from all parts are indeed crowded with

reports of a rebellious spirit, so that a dozen revolutions a-week may

be assuredly anticipated during the next twelvemonth.”

SONGS OF THE SEEDY.—No. 4. And must we part?—well, let it be;

’Tis better thus, oh, yes, believe me;

For though I still was true to thee,

Thou, faithless maiden, wouldst deceive me.

Take back this written pledge of love,

No more I’ll to my bosom fold it;

The ring you gave, your faith to prove,

I can’t return—because I’ve sold it!

I will not ask thee to restore

Each gage d’armour, or lover’s token,

Which I had given thee before

The links between us had been broken.

They were not much, but oh! that brooch,

If for my sake thou’st deign’d to save it,

For that, at least, I must encroach,—

It wasn’t mine, although I gave it.

The gem that in my breast I wore,

That once belonged unto your mother

Which, when you gave to me, I swore

For life I’d love you, and no other.

Can you forget that cheerful morn,

When in my breast thou first didst stick it?—

I can’t restore it—it’s in pawn;

But, base deceiver—that’s the ticket.

Oh, take back all, I cannot bear

These proofs of love—they seem to mock it;

There, false one, take your lock of hair—

Nay, do not ask me for the locket.

Insidious girl! that wily tear

Is useless now, that all is ended:

There is thy curl—nay, do not sneer,

The locket’s—somewhere—being mended.

The dressing-case you lately gave

Was fit, I know, for Bagdad’s caliph;

I used it only once to shave,

When it was taken by the bailiff.

Than thou didst give I bring back less;

But hear the truth, without more dodging—

The landlord’s been with a distress,

And positively cleared my lodging.

CONS. BY O CONNELL. What English word expresses the Latin for

cold?—“Jelly”-does (Gelidus).

Why is a blackleg called a sharper?—Because he’s less blunt than other

men.

Why is a red-herring like a Mackintosh?—Because it keeps one dry all

day.

PUNCH’S THEATRE. OLD MAIDS. Sir Philip Brilliant is a gentleman of

exquisite breeding—a man of fashion, with a taste for finery, and

somewhat of a fop. He reveals his pretty figure to us, arrayed in all

the glories of white and pink satins, embellished with flaunting

ribbons, and adorned with costly jewels. His servant is performing the

part of mirror, by explaining the beauties of the dress, and trying to

discover its faults: his researches for flaws are unavailing, till his

master promises him a crown if he can find one—nine valets out of ten

would make a misfit for half the money; and Robert instantly pays a

tribute to the title of the play by discovering a wrinkle—equally an

emblem of an “Old Maid” and an ill-fitting vest. This incident shows us

that Sir Philip is an amateur in dress; but his predilection is further

developed by his exit, which is made to scold his goldsmith for the

careless setting of a lost diamond. The next scene takes us to the other

side of Temple-bar; in fact, upon Ludgate-hill. We are inside the shop

of the goldsmith, Master Blount, most likely the founder of the firm now

conducted by Messrs. Rundell and Bridge. He has two sons, who, being

brought up to the same trade, and always living together, are, of

course, eternally quarrelling. Both have a violent desire to cut the

shop; the younger for glory, ambition, and all that (after the fashion

of all city juveniles, who hate hard work), the elder for ease and

elegance. The papa and mamma have a slight altercation on the subject of

their sons, which happily, (for family quarrels seldom amuse third

parties) is put an end to by a second “shine,” brought about by the

entrance of Sir Philip Brilliant, to make the threatened complaint about

bad workmanship. The younger and fiery Thomas Blount resents some of Sir

P.B.’s expressions to his father; this is followed by the usual badinage

about swords and their use. We make up our minds that the next scene is

to consist of a duel, and are not disappointed.

Sure enough a little rapier practice ends the act; the shopman is

wounded, and his adversary takes the usual oath of being his sworn

friend for ever.

The second act introduces a new class of incidents. A great revolution

has taken place in the private concerns of the family Blount. Thomas,

the younger, has become a colonel in the army; John, having got

possession of the shop, has sold the stock-in-trade, fixtures, good-

will, &c.; doubtless, to the late Mr. Rundell’s great-grandfather; and

has set up for a private gentleman. For his introduction into genteel

society he is indebted to Robert, whom he has mistaken for a Baronet,

and who presents him to several of his fellow-knights of the shoulder-

knot, all dubbed, for the occasion, lords and ladies, exactly as it

happens in the farce of “High Life Below Stairs.”

But where are the “Old Maids” all this time? Where, indeed! Lady Blanche

and Lady Anne are young and beautiful—exquisitely lovely; for they are

played by Madame Vestris and Mrs. Nisbett. It is clear, then, that

directly they appear, the spectator assures himself that they are not

the “Old Maids.” To be sure they seem to have taken a sort of vow of

celibacy; but their fascinating looks—their beauty—their enchanting

manners, offer a challenge to the whole bachelor world, that would make

the keeping of such a vow a crime next to sacrilege. One does not

tremble long on that account. Lady Blanche, has, we are informed, taken

to disguising herself; and some time since, while rambling about in the

character of a yeoman’s daughter, she entered Blount’s shop, and fell in

love with Thomas: at this exact part of the narrative Colonel Blount is

announced, attended by his sworn friend, Sir Philip Brilliant. A sort of

partial recognition takes place; which leaves the audience in a dreadful

state of suspense till the commencement of another act.

Sir Philip, who has formerly loved Lady Blanche without success, now

tries his fortune with Lady Anne; and at this point, dramatic invention

ends; for, excepting the mock-marriage of John Blount with a lady’s-

maid, the rest of the play is occupied by the vicissitudes the two pair

of lovers go through—all of their own contrivance, on purpose to make

themselves as wretched as possible—till the grand clearing up, which

always takes place in every last scene, from the “Adelphi” of Terence

(or Yates), down to the “Old Maids” of Mr. Sheridan Knowles.

COCORICO, OR MY AUNT’S BANTAM. Since playwrights have left off plotting

and under-plotting on their own account, and depend almost entirely upon

the “French,” managers have added a new member to their establishments,

and, like the morning papers, employ a Paris correspondent, that French

plays, as well as French eggs, may be brought over quite fresh; though

from the slovenly manner in which they (the pieces, not the eggs) are

too often prepared for the English market, they are seldom neat as

imported.

The gentleman who “does” the Parisian correspondence for the Adelphi

Theatre, has supplied it with a vaudeville bearing the above title; the

fable, of which, like some of Æsop’s, principally concerns a hen, that,

however, does not speak, and a smart cockscomb who does—an innocent

little fair who has charge of the fowl—a sort of Justice Woodcock, and a

bombardier who, because he is in the uniform of a drum or bugle-major,

calls himself a serjeant. To these may be added, Mr. Yates in his own

private character, and a few sibilants in the pit, who completed the

poultry-nature of the piece by playing the part of geese.

The plot would have been without interest, but for the accidental

introduction of the last two characters,—or the geese and the cock-of-

the-walk.[pg 168] The pittites, affronted at the extreme puerility of

some of the incidents, and the inanity of all the dialogue, hissed. This

raffled the feathers of the cock-of-the-walk, who was already on, or

rather at, the wing; and he flew upon the stage in a tantrum, to silence

the geese. Mr. Yates spoke—we need not say how or what. Everybody knows

how he of the Adelphi shrugs his shoulders, and squeezes his hat, and

smiles, and frowns, and “appeals” and “declares upon his honour” while

agitating the buttons on the left side of his coat, and “entreats” and

“throws himself upon the candour of a British public,” and puts the

stamp upon all he has said by an impressive thump of the foot, a final

flourish of the arms, and a triumphal exit to poean-sounding “bravoes!”

and to the utter confusion of all dis—or to be more correct,

hiss—sentients.

In the end, however, the latter triumphed; and Cocorico deserved its

fate in spite of the actors. Mrs. Grattan played the chief character

with much tact and cleverness, singing the vaudevilles charmingly—a most

difficult task, we should say, on account of the adapter, in putting

English words to French music, having ignorantly mis-accentuated a large

majority of them. Miss Terrey infused into a simple country girl a

degree of character which shews that she has not yet fallen into the

vampire-trap of too many young performers—stage conventionalism, and

that she copies from Nature. It is unfortunate for both these clever

actresses that they have been thrust into a piece, which not even their

talents could save from partial ——, but it is a naughty word, and Mrs.

Judy has grown very strict. The piece wants cur-tailment; which, if

previously applied, will increase the interest, and make it, perhaps, an

endurable dramatic

A poodle. FRENCH “TAIL”—WITH CUTS.

PROMENADE CONCERTS. The conductor of these concerts has not a single

requisite for his office—he is several degrees less personable than M.

Jullien—he does not even wear moustaches! and to suppose that a man can

beat time properly without them is ridiculous. He looks a great deal

more like a modest, respectable grocer, than a man of genius; for he

neither turns up his eyes nor his cuffs, and has the indecency to appear

without white gloves! His manners, too, are an insult to the lovers of

the thunder and lightning school of music; he neither conducts himself,

nor his band, with the least grace or éclat. He does not spread out both

arms like a goose that wants to fly, while hushing down a diminuendo;

nor gesticulate like a madman during the fortes; in short, he only gives

out the time in passages where the players threaten unsteadiness; and as

that is very seldom, those amateurs who pay their money only for the

pleasure of seeing the bâton flourished about, are defrauded of half

their amusement. M. Musard takes them in—for it must be evident, even to

them, that what we have said is true, and that he possesses scarcely a

qualification for the office he holds—if we make one trifling exception

(hardly worth mentioning)—for he is nothing more than, merely, a first-

rate musician. With this single accomplishment, it is like his impudence

to try and foist himself upon the Cockney dilettanti after M. Jullien,

who possessed every other requisite for a conductor but a knowledge of

the science; which is, after all, a paltry acquirement, and purely

mechanical.

On the evening PUNCH was present, the usual dose of quadrilles and

waltzes was administered, with an admixture from the dull scores of

Beethoven. Disgusted as we were at the humbug of performing the works of

this master without blue-fire, and an artificial storm in the flies,

yet—may we confess it?—we were nearly as much charmed by the “Andante”

from his Symphonia in A, as if the lights had been put out to give it

effect. We blush for our taste, but thank our stars (Jullien included)

that we have the courage to own the soft impeachment in the face of an

enlightened Concert d’Eté patronising public. In sober truth, we were

ravished! The pianos of this movement were so exquisitely kept, the

ensemble of them was so complete, the wind instruments were blown so

exactly in tune, so evenly in tone, that the whole passion of that

touching andante seemed to be felt by the entire band, which went as one

instrument. The subject—breaking in as it does, when least expected, and

worked about through nearly every part of the score, so as to produce

the most delicious effects—was played with equal delicacy and feeling by

every performer who had to take it up; while the under-current of

accompaniment was made to blend with it with a masterly command and

unanimity of tone, that we cannot remember to have heard equalled.

Of course, this piece, though it enchanted the musical part of the

audience, disgusted the promenaders, and was received but coldly. This,

however, was made up for when the drumming, smashing, and brass-blurting

of the overture to “Zampa” was noised forth: this was encored with

ecstacies, and so were some of the quadrilles. Happy musical taste!

Beethoven’s septour, arranged as a set of quadrilles, is a desecration

unworthy of Musard. For this piece of bad taste he ought to be condemned

to arrange the sailor’s hornpipe, as

A ship. A SLOW MOVEMENT IN C (SEA).

THE WAR WITH CHINA. The celebrated pranks of the “Bull in the China

Shop” are likely to be repeated on a grand scale—the part of the Bull

being undertaken, on this occasion, by the illustrious John who is at

the head of the family.

The Emperor, when the last advices left, was discussing a chop,

surrounded by all his ministers. The chop, which was dished up with a

good deal of Chinese sauce, was ultimately forwarded to Elliot. The

custom of sending chops to an enemy is founded on the idea, that the

fact of there being a bone to pick cannot be conveyed with more delicacy

than “by wrapping it up,” as it is commonly termed, as politely as

possible.

Our readers will be surprised to hear that the Chinese have attacked our

forces with junk, from which it has been supposed that our brave tars

have been pitched into with large pieces of salt beef, while the English

commanders have been pelted with chops; but this is an error. The thing

called junk is not the article of that name used in the Royal Navy, but

a gimcrack attempt at a vessel, built principally of that sort of

material, something between wood and paper, of which we in this country

manufacture hat-boxes.

The Emperor is such a devil of a fellow, that those about him are afraid

to tell him the truth; and though his troops have been most unmercifully

wallopped, he has been humbugged into the belief that they have achieved

a victory. A poor devil named Ke-shin, who happened to suggest the

necessity for a stronger force, was instantly split up by order of the

Emperor, who can now and then do things by halves, though such is not

his ordinary custom.

We have sent out a correspondent of our own to China, who will supply us

with the earliest intelligence.

TO BENEVOLENT AND HUMANE JOKERS. CASE OF EXTREME JOCULAR DISTRESS. The

sympathies of a charitable and witty public are earnestly solicited in

behalf of

JOHN WILSON CROKER, Esq., late Secretary to the Admiralty, author of the

“New Whig Guide,” &c., &c., who, from having been considered one of the

first wits of his day, is now reduced to a state of unforeseen comic

indigence. It is earnestly hoped that this appeal will not be made in

vain, and that, by the liberal contributions of the facetious, he will

be restored to his former affluence in jokes, and that by such means he

may be able to continue his contributions to the “Quarterly Review,”

which have been recently refused from their utter dulness.

Contributions will be thankfully received at the PUNCH office; by the

Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel; Rogers, Towgood, and Co.; at the House of

Commons; and the Garrick’s Head.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ALREADY RECEIVED. Samuel Rogers, Esq.—Ten puns, and a copy

of “Italy.”

Tom Cooke, Esq.—One joke (musical), consisting of “God save the Queen,”

arranged for the penny trumpet.

T. Hood, Esq.—Twenty-three epigrams.

Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel.—A laughable Corn-law pamphlet.

John Poole, Esq.—A new farce, with liberty to extract all the jokes from

the same, amounting to two jeux d’esprit and a pun.

Proprietors of PUNCH.—The “copy” for No. 15 of the LONDON CHARIVARI,

containing seventeen hundred sentences, and therefore as many jests.

Col. Sibthorp.—A conundrum.

Daniel O’Connell.—An Irish tail.

Messrs. Grissel and Peto.—A strike-ing masonic interlude, called “The

Stone-masons at a Stand-still; or, the Rusty Trowel.”

Commissioner Lin.—A special edict.

Lord John Russell.—“A new Guide to Matrimony,” and a facetious essay,

called “How to leave one’s Lodgings.”

LAURIE’S ESSAY ON THE PHARMACOPŒIA. Sir P. LAURIE begs to inquire of the

medical student, whose physiology is recorded in PUNCH, in what part of

the country Farmer Copœia resides, and whether he is for or against the

Corn Laws?

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1. OCTOBER 23, 1841. [pg 169] THE

GREAT CREATURE. Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was a tall young man, a

thin young man, a pale young man, and, as some of his friends asserted,

a decidedly knock-kneed young man. Moreover he was a young man belonging

to and connected with the highly respectable firm of Messrs. Tims and

Swindle, attorneys and bill-discounters, of Thavies’-inn, Holborn; from

the which highly respectable firm Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk

received a salary of one pound one shilling per week, in requital for

his manifold services. The vocation in which Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk laboured partook peculiarly of the peripatetic; for at all

sorts of hours, and through all sorts of streets was Mr. Horatio

Fitzharding Fitzfunk daily accustomed to transport his

anatomy—presenting overdue bills, inquiring after absent acceptors,

invisible indorsers, and departed drawers, for his masters, and wearing

out, as he Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk eloquently expressed it, “no

end of boots for himself.” Such was the occupation by which Mr. Horatio

Fitzharding Fitzfunk lived; but such was not the peculiar path to fame

for which his soul longed. No! “he had seen plays, and longed to blaze

upon the stage a star of light.”

That portion of time which was facetiously called by Messrs. Tims and

Swindle “the leisure” of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, being some

eight hours out of the twenty-four, was spent in poring over the

glorious pages of the immortal bard; and in the desperate enthusiasm of

his heated genius would he, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, suddenly

burst forth in some of the most exciting passages, and with Stentorian

lungs “render night hideous” to the startled inhabitant of the one-pair-

back, adjoining the receptacle of his own truckle-bed and mortal frame.

Luck, whether good or evil, begat Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk an

introduction to some other talented young gentlemen, who had so far

progressed in histrionic acquirements, that from spouting themselves,

they had taken to spouting their watches, and other stray articles of

small value, to enable them to pay the charges of a private theatre,

where, as often as they could raise the needful, they astonished and

delighted their wondering friends. Among this worshipful society was Mr.

Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk adopted and enrolled as a trusty and well-

beloved member; and in the above-named private theatre, in suit of

solemn black, slightly relieved by an enormous white handkerchief, and a

well-chalked countenance, did Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, at or

about the hour of half past eight—being precisely sixty minutes behind

the period announced, in consequence of the non-arrival of the one

fiddle and ditto flute comprising, or rather that ought to have

comprised, the orchestra—made his début, and a particularly nervous bow

to the good folks there assembled, “as and for” the character “of

Hamlet, the Danish Prince.”

To describe the “exclamations of delight,” the “tornadoes of applause,”

the earthquakes of rapture, or the “breathless breathing” of the

entranced audience, would beat Mr. Bunn into fits, and the German

company into fiddle-cases; so, like a newspaper legacy, which is the

only one that never pays duty, we “leave it to our reader’s

imagination.”

The die was cast. Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk’s former avocations

became intensely irksome—if he served a writ it was no longer a “writ of

right.” Copies for “Jenkins” were consigned to “Tompkins;” “Brown”

declined pleading to “Smith” and Smith declared off Brown’s declaration.

In inquiries after “solvent acceptors,” Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk

was still more abroad. In the mystification of his brains, all answers

seemed to be delivered “per contra.” Forlorn hopes on three-and sixpenny

stamps were converted into the circulating medium; “good actors” were

considered “good men” in the very reverse of Shylock’s acceptation of

the term; and astonished indorsers succeeded in “raising the wind” upon

“kites” they would have bet any odds no “wind in the world could induce

to fly.” Everything in this world must come to an end—bills generally do

in three months: so did these, and so did Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk’s responsible and peripatetic avocations in the highly

respectable firm of Messrs. Tims and Swindle, attorneys, and to their

cost, through the agency of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, bill-

discounters, of Thavies’ Inn, Holborn; they, the said highly respectable

firm of Tims and Swindle, handing over to Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk the sum of four and tenpence, being the balance of his

quarter’s salary, which, so great was Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk’s

opinion of the solvency of the said highly respectable firm, he had

allowed to remain undrawn in their hands, together with a note utterly

and totally declining any further service or assistance as “in” or

“outdoor” or any sort of clerk at all, from Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk, and amiably recommending the said Horatio to apply elsewhere

for a character; the which advice Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk

attended to instanter, and received, in consideration of the sum of

thirty shillings, that of “Richard the Third” from the Dramatic

Committee of Catherine Street. If Hamlet was good, Richard (among the

amateurs) was better; and if Richard was better, Shylock (at “one five”)

was best, and Romeo and all the rest better still: and it may be worthy

of remark, that there is no person on earth looked upon by admiring

managers as more certain of success than the “promising young man who

PAYS for his parts.”

Now it so happened that Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk’s purse became

an exceedingly “Iago”-like, “something, nothing, trashy” sort of

affair—in other words, that its owner, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk,

was regularly stumped; and as the Amateur Dramatic Theatrical Committee

“always go upon the no pay no play system,” Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk was about to incur the fate of Lord John Russell’s tragedy, and

become regularly “shelved.”

In this dilemma Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk addressed all sorts of

letters to all sorts of managers, offering himself for all sorts of

salaries, to play the best of all sorts of business, but never received

any sort of answer from one of them! Returning to his solitary lodging,

after a fortnight’s “half and half” of patience and despair, and just as

despair was walking poor patience to Old Harry, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding

Fitzfunk encountered one of his histrionic acquaintance, who did the

“three and sixpenny walking gents,” and dramatic general postmen, or

letter-deliverers, at “the Private.” In the course of the enlightened

conversation between the said friend, Mr. Julius Dilberry Pipps, and Mr.

Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, Julius Dilberry Pipps expressed an earnest

wish that he “might be blowed considerably tighter than the Vauxhall

balloon if ever he see such a likeness of Mr. Hannibal Fitzflummery

Fitzflam,” the “great actor of the day,” as his “bussom and intimate,”

Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk! A nervous pressure of Mr. Horatio

Fitzharding Fitzfunk’s “pickers and stealers” having nearly reduced to

one vast chaos the severely compressed digits of the enthusiastic Julius

Dilberry Pipps, the invisible green broad-cloth envelopments and drab

lower encasements, crowned with gossamer and based with calf-skin,

wherein the total outward man of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was

enrobed, together with his ambulating anatomy, evanished from the

startled gaze of the deserted and finger-contused Julius Dilberry Pipps!

Having asserted the entire realisation of his hastily-formed wish, in

the emphatic words, “Well, I am blowed!” and a further comment, stating

his conviction that “this was rayther a rummy go,” Mr. Julius Dilberry

Pipps reduced his exchequer the gross amount of threepence, paid in

consideration of the instant receipt of “a pint o’porter and screw,” to

the fumigation of which he applied with such excessive vigour, that in a

few moments he might be said, by his own exertions in “blowing a cloud,”

to be corporeally as well as mentally “in nubibus.”

To account for the rapid departure of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk,

we must inform our readers the supposed similarity alluded to by Julius

Dilberry Pipps, between the “great creature,” Hannibal Fitzflummery

Fitzflam, and Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, had been before frequently

insisted upon: and this assertion of the obtuse Julius Dilberry Pipps

now seemed “confirmation strong as proof of holy writ.” Agitated with

conflicting emotions, and regardless of small children and apple-stalls,

Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk rushed on with headlong speed, every

now and then ejaculating, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” A sudden overhauling

of his pockets produced some stray halfpence; master of a “Queen’s

head,” a sheet of vellum, a new “Mordaunt,” and an “envelope,” Mr.

Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, arrived at his three-pair-back, indited an

epistle to the manager at the town of ——, with extraordinary haste

signed the document, and, in “the hurry of the moment,” left the

inscription thus—H.F. FITZFLAM! The morrow’s post brought an answer; the

terms were acceded to, the night appointed for his opening; and Mr.

Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk found, upon inspecting the proof of the

playbill, the name in full of “Mr. Hannibal Fitzflummery Fitzflam,” “the

great tragedian of the day!”

Pass we over the intervening space, and at once come to the momentous

morning of rehearsal. The expected Roscius arrived like punctuality’s

self, at the appointed minute, was duly received by the company, who had

previously been canvassing his merits, and assuring each other that all

stars were muffs, but Fitzflam one of the most impudent impostors that

ever moved. “I, sir,” said the leader of the discontented fifteen-

shillings-a-week-when-they-could-get-it squad, “I have been in the

profession more years than this fellow has months, and he is getting

hundreds where I am neglected: never mind! only give me a chance, and

I’ll show him up. But I suppose the management—(pretty management, to

engage such a chap when I’m here)—I suppose they will truckle to him,

and send me on, as usual, for some wretched old bloke there’s no getting

a hand in. John Kemble himself (and I’m told I’m in his style), I say,

John Kemble, my prototype, the now immortal John, never got applause in

‘Blokes!‘—But never mind.” As a genealogist would say, “Fitz the son of

Funk” never more truly represented his ancestral cognomen than on this

trying occasion. He was no longer with amateurs, but regulars,—fellows

that could “talk and get on somehow;” that were never known to stick in

Richard, when they remembered a speech from George Barnwell; men with

“swallows” like Thames tunnels: in fact, accomplished “gaggers” and

unrivalled “wing watchers.” However, as Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk

spoke to none of them, crossed where he liked, cut out most of their

best speeches, and turned all their backs to the audience, he passed

muster exceedingly well, and acted the genuine star with considerable

effect. So it was at night. Some folks objected to his knees, to be

sure; but then they were silenced—“What! Fitzflam’s knees bad! Nonsense!

Fitzflam is the thing in London; and do you think Fitzflam ought to be

decried in the provinces? hasn’t he been lithographed by Lane? Pooh!

impudence! spite!” The great name made Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk

“the great man,” and all went swimmingly. On the last night of his

engagement, the night devoted to his benefit, the house was crammed, and

Mr. [pg 170]Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, reflecting that all was “cock

sure,” as he should pocket the proceeds and return to London

undiscovered, was elevated to Mahomet’s seventh heaven of happiness,

awaiting with impatience the prompter’s whistle and the raising of the

curtain: where for a time we will leave him, and attend upon the real

“Simon Pure”—the genuine and “old original Hannibal Fitzflummery

Fitzflam.”

(To be continued.)

ATRY-ANGLE. SIR R. PEEL has been recently so successful in fishing for

adherents, that, since bobbing so cleverly for Wakley, he has baited his

hook afresh, and intends to start for Minto House forthwith; having his

eye upon a certain small fish that is ever seen Russelling among the

sedges in troubled waters. We trust Sir Bob will succeed this time in

Three men talk. FISHING FOR JACK.

PUNCH’S COMMISSION TO INQUIRE INTO THE GENERAL DISTRESS. I.—Copy of a

Letter from the Under Secretary of State to Punch. Downing-street.

Sir,—Knowing that you are everywhere, the Secretary of State has desired

me to request you will inquire into the alleged distress, and

particularly into the fact of people who it is alleged are so

unreasonable in their expectations of food, as to die because they

cannot get any.

I have the honour to be, &c. HORATIO FITZ-SPOONY

II.—Copy of Punch’s Letter to the Under Secretary of State. Sir,—I have

received your note. I am everywhere; but as everything is gay when I

make my appearance, I have not seen much of the distress you speak of. I

shall, however, make it my business to look the subject up, and will

convey my report to the Government.

I think it no honour to be yours, &c.; but I have the very great honour

to be myself without any &c. PUNCH.

In compliance with the above correspondence, Punch proceeded to make the

necessary inquiries, and very soon was enabled to forward the following

REPORT ON THE PUBLIC DISTRESS. To Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for

the Home Department. Sir,—In compliance with my undertaking to inquire

into the public distress, I went into the manufacturing districts, where

I had heard that several families were living in one room with nothing

to eat, and no bed to lie upon. Now, though it is true that there are in

some places as many as thirty people in one apartment, I do not think

their case very distressing, because, at all events, they have the

advantage of society, which could not be the case if they were residing

in separate apartments. It is clear that their living together must be a

matter of choice, because I found in the same town several extensive

mansions inhabited by one or two people and a few servants; and there

are also some hundreds of houses wholly untenanted. Now, if we multiply

the houses by the rooms in them, and then divide by the number of the

population, we should find that there will be an average of three attics

and two-sitting-rooms for each family of five persons, or an attic and a

half with one parlour for every two and a half individuals; and though

one person and a half would find it inconvenient to occupy a sleeping

room and three-quarters, I think my calculation will show you that the

accounts of the insufficiency of lodging are gross and wicked

exaggerations, only spread by designing persons to embarrass the

Government.

With regard to the starvation part of the question, I have made every

possible inquiry, and it is true that several people have died because

they would not eat food; for the facts I shall bring to your notice will

prove that no one can have perished from the want of it. Now, after

visiting a family, which I was told were in a famishing state, what was

my surprise to observe a baker’s shop exactly opposite their lodging,

whilst a short way down the street there was a butcher’s also! The

family consisted of a husband and wife, four girls, eight boys, and an

infant of three weeks old, making in all fifteen individuals. They told

me they were literally dying of hunger, and that they had applied to the

vestry, who had referred them to the guardians, who had referred them to

the overseer, who had referred them to the relieving officer, who had

gone out of town, and would be back in a week or two. Not even supposing

there were a brief delay in attending to their case, at least by the

proper authorities, you will perceive that I have already alluded to a

baker’s and a butcher’s, both (it will scarcely be believed at the Home-

office) in the very street the family were residing in. Being determined

to judge for myself, I counted personally the number of four-pound

loaves in the baker’s window, which amounted to thirty-six, while there

were twenty-five two-pound loaves on the shelves, to say nothing of

fancy-bread and flour ad libitum. But let us take the loaves alone,

36 loaves, each weighing four pounds, Multiplied by 4 will give 144

pounds of wheaten bread; To which must be added 50 pounds (the weight of

the 25 half-qtns.), Making a total of 194 pounds of good wholesome

bread, which, if divided amongst a family of fifteen, would give 12

pounds and 14 fractions of a pound to each individual. Knocking off the

baby, for the sake of uniformity, and striking out the mother, both of

whom might be supposed to take the fancy bread and the flour, which I

have not included in my calculation, and in order to get even numbers,

supposing that 194 pounds of bread might become 195 pounds by over

weight, we should get the enormous quantity of fifteen full pounds

weight of bread, or a stone and one-fourteenth, (more, positively, than

anybody ought to eat), for the husband and each of the children (except

the baby, who gets a moiety of the rolls) belonging to this starving

family!!! You will see, Sir, how shamefully matters have been

misrepresented by the Anti-Corn-Law demagogues; but let us now come to

the butcher’s meat.

It will hardly be credited that I counted no less than fourteen sheep

hanging up in the shop I have alluded to, while there was a bullock

being skinned in the back yard, and a countless quantity of liver and

lights all over the premises. Knocking off the infant again for the sake

of uniformity, you will perceive that the fourteen sheep would be one

sheep each for every member of this family, including the mother, to

whom we gave half the rolls and flour in the former case, and there

still remains (to say nothing of the entire bullock for the baby of

three weeks, which no one will deny to be sufficient) a large quantity

of lights, et cetera, for the cat or dog, if there should be such a

wilful extravagance in the family. With these facts I close my report,

and I trust that you will see how thoroughly I have proved the assertion

of the Duke of Wellington—that if there is distress, it must be in some

way quite unconnected with a want of food, for there is plenty to eat in

every part of the country.

I shall be happy to undertake further inquiries, and shall have no

objection to consider myself regularly under Government.

Yours obediently, PUNCH.

THE TEA SERVICE ON SEA SERVICE. LORD JOCELYN, in his recent work upon

China, while writing upon the pastimes and amusements of the people,

expresses great satisfaction at the entertainment afforded travellers in

their private assemblies; though he confesses, as a general principle,

he should always avoid making one in the more promiscuous

A sea-going ship guns and sinks a junk. CHINESE JUNKETTING.

[pg 171] THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE. CHAPTER VII. CONTAINS A VERY FAIR BILL

OF FARE. A vine-covered Simultaneously with the last chord of the last

quadrille the important announcement was made that supper was ready—a

piece of information that produced a visible commotion among the party.

Young gentlemen who had incautiously engaged old or ugly partners

evinced a decided desire to get rid of them, or, by the expression of

their countenances, seemed to be inwardly cursing their unfortunate

situation. Young ladies in whose bosoms the first “slight predilection”

had taken up a residence, experienced, they knew not why, a mental and

physical prostration at the absence of Orlando Sims or Tom Walker, who

(how provoking!) were doing the gallant to some “horrid disagreeable

coquettes.” Mamas, who really did like a good supper, and considered it

an integral portion of their daily sustenance, crowded towards the door

that led to the comestibles, fearing that they might not get eligible

situations before the solids, but be placed among the bashful young

gentlemen, who linger to the last to pull off their gloves in order to

pull them on again, and look as though they considered they ought to be

happy and were extremely surprised that they were not. The arrangement

of the supper-table displayed the deep research of Mesdames Applebite

and Waddledot in the mysteries of gastronomical architecture. Pagodas of

barley-sugar glistened in the rays of thirty-six wax candles and four

Argand lamps—parterres of jellies, gravelled round with ratafias or

valanced with lemon-peel, trembled as though in sympathy with the

agitated bosoms of their delicate concocters—custards freckled with

nutmeg clustered the crystal handles of their cups together—sarcophagi

of pound cakes frowned, as it were, upon the sweetness which surrounded

them—whilst fawn-coloured elephants (from the confectionary menagerie of

the celebrated Simpson of the Strand) stood ready to be slaughtered.

Huge stratified pies courted the inquiries of appetite. Chickens boiled

and roast reposed on biers of blue china bedecked with sprigs of green

parsley and slices of yellow lemon. Tanks of golden sherry and

A 'Pasha' smokes a pipe. FULL-BODIED PORTE

wooed the thirsty revellers; and never since the unlucky dessert of

Mother Eve have temptations been so willingly embraced. The carnage

commenced—spoons dived into the jelly—knives lacerated the poultry and

the raised pies—a colony of custards vanished in a moment—the elephants

were demolished by “ivories11. Anglicè, Teeth.—THE one PIERCE.”—the

sarcophagi were buried—and the glittering pagodas melted rapidly before

the heat and the attacks of four little ladies in white muslin and pink

sashes. The tanks of sherry and port were distributed by the young

gentlemen into the glasses and over the dresses of the young ladies. The

tipsy-cake, like the wreck of the Royal George, was rescued from the

foaming ocean in which it had been imbedded. The diffident young

gentlemen grew very red about the eyes, and very loquacious about the

“next set after supper;” whilst the faces of the elderly ladies all over

lie room looked like the red lamps on Westminster Bridge, and ought to

have been beacons to warn the inexperienced that where they shone there

was very little water. The violent clattering of the plates was at

length succeeded by a succession of merry giggles and provoking little

screams, occasioned by the rapid discharge of a park of bonbons.

Where the “slight predilection” was reciprocated, the Orlando Simses and

the Tom Walkers were squeezing in beside the blushing idols of their

worship and circling the waists of their divinities with their arms, in

order to take up less room on the rout-stool.

Mamas were shaking heads at daughters who had ventured upon a tenth sip

of a glass of sherry. Papas were getting extremely jocular about the

probability of becoming grand-dittos. Everybody else was doing exactly

what everybody pleased, when Mrs. Applebite’s uncle John emerged from

behind an epergne, and vociferously commanded everybody to charge their

glasses; a requisition which nobody was bold enough to dispute. Uncle

John then wiped his lips in the table-cloth, and proceeded to inform the

company of a fact that was universally understood, that they had met

there to celebrate the first dental dawn of the heir of Applebite. “I

have only to refer you,” said uncle John, “to the floor of the next room

for the response to my request—namely, that you will drain your glasses;

and, in the words of nephew Agamemnon Collumpsion Applebite, ‘partake of

our dental delight.’” This eloquent address was followed by immense

cheering and a shower of sherry bottoms, which the gentlemen in their

“entusymusy” scattered around them as Hesperus is reported to dispense

his tee-total drops.

Nothing could be going on better—no woman could feel prouder than Mrs.

Waddledot, when—we hope you don’t anticipate the catastrophe—when two of

the Argand lamps gave olfactory demonstrations of dissolution. Sperm oil

is a brilliant illuminator, but we never knew any one except an

Esquimaux, or a Russian, who preferred it to lavender-water as a

perfume. Old John was in a muddle of misery—evidently

A man looks down on a cradle with twin babies in it. LOOKING DOWN UPON

HIS LUCK.—

and was only relieved from his embarrassment by the following fortunate

occurrence:—

By-the-bye, we have just recollected that we have an invitation to

dinner. Reader—au revoir.

NEW WORKS NOW IN THE PRESS. An Abstract and Brief Chronicle of the

Times. Very small duodecimo. By Mr. ROEBUCK.

A New Dissertation on the Anatomy of the Figures of the Multiplication

Table. By JOSEPH HUME.

Outlines of the Late Ministry, after Ten Years (Teniers). By Lord

MELBOURNE.

Recollections of Place. By Lord JOHN RUSSELL.

Mythological Tract upon the Heathen Deity Cupid. By Lord PALMERSTON.

Explanatory Annotations on the Abstruse Works of the late Joseph (vulgo

Joe) Miller. With a humorous etching of his tombstone, and Original

Epitaph. By Colonel SIBTHORP.

Also, by the same Author, an Ornithological Treatise on the various

descriptions of Water-fowl; showing the difference between Russia and

other Ducks, and why the former are invariably sold in pairs.

A few words on Indefinite Subjects, supposed to be Sir Robert Peel’s

Future Intentions. By Mr. WAKLEY.

[pg 172] AMERICAN CONGRESS. We hasten to lay before our readers the

following authentic reports of the latest debates in the United States’

Congress, which have been forwarded to us by our peculiarly and

especially exclusive Reporters.

New York.—The greatest possible excitement exists here, agitating alike

the bosoms of the Whites, the Browns, and the Blacks; a universal

sympathy appears to exist among all classes, the greater portion of whom

are looking exceedingly blue. The all-absorbing question as to whether

the “war is to be or not to be,” seems an exceedingly difficult one to

answer. One party says “Yes,” and another party says “No,” and a third

party says the above parties “Lie in their teeth;” and thereupon issue

is joined, and bowie-knives are exchanged—the “Yes” walking away with

“No’s” sheathed in the middle of his back, and the “No” making up for

his loss by securing the “Yes’s” somewhere between his ribs. All the

black porters are looking out for light jobs, and rushing about with

shutters and cards of address, bearing high-minded “Loco-focos” and

shot-down “democrats” to their respective surgeons and houses. This

unusual bustle and activity gives the more political parts of the city

an exceedingly brisk appearance, and has caused most of the eminent

surgeons, not attached to either party, to be regularly retained by the

principal speakers in these most interesting debates.

In Congress great attention is paid to the comfort of the various

members, who are all provided with spittoons, though they are by no

means compelled to tie themselves down to the exclusive use of those

expectorant receptacles; on the contrary, much ingenuity is shown by

some of the more practised in picking out other deposits; a vast

majority of the Kentuckians will back themselves to “shoot through” the

opposition member’s nose and eye-glass without touching “flesh or

flints.”

The prevailing opinion appears to be, that should we come to a fight

they will completely alter the costume of the country, and “whop us into

fits.” Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent

with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly

Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes. I will now proceed to

give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war side—“the

renowned Jonathan J. Twang.”

“I rather calculate that tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed,

roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter ‘the Old Country,’ would

jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of

the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present

identical out-and-out important critical crisis! I conceit their

min’stry have got jist about into as considerable a tarnation nasty fix,

as a naked nigger in the stocks when the mosquitoes are steaming up a

little beyond high pressure. I guess Prince Albert and the big uns don’t

find their seats quite as soft as buttered eels in a mud bank! Look

here—isn’t it considerable clear they’re all funking like burnt Cayenne

in a clay pipe; or couldn’t they have made a raise some how to get a

ship of their own, or borrow one, to send after that caged-up ’coon of a

Macleod? It’s my notion, and pretty considerable clear to me, they’re

all bounce, like bad chesnuts, very well to look at, but come to try

them at the fire for a roast, and they turn out puff and shell. They

talk of war as the boy did of whipping his father, but like him, they

daresn’t do it, and why not? why, for the following elegant

reasons:—Since they have been used to the advantages of doing their

little retail trade with our own go-ahead and carry-all-before-it right

slick-up-an-end double-distilled essence of a genuine fine and civilised

country, the everlasting ’possums have become habituated to some of the

manners of our enlightened inhabitants. We have nothing to do but refuse

the supply of cottons, and leave them all with as little shirts to their

backs as wool on a skinned eel. Isn’t it the intercourse with this here

country that enables them to speak their very language with something

rayther like a leetle correctness, though they’re just about as far

behind us as the last jint of the sea-sarpent is from his eye-tooth?

“Doesn’t all international law consist in keeping an everlasting bright

look-out on your own side, and jamming all other varments slick through

a stone wall, as the waggon-wheel used up the lame frog? (Hear, hear.) I

say—and mind you I’ll stick to it like a starved sloth to the back of a

fat babby—I say, gentlemen, this country, the United States

(particularly Kentucky, from which I come, and which will whip all the

rest with out-straws and rotten bull-rushes agin pike, bagnet, mortars,

and all their almighty fine artillery), I say, then, this country is

considerable like a genuine fac-simile of the waggon-wheel, and the

pretty oneasy busted-up old worn-out island of the bull-headed

Britishers, ain’t nothing more than the tee-totally used-up frog. (Hear,

hear.)

“I expect they’d have just as much chance with us as a muzzled monkey

with a hiccory-nut. Talk of their fleet! I’ll bet six live niggers to a

dead ’coon, our genuine Yankee clippers will whip them into as bad a fix

as a flying-fish with a gull at his head and a shark at his tail.

They’re jist about as much out of their reckoning as the pig that took

to swimming for his health and cut his throat trying it on.

“It’s everlasting strange to me if, to all future posterity coming after

us, the word ‘Macleod’ don’t shut up their jaws from bragging of British

valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor

round a smashed-up buffalo!

“If it wa’n’t for the distance and leaving my plantation, I’d go over

with any on you, and help to use up the lot myself! Let them ‘come on,’

as the tiger said to the young kid, and see what ‘I’ll do for you.’ They

talk of sending out their chaps here, do they; let them; they’ll be just

about as happy as a toad in hot tar, and that’s a fact.” Here Jonathan

J. Twang sat down amid immense cheers; at the conclusion of which, Mr.

Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods, requested—he, Peter P. Pellican,

being from Orleans—that Mr. Jonathan J. Twang would retract certain

words derogatory to the state represented by Peter P. Pellican. Mr.

Jonathan J. Twang replied in the following determined refusal:—“I beg to

inform the last speaker, Mr. Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods,

that I’ll see him tee-totatiously tarred, feathered, and physicked with

red-hot oil and fish-hooks, before I’ll retract one eternal syllable of

my pretty particular correct assertions.”

This announcement created considerable confusion. The President behaved

in the most impartial and manly manner, indiscriminately knocking down

all such of both parties who came within reach of his mace, and not

leaving the chair until he had received two black eyes and lost two

front teeth. The general mêlée was carried on with immense spirit; the

more violent members on either side pummelling each other with the most

hearty and legislative determination. This exciting scene was continued

for some time, until during a short cessation a member with a broken leg

proposed an adjournment till the following day, when the further

discussion could be carried on with Bowie-knives and pistols; this

proposition was at once acceded to with immense delight by all parties.

If well enough (as I have two broken ribs, my share of the row) I will

forward you an authentic statement of this interesting proceeding.

EPITAPH ON A CANDLE. A wicked one lies buried here,

Who died in a decline;

He never rose in rank, I fear,

Though he was born to shine.

He once was fat, but now, indeed,

He’s thin as any griever;

He died,—the Doctors all agreed,

Of a most burning fever.

One thing of him is said with truth,

With which I’m much amused;

It is—That when he stood, forsooth,

A stick he always used.

Now winding-sheets he sometimes made,

But this was not enough,

For finding it a poorish trade,

He also dealt in snuff.

If e’er you said “Go out, I pray,”

He much ill nature show’d;

On such occasions he would say,

“Vy, if I do, I’m blow’d.”

In this his friends do all agree,

Although you’ll think I’m joking,

When going out ’tis said that he

Was very fond of smoking.

Since all religion he despised,

Let these few words suffice,

Before he ever was baptized

They dipp’d him once or twice.

SIBTHORP ON BORTHWICK. Our Sibthorp, while speaking of the asinine

qualities of Peter Borthwick, remarked, that in his opinion that

respectable member of the Lower House must be indebted to the celebrated

medicine promising extreme “length of ears,” and advertised as

A man canes a boy. PARR’S SPECIFIC.

[pg 173] FIRE! FIRE! A REMONSTRANCE WITH THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER. How

melancholy an object is a “polished front,” that vain-glorious and

inhospitable array of cold steel and willow shavings, in which the

emancipated hearth is annually constrained by careful housewives to

signalise the return of summer, and its own consequent degradation from

being a part of the family to become a piece of mere formal furniture.

And truly in cold weather, which (thanks to the climate, for we love our

country) is all the weather we get in England, the fire is a most

important individual in a house: one who exercises a bland authority

over the tempers of all the other inmates—for who could quarrel with his

feet on the fender? one with whom everybody is anxious to be well—for

who would fall out with its genial glow? one who submits with a graceful

resignation to the caprices of every casual elbow—and who has never

poked a fire to death? one whose good offices have endeared him alike to

the selfish and to the cultivated,—at once a host, a mediator, and an

occupation.

We have often had our doubts (but then we are partial) whether it be not

possible to carry on a conversation with a fire. With the aid of an

evening newspaper by way of interpreter, and in strict confidence, no

third party being present, we feel that it can be done. Was there an

interesting debate last night? were the ministers successful, or did the

opposition carry it? In either case, did not the fire require a vigorous

poke just as you came to the division? and did not its immediate flame,

or, on the contrary, its dull, sullen glow, give you the idea that it

entertained its own private opinions on the subject? And if those

opinions seemed contrary to yours, did you not endeavour to betray the

sparks into an untenable position, by submitting them to the gentle

sophistry of a poker nicely insinuated between the bars? or did you not

quench with a sudden retort of small coal its impertinent congratulation

at an unfortunate result? until, when its cordial glow, penetrating that

unseemly shroud, has given evidence of self-conviction, you felt that

you had dealt too harshly with an old friend, and hastened to make it up

with him again by a playful titillation, more in jest than earnest.

But this is all to come. Not yet (with us) have the kindly old bars,

reverend in their attenuation, been restored to their time-honoured

throne; not yet have the dingy festoons of pink and white paper

disappeared from the garish mantel. Still desolate and cheerless shows

the noble edifice. The gaunt chimney yawns still in sick anticipation of

deferred smoke. The “irons,” innocent of coal, and polished to the tip,

skulk and cower sympathetically into the extreme corner of the fender.

The very rug seems ghastly and grim, wanting the kindly play of the

excited flame. We have no comfort in the parlour yet: even the

privileged kitten, wandering in vain in search of a resting-place, deems

it but a chill dignity which has withdrawn her from the warm couch

before the kitchen-fire. Things have become too real for home. We have

no joy now in those delicious loiterings for the five minutes before

dinner—those casual snatches of Sterne, those scraps of Steele. We have

left off smiling; we are impregnable even to a pun. What is the day of

the month?

Surely were not October retrospectively associated (in April and

glorious May) with the grateful magnificence of ale, none would be so

unpopular as the chilly month. There is no period in which so much of

what ladies call “unpleasantness” occurs, no season when that mysterious

distemper known as “warming” is so epidemic, as in October. It is a time

when, in default of being conventionally cold, every one becomes

intensely cool. A general chill pervades the domestic virtues:

hospitality is aguish, and charity becomes more than proverbially numb.

In twenty days how different an appearance will things wear! The magic

circle round the hearth will be filled with beaming faces; a score of

hands will be luxuriously chafing the palpable warmth dispensed by a

social blaze; some more privileged feet may perchance be basking in the

extraordinary recesses of the fender. We shall consult the thermometer

to enjoy the cold weather by contrast with the glowing comfort within.

We shall remark how “time flies,” and that “it seems only yesterday

since we had a fire before;” forgetful of the hideous night and the

troublous dreams that have intervened since those sweet memories. And

all this—in twenty days.

We are no innovators: we respect all things for their age, and some for

their youth. But we would hope that, in humbly looking for a fire in the

cold weather, even though November be still in the store of time, we

should be exhibiting no dangerous propensities. If, as we are inclined

to believe, fires were discovered previously to the invention of lord

mayors, wherefore should we defer our accession to them until he is

welcomed by those frigid antiquities Gog and Magog? Wherefore not let

fires go out with the old lord mayor, if they needs must come in with

the new? Wherefore not do without lord mayors altogether, and elect an

annual grate to judge the prisoners at the bar in the Mansion House, and

to listen to the quirks of the facetious Mr. Hob-ler?

AN APPROPRIATE GIFT. We perceive that the fair dames of Nottingham have,

with compassionate liberality, presented to Mr. Walter, one of the Tory

candidates at the late election, a silver salver. What a delicate and

appropriate gift for a man so beaten as Master Walter!—the pretty dears

knew where he was hurt, and applied a silver salve—we beg pardon,

salver—to his wounds. We trust the remedy may prove consolatory to the

poor gentleman.

NOT A STEP FA(R)THER. The diminutive chroniclers of Animalcula-Chatter,

called small-talk, have been giving a minute description of the goings

on of His Grace of Wellington at Walmer. They hint that he sleeps and

wakes by clock-work, eats by the ounce, and drinks and walks by measure.

During the latter recreation, it is his pleasure, they tell us, to use

one of Payne’s pedometers to regulate his march. Thus it is quite clear

the great Captain will never become a

A man walks with a girl and a baby. “SOLDIER TIRED.”

A MALE DUE. The Post-office in Downing-street has been besieged by

various inquirers, who are anxiously seeking for some information as to

the expected arrival of the Royal Male.

CURIOUS SYNONYMS. Sir Peter Laurie discovered during his residence in

Boulogne that veau is the French for veal. On his return to England,

being at a public dinner, he exhibited his knowledge of the tongues by

asking a brother alderman for a slice of his weal or woe.

HAPPY LAND! Six young girls, inmates of the Lambeth workhouse, were

brought up at Union Hall, charged with breaking several squares of

glass. In their defence, they complained that they had been treated

worse in the workhouse than they would be in prison, and said that it

was to cause their committal to the latter place they committed the

mischief. What a beautiful picture of moral England this little anecdote

exhibits! What must be the state of society in a country where crime is

punished less severely than poverty?

Old England, bless’d and favour’d clime!

Where paupers to thy prisons run;

Where poverty’s the only crime

That angry justice frowns upon.

THE NEW STATE STRETCHER. “What an uncomfortable bed Peel has made for

himself!” observed Normanby to Palmerston. “That’s not very clear to me,

I confess,” replied the Downing-street Cupid, “as it is acknowledged he

sleeps on a bolstered cabinet.” The pacificator of Ireland closed his

face for the remainder of the day.

The latest case of monomania, from our own specially-raised American

correspondent:—A gentleman who fancied himself a pendulum always went

upon tick, and never discovered his delusion until he was carefully

wound up in the Queen’s Bench.

“VERY LIKE A WHALE.” The first of all the royal infant males

Should take the title of the Prince of Wales;

Because ’tis clear to seaman and to lubber,

Babies and whales are both inclined to blubber.

ARRIVED AT LAST. We perceived by a paragraph copied from the “John

o’Groats Journal,” that an immense Whale, upwards of seventy-six feet in

length, was captured a few days since at Wick. Sir Peter Laurie and

Alderman Humphrey on reading this announcement naturally concluded that

the Wick referred to was our gracious Queen Wic, and rushed off to

Buckingham-palace to pay their united tribute of loyalty to the long-

expected Prince of Wales.

EPIGRAM. I’m going to seal a letter, Dick,

Some wax pray give to me.

I have not got a single stick,

Or whacks I’d give to thee.

[pg 174] THE PICTORIAL HISTORY OF PARLIAMENT. In our last we briefly

adverted to the gratifying fact that Mr. Barry had at least a thousand

superficial feet on the walls of the new Houses of Parliament at the

services of the historical painters of England; and we also, in a

passing manner, suggested a few compositions worthy of their pencils. A

reconsideration of the matter convinces us that the subject is too

important—too national, to be adopted as merely the fringe of our

article; and we have therefore determined within ourselves to devote our

present essay to a serious discussion of the various pictures that are,

or ought, to decorate the interior of the new House of Commons. As for

the House of Lords, we see no necessity whatever for lavishing the fine

inspirations of art on that temple of wisdom; inasmuch as the sages who

deliberate there are, for the most part, born legislators, coming into

the world with all the rudiments of government in embryo in their baby

heads, and, on the twenty-first anniversary of their birthday, putting

their legs out of bed adult, full-grown law-makers. It would be the

height of democratic insolence to attempt to teach these chosen few: it

would, in fact, be a misprision of treason against the sovereignty of

Nature, who, when making the pia mater of a future peer of England,

knows very well the delicate work she has in hand, and takes pains

accordingly. It is different when she manufactures a mob of skulls

which, by a jumble of worldly accidents, or by the satire of Fortune in

her bitterest mood, may ultimately belong to Members of the House of

Commons. These she makes, as they make blocks in Portsmouth-yard, a

hundred a minute. All she has to do is to fulfil her contract with the

world, taking care that there shall be no want of the raw material for

Members of Parliament, leaving it to Destiny to work it up as she may.

We have not the slightest doubt, by-the-by, that poor Nature is often

very much confounded by the ultimate application of her own handiwork.

We can fancy the venerable old gossip at her business, patting up skulls

as serenely as our lamented great grandmother (she wrote a very pretty

book on the beauties of population, and illustrated the work, too, with

portraits from her own hand) was wont to pat up apple-dumplings:—we can

imagine Nature—good old soul!—looking over her spectacles at the infant

dough, and saying to herself as she finishes skull by skull—“Ha! that

will do for a pawnbroker;”—“That, as it’s rather low and narrow, for a

sharp attorney;”—“That for a parish constable;”—“That for a clown at a

fair,”—and so on. And we can well imagine the astonishment of simple-

hearted old Nature on getting a ticket for the gallery of the House of

Commons (for very seldom, indeed, has she been known to show herself on

the floor), to see her skull of a pawnbroker on the shoulders of a

Chancellor of the Exchequer; her caput of the sharp attorney belonging

to a Minister of the Home Department; her head of a parish constable as

a Paymaster of the Forces; and the dough she had intended to swallow

knives and eat fire at wakes and fairs gravely responded to as “an

honourable and gallant member!” Whereupon, who can wonder at the

amazement and indignation of Mother Nature, and that, with a keen sense

of the misapplication of her skulls, she sometimes abuses Mother Fortune

in good set terms, mingling with her reproaches the strongest

reflections on her chastity?

We have thought it due to the full consideration of our subject so far,

to dwell upon the natural difference between the skull of a Peer and the

skull of a Commoner. The skull of the noble, as we have shown, is a

thing made to order—fitted up, like Mr. MECHI’S pocket-dressing-case,

with the ornamental and useful: no instrument can be added to it—the

thing is complete. Hence, to employ historical painters for the

education of the House of Lords would be a useless and profligate

expenditure of art and money. It would be to paint the lily

LONDONDERRY—to add a perfume to the violet ELLENBOROUGH. All Peers being

from the first—indeed, even in utero—ordained law-makers, statute-making

comes to them by nature. How much history goes to prove this, showing

that the House of Lords—like the Solomons of the fleur-de-lis—have

learned nothing, and forgotten nothing! To attempt to instruct a Peer

would be as gross an impertinence to the instinct of his order as to

present MINERVA—who no doubt came from the head of JOVE a Peeress in her

own right—with a toy alphabet or horn-book.

For the skulls of the House of Commons,—that is, indeed, another

question! We are so far utilitarian that we would have the pictures for

which Mr. BARRY offers a thousand feet selected solely with a view to

the dissemination of knowledge amongst the many benighted members of the

House of Commons. We would have the subjects so chosen that they should

entirely supersede Oldfield’s Representative History; never forgetting

the wants of the most illiterate. For instance, for the politicians on

the fifth form, the SIBTHORPS and PLUMPTRES, whose education in their

youth has been shamefully neglected, we would have a nice pictorial

political alphabet. We do not pride ourselves, be it understood, upon

writing unwrinkled verse; we only present the subjoined as a crude idea

of our plan, taken we confess, from certain variegated volumes, to be

had either of Mr. SOUTER, St. Paul’s Churchyard, or Messrs. DARTON and

HARVEY, Holborn.

A was King ALFRED, a monarch of note;

B is BURDETT, who can well turn a coat.

Here we would have the chief incidents of Alfred’s life nicely painted,

with BURDETT, late Old Glory, and now Old Corruption. As for the poetry,

when we consider the capacities of the learners, that cannot be too

simple, too homely. The House, however, may order a Committee of

Versification, if it please; all that we protest against is D’ISRAELI

being of the number.

C is the CORN-LAWS, that famish’d the poor;

D is the DEBT, that will famish them more.

Here, for the imaginative artist, is an opportunity! To paint the

wholesale wickedness and small villanies of the Corn-laws! What a

contrast of scene and character! Squalid hovels, and princely

residences—purse-proud, plethoric injustice, big and bloated with, its

iniquitous gains, and gaunt, famine-stricken multitudes! Then for the

Debt—that hideous thing begotten by war and corruption; what a

tremendous moral lesson might be learned from a nightly conning of the

terrific theme!

We have neither poetic genius nor space of paper to go through the whole

of the alphabet; we merely throw out the above four lines—and were we

not assured that they are better lines, far more musical, than any to be

found in BULWER’S SIAMESE TWINS, we should blush much nearer scarlet

than we do—to give an idea of the utility and beautiful

comprehensiveness of our plan.

The great difficulty, however, will be to compress the subjects—so

multitudinous are they—within the thousand feet allowed by the

architect. To begin with the Wittenagemot, or meeting of the wise men,

and to end with portraits of Mr. Roebuck’s ancestors—to say nothing of

the fine imaginative sketch of the Member for Bath tilting, in the mode

of Quixote with the steam-press of Printing-house-square—will require

the most extraordinary powers of condensation on the parts of the

artists. Nevertheless, if the undertaking be even creditably executed,

it will be a monument of national wisdom and national utility to unborn

generations of Members. What crowds of subjects press upon us! The

History of Bribery might make a sort of Parliamentary Rake’s Progress,

if we could but hit upon the artist to portray its manifold beauties.

The Windsor Stables and the Education of the Poor would form admirable

companion-pictures, in which the superiority of the horse over the human

animal could be most satisfactorily delineated—the quadruped having

considerably more than three times the amount voted to him for snug

lodging, hay, beans, and oats, that the English pauper obtained from

Parliament for that manure of the soil—as congregated piety at Exeter

Hall denominates it—a Christian education!

What a beautiful arabesque border might be conceived from a perusal of

the late Lord Castlereagh’s speeches! We should here have Parliamentary

eloquence under a most fantastic yet captivating phase. Who, for

instance, but the artist to PUNCH could paint CASTLEREAGH’S figure of a

smug, contented, selfish traitor, the “crocodile with his hand in his

breeches’ pocket?” Again, does not the reader recollect that

extraordinary person who, according to the North Cray Demosthenes,

“turned his back upon himself?” There would be a portrait!—one, too,

presenting food for the most “sweet and bitter melancholy” to the

GRAHAMS and the STANLEYS. There is also that immortal Parliamentary

metaphor, emanating from the same mysterious source,—“The feature upon

which the question hinges!” The only man who could have properly painted

this was the enthusiastic BLAKE, who so successfully limned the ghost of

a flea! These matters, however, are to be considered as merely

supplementary ornaments to great themes. The grand subjects are to be

sought for in Hansard’s Reports, in petitions against returns of

members, in the evidence that comes out in the committee-rooms, in the

abstract principles of right and wrong, that make members honest

patriots, or that make them give the harlot “ay” and “no,” as dictated

by the foul spirit gibbering in their breeches’ pockets.

That we may have painted all these things, Mr. BARRY offers up one

thousand feet. Oh! Mr. B. can’t you make it ten!

Q.

[pg 175] PUNCH’s PENCILLINGS.—No. XV.

A sad-looking man regards a portrait of a kingly-looking man.

REFLECTION.

“FAREWELL, A LONG FAREWELL, TO ALL MY GREATNESS.”—King Henry VIII.

[pg 177] THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT. 4.—OF THE MANNER

IN WHICH THE FIRST SEASON PASSES. From the period of our last Chapter

our friend commences to adopt the attributes of the mature student. His

notes are taken as before at each lecture he attends, but the lectures

are fewer, and the notes are never fairly transcribed; at the same time

they are interspersed with a larger proportion of portraits of the

lecturer, and other humorous conceits. He proposes at lunch-time every

day that he and his companions should “go the odd man for a pot;” and

the determination he had formed at his entry to the school, of working

the last session for all the prizes, and going up to the Hall on the

Thursday and the College on the Friday without grinding, appears

somewhat difficult of being carried into execution.

It is at this point of his studies that the student commences a steady

course of imaginary dissection: that is to say, he keeps a chimerical

account of extremities whose minute structure he has deeply investigated

(in his head), and received in return various sums of money from home

for the avowed purpose of paying for them. If he really has put his name

down for any heads and necks or pelvic viscera at the commencement of

the season, when he had imbibed and cherished some lunatic idea “that

dissection was the sheet-anchor of safety at the College,” he becomes a

trafficker in human flesh, and disposes of them as quickly as he can to

any hard-working man who has his examination in perspective.

He now assumes a more independent air, and even ventures to chalk odd

figures on the black board in the theatre. He has been known, previously

to the lecture, to let down the skeleton that hangs by a balance weight

from the ceiling, and, inserting its thumb in the cavity of its nose,

has there secured it with a piece of thread, and then, placing a short

pipe in its jaws, has pulled it up again. His inventive faculties are

likewise shown by various diverting objects and allusions cut with his

knife upon the ledge before him in the lecture-room, whereon the new men

rest their note-books and the old ones go to sleep. In vain do the

directors of the school order the ledge to be coated with paint and sand

mixed together—nothing is proof against his knife; were it adamant he

would cut his name upon it. His favourite position at lecture is now the

extremity of the bench, where its horse-shoe form places him rather out

of the range of the lecturer’s vision; and, ten to one, it is here that

he has cut a cribbage-board on the seat, at which he and his neighbour

play during the lecture on Surgery, concealing their game from common

eyes by spreading a mackintosh cape on the desk before them. His

conversation also gradually changes its tone, and instead of mildly

inquiring of the porter, on his entering the school of a morning, what

is for the day’s anatomical demonstration, he talks of “the regular lark

he had last night at the Eagle, and how jolly screwed he got!”—a frank

admission, which bespeaks the candour of his disposition.

Careful statistics show us that it is about the end of November the new

man first makes the acquaintance of his uncle; and observant people have

remarked, as worthy of insertion in the Medical Almanack amongst the

usual phenomena of the calendar—“About this time dissecting cases and

tooth-instruments appear in the windows, and we may look for watches

towards the beginning of December.” Although this is his first

transaction on his own account, yet his property has before ascended the

spout, when some unprincipled student, at the beginning of the season,

picked his pocket of a big silver lancet-case, which he had brought up

with him from the country; and having, pledged it at the nearest money-

lender’s, sent him the duplicate in a polite note, and spent the money

with some other dishonest young men, in drinking their victim’s health

in his absence. And, by the way, it is a general rule that most new men

delight to carry big lancet-cases, although they have about as much use

for them as a lecturer upon practice of physic has for top boots.

Thus gradually approaching step by step towards the perfection of his

state, the new man’s first winter-session passes; and it is not unlikely

that, at the close of the course, he may enter to compete for the

anatomical prize, which he sometimes gets by stealth, cribbing his

answers from a tiny manual of knowledge, two inches by one-and-a-half in

size, which he hides under his blotting-paper. This triumph achieved, he

devotes the short period which intervenes before the commencement of the

summer botanical course to various hilarious pastimes; and as the watch

and dissecting-case are both gone, he writes the following despatch to

his governor—

LETTER No. II.—(Copy.) MY DEAR FATHER,—You will, I am sure, be delighted

to learn that I have gained the twenty-ninth honorary certificate for

proficiency in anatomy which you will allow is a very high number when I

tell you that only thirty are given. I have also the satisfaction of

informing you that the various professors have given me certificates of

having attended their lectures very diligently during the past courses.

I work very hard, but I need not inform you that, with all my economy, I

am at some expense for good books and instruments. I have purchased

Liston’s Surgery, Anthony Thompson’s Materia Medica, Burns and

Merriman’s Midwifery, Graham’s Chemistry, Astley Cooper’s Dislocations,

and Quain’s Anatomy, all of which I have read carefully through twice. I

also pay a private demonstrator to go over the bones with me of a night;

and I have bought a skeleton at Alexander’s—a great bargain. This, when

I “pass,” I think of presenting to the museum of the hospital, as I am

under great obligations to the surgeons. I think a ten-pound note willl

clear my expenses, although I wish to enter to a summer course of

dissections, and take some lessons in practical chemistry in the

laboratories with Professor Carbon, but these I will endeavour to pay

for out of my own pocket. With my best regards to all at home, believe

me,

Your affectionate son, JOSEPH MUFF.

As soon as the summer course begins, the Botanical Lectures commence

with it, and the polite Company of Apothecaries courteously request the

student’s acceptance of a ticket of admission to the lectures, at their

garden at Chelsea. As these commence somewhere about eight in the

morning, of course he must get up in the middle of the night to be

there; and consequently he attends very often, of course. But the

botanical excursions that take place every Saturday from his own school

are his especial delight. He buys a candle-box to contain all the

chickweed, chamomiles, and dandelions he may collect, and slinging it

over his shoulder with his pocket-handkerchief, he starts off in company

with the Professor and his fellow-herbalists to Wandsworth Common,

Battersea Fields, Hampstead Heath, or any other favourite spot which the

cockney Flora embellishes with her offspring.

The conduct of medical students on botanical excursions generally

appears in various phases. Some real lovers of the study, pale men in

spectacles, who wear shoes and can walk for ever, collect every weed

they drop upon, to which they assign a most extraordinary name, and

display it at their lodgings upon cartridge paper, with penny pieces to

keep the leaves in their places as they dry. Others limit their

collections to stinging-nettles, which they slyly insert into their

companions’ pockets, or long bulrushes, which they tuck under the

collars of their coats; and the remainder turn into the first house of

public entertainment they arrive at on emerging from the smoke of London

to the rural districts, and remain all day absorbed in the mysteries of

ground billiards and knock-‘em-downs, their principal vegetable studies

being confined to lettuces, spring onions, and water-cresses. But all

this is very proper—we mean the botanical part of the story—for the

knowledge of the natural class and order of a buttercup must be of the

greatest service to a practitioner in after-life in treating a case of

typhus fever or ruptured blood-vessel. At some of the Continental

Hospitals, the pupil’s time is wasted at the bedside of the patient,

from which he can only get practical information. How much better is the

primrose-investigating curriculum of study observed at our own medical

schools!

SOME THINGS TO WHICH THE IRISH WOULD NOT SWEAR. MR. GROVE.—This

insufferably ignorant, and, therefore, insolent magisterial cur, who has

recently made himself an object of unenviable notoriety, by asserting

that “the Irish would swear anything,” has shown himself to be as stupid

as he is malignant. Would, for instance, the most hard-mouthed Irishman

in existence venture to swear that—

Mr. Grove is a gentleman; or that— Sir Francis Burdett has brought

honour to his grey hairs; or that— Colonel Sibthorp has more brains than

beard; or that— Sir Robert Peel feels for anybody but himself; or that—

Peter Borthwick was listened to with attention; or that— Sir Peter

Laurie’s wisdom cannot be estimated; or that— Sir Edward George Erle

Lytton Bulwer thinks very small beer of himself; or that— The Earl of

Coventry carries a vast deal of sense under his hat; or that— Mr.

Roebuck is the pet of the Times; or, in short, that— The Tories are the

best and most popular governors that England ever had. If “the Irish

would swear” to the above, we confess they “would swear anything.”

COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE THEM. SIR JAMES CLARK is in

daily attendance at the Palace. We suppose that he is looking out for a

new berth under Government.

[pg 178] HOSTILITIES IN PRIVATE LIFE. We have just heard of an event

which has shaken the peace of a highly respectable house in St. Martin’s

Court, from the chimney-pots to the coal-cellar. Mrs. Brown, the

occupier of the first floor, happened, on last Sunday, to borrow of Mrs.

Smith, who lived a pair higher in the world, a German silver teapot, on

the occasion of her giving a small twankey party to a few select

friends. But though she availed herself of Mrs. Smith’s German-silver,

to add respectability to her soirée, she wholly overlooked Mrs. Smith,

who was not invited to partake of the festivities. This was a slight

that no woman of spirit could endure; and though Mrs. Smith’s teapot was

German-silver, she resolved to let Mrs. Brown see that she had herself

some real Britannia mettle in her composition. Accordingly when the

teapot was sent up the following morning to Mrs. Smith’s apartments,

with Mrs. Brown’s “compliments and thanks,” Mrs. Smith discovered or

affected to discover, a serious contusion on the lid of the article, and

despatched it by her own servant back to Mrs. Brown, accompanied by the

subjoined note:—

“Mrs. Smith’s compliments to Mrs. Brown, begs to return the teapott to

the latter—in consequence of the ill-usage it has received in her

hands.”

Mrs. Brown, being a woman who piques herself upon her talent at

epistolary writing, immediately replied in the following terms:—

“Mrs. Brown’s compliments to Mrs. Smith, begs to say that her paltry

teapot received no ill usage from Mrs. Brown.—Mrs. B. will thank Mrs. S.

not to put two t’s at the end of teapot in future.”

This note and the teapot were forthwith sent upstairs to Mrs. Smith,

whose indignation being very naturally roused, she again returned the

battered affair, with this spirited missive:—

“Mrs. Smith begs to inform Mrs. Brown, that she despises her

insinuations, and to say, that she will put as many t’s as she pleases

in her teapot.

“P.S.—Mrs. S. expects to be paid 10s. for the injured article.”

Again the teapot was sent upstairs, with the following reply from Mrs.

Brown:—

“Mrs. Brown thinks Mrs. Smith a low creature.

“P.S.—Mrs. B. won’t pay a farthing.”

The correspondence terminated here, the German-silver teapot remaining

in statu quo on the lobby window, between the territories of the hostile

powers; and there it might have remained until the present moment, if

Mrs. Brown had not declared, in an audible voice, at the foot of the

stairs, that Mrs. Smith was acting under the influence of gin, which

reaching the ears of the calumniated lady, she rushed down to the

landing-place, and seizing the teapot, discharged it at Mrs. Brown’s

head, which it fortunately missed, but totally annihilated a plaster

figure of Napoleon, which stood in the hall, and materially damaged its

own spout. Mrs. Brown, being wholly unsupported at the time, retired

hastily within the defences of her own apartments, which Mrs. Smith

cannonaded vigorously for upwards of ten minutes with a broom handle;

and there is every reason to believe she would shortly have effected a

practicable breach, if a reinforcement from the kitchen had not arrived

to aid the besieged, and forced the assailant back to her second-floor

entrenchments. Mrs. Smith then demanded a truce until evening, which was

granted by Mrs. Brown; notwithstanding which the former lady was

detected, in defiance of this arrangement, endeavouring to blow up Mrs.

Brown through the keyhole.

There is no telling how this unhappy difference will terminate; for

though at present matters appear tolerably quiet, we know not (as in the

case of the Canadas) at what moment we may have to inform our readers

that

A grumpy woman sits near a smoky candle. THE BORDERS ARE IN A FLAME.

GEOLOGY OF SOCIETY. SECTION II. We last week described the different

strata of society comprehended in the INFERIOR SERIES, and the lower

portion of the Clapham Group. We now beg to call the attention of our

readers to a most important division in the next great formation—which

has been termed the TRANSITION CLASS—because the individuals composing

it are in a gradual state of elevation, and have a tendency to mix with

the superior strata. By referring to the scale which we gave in our

first section, it will be seen that the lowest layer in this class is

formed by the people who keep shops and one-horse “shays,” and go to

Ramsgate for three weeks in the dog-days. They all exhibit evidences of

having been thrown up from a low to a high level. The elevating causes

are numerous, but the most remarkable are those which arise from the

action of unexpected legacies. Lotteries were formerly the cause of

remarkable elevations; and speculation in the funds may be still

considered as amongst the elevating causes, though their effect is

frequently to cause a sudden sinking. Lying immediately above the “shop

and shay” people, we find the old substantial merchant, who every day

precisely as the clock strikes ten is in the act of hanging up his hat

in his little back counting-house in Fenchurch-street. His private

house, however, is at Brixton-hill, where the gentility of the family is

supported by his wife, two daughters, a piano, and a servant in livery.

The best and finest specimens of this strata are susceptible of a slight

polish; they are found very useful in the construction of joint stock

banks, railroads, and other speculations where a good foundation is

required. We now come to the Russell-square group, which comprehends all

those people who “live private,” and aim at being thought fashionable

and independent. Many individuals of this group are nevertheless

supposed by many to be privately connected with some trading concern in

the City. It is a distinguishing characteristic of the second layer in

this group to have a tendency to give dinners to the superior series,

while the specimens of the upper stratum are always found in close

proximity to a carriage. Family descent, which is a marked peculiarity

of the SUPERIOR CLASS, is rarely to be met with in the Russell-square

group. The fossil animals which exist in this group are not numerous:

they are for the most part decayed barristers and superannuated doctors.

Of the ST. JAMES’S SERIES it is sufficient to say that it consists of

four strata, of which the superior specimens are usually found attached

to coronets. Most of the precious stones, as diamonds, rubies, emeralds,

are also to be found in this layer. The materials of which it is

composed are various, and appear originally to have belonged to the

inferior classes; and the only use to which it can be applied is in the

construction of peers. Throughout all the classes there occur what are

called veins, containing diverse substances. The larking vein is

extremely abundant in the superior classes—it is rich in brass knockers,

bell handles, and policemen’s rattles; this vein descends through all

the lower strata, the specimens in each differing according to the

situation in which they are found; the middle classes being generally

discovered deposited in the Coal-hole Tavern or the Cider-cellars, while

the individuals of the very inferior order are usually discovered in

gin-shops and low pot-houses, and not unfrequently

A drunk lays on the floor surrounded by pitchers and pours the contents

of one on his head. EMBEDDED IN QUARTS(Z).

THE WAPPING DELUGE. Father Thames, not content with his customary

course, has been “swelling it” in the course of the week, through some

of the streets of the metropolis. As if to inculcate temperance, he

walked himself down into public-house cellars, filling all the empty

casks with water, and adulterating all the beer and spirits that came in

his way; turning also every body’s fixed into floating capital. Half

empty butts, whose place was below, came sailing up into the bar through

the ceiling of the cellar; saucepans were elevated from beneath the

dresser to the dresser itself; while cups were made “to pop off the

hooks” with surprising rapidity.

But the greatest consternation that prevailed was among the rats,

particularly those in the neighbourhood of Downing-street, who were

driven out of the sewers they inhabit with astounding violence.

The dairies on the banks of the Thames were obliged to lay aside their

customary practice of inundating the milk; for such a “meeting of the

waters” as would otherwise have ensued must have proved rather too much,

even for the regular customers.

SAVORY CON. BY COX. Why is it impossible for a watch that indicates the

smaller divisions of time ever to be new?—Because it must always be a

second-hand one.

[pg 179] PUNCH’S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE.—No. V. NATURAL HISTORY

(Continued). THE OPERA-DANCER (H. capernicus—CERITOE). So decidedly does

this animal belong to the Bimana order of beings, that to his two legs

he is indebted for existence. Most of his fellow bipeds live by the work

of their hands, except indeed the feathered and tailor tribes, who live

by their bills; but from his thighs, calves, ancles, and toes, does the

opera-dancer derive subsistence for the less important portions of his

anatomy.

Physiology.—The body, face, and arms of the opera-dancer present no

peculiarities above the rest of his species; and it is to his lower

extremities alone that we must look for distinguishing features. As our

researches extend downwards from head to foot, the first thing that

strikes us is a protuberance of the ante-occipital membranes, so great

as to present a back view that describes two sides of a scalene

triangle, the apex of which projects posteriorly nearly half way down

the figure. That a due equilibrium may be preserved in this difficult

position (technically called “the first”), the toes are turned out so as

to form a right angle with the lower leg. Thus, in walking, this curious

being presents a mass of animated straight lines that have an equal

variety of inclination to a bundle of rods carelessly tied up, or to

Signor Paganini when afflicted with the lumbago.

Habits.—The habits of the opera-dancer vary according as we see him in

public or in private life. On the stage he is all spangles and activity;

off the stage, seediness and decrepitude are his chief characteristics.

It is usual for him to enter upon his public career with a tremendous

bound and a hat and feathers. After standing upon one toe, he raises its

fellow up to a line with his nose, and turns round until the applause

comes, even if that be delayed for several minutes. He then cuts six,

and shuffles up to a female of his species, who being his sweetheart (in

the ballet), has been looking savage envy at him and spiteful

indignation at the audience on account of the applause, which ought to

have been reserved for her own capering—to come. When it does, she

throws up her arms and steps upon tiptoe about three paces, looking

exactly like a crane with a sore heel. Making her legs into a pair of

compasses, she describes a circle in the air with one great toe upon a

pivot formed with the other; then bending down so that her very short

petticoat makes a “cheese” upon the ground, spreads out both arms to the

roués in the stalls, who understand the signal, and cry “Brava! brava!!”

Rising, she turns her back to display her gauze jupe élastique, which is

always exceedingly bouffante: expectorating upon the stage as she

retires. She thus makes way for her lover, who, being her professional

rival, she invariably detests.

It is singular that in private life the habits of the animal differ most

materially according to its sex. The male sometimes keeps an academy and

a kit fiddle, but the domestic relations of the female remain a profound

mystery; and although Professors Tom Duncombe, Count D’Orsay,

Chesterfield, and several other eminent Italian-operatic natural

historians, have spent immense fortunes in an ardent pursuit of

knowledge in this branch of science, they have as yet afforded the world

but a small modicum of information. Perhaps what they have learned is

not of a nature to be made public.

Moral Characteristics.—None.

Reproduction.—The offspring of opera-dancers are not, as is sometimes

supposed, born with wings; the truth is that these cherubim are

frequently attached by their backs to copper wires, and made to

represent flying angels in fairy dramas; and those appendages, so far

from being natural, are supplied by the property-man, together with the

wreaths of artificial flowers which each Liliputian divinity upholds.

Sustenance.—All opera-dancers are decidedly omnivorous. Their appetite

is immense; quantity and (for most of them come from France), not

quality, is what they chiefly desire. When not dining at their own

expense, they eat all they can, and pocket the rest. Indeed, a

celebrated sylphide—unsurpassed for the graceful airiness of her

evolutions—has been known to make the sunflower in the last scene bend

with the additional weight of a roast pig, an apple pie, and sixteen

omelettes soufflées—drink, including porter, in proportion. Various

philosophers have endeavoured to account for this extraordinary

digestive capacity; but some of their arguments are unworthy of the

science they otherwise adorn. For example, it has been said that the

great exertions to which the dancer is subject demand a corresponding

amount of nutriment, and that the copious transudation superinduced

thereby requires proportionate supplies of suction; while, in point of

fact, if such theorists had studied their subject a little closer, they

would have found these unbounded appetites accounted for upon the most

simple and conclusive ground: it is clear that, as most opera-dancers’

lives are passed in a pirouette, they must naturally have enormous

twists!

The geographical distribution of opera-dancers is extremely well

defined, as their names implies; for they most do congregate wherever an

opera-house exists. Some, however, descend to the non-lyric drama, and

condescend to “illustrate” the plays of Shakespeare. It is said that the

classical manager of Drury Lane Theatre has secured a company of them to

help the singers he has engaged to perform Richard the Third,

Coriolanus, and other historical plays.

Why has a clock always a bashful appearance?—Because it always keeps its

hands before its face.

KIDNAPPING EXTRAORDINARY. The Chronicle has been making a desperate

attempt to come out in Punch’s line; he has absolutely been trying the

“Too-too-tooit—tooit;” but has made a most melancholy failure of it. We

could forgive him his efforts to be facetious (though we doubt that his

readers will) if he had not kidnapped three of our own particular

pets—the very men who lived and grew in the world’s estimation on our

wits; we mean Peter Borthwick, Ben D’Israeli, and our own immortal

Sibthorp. Of poor Sib. the joker of the Chronicle says in last Tuesday’s

paper—

“We regret to hear that Col. Sibthorp has suffered severely by cutting

himself in the act of shaving. His friends, however, will rejoice to

learn that his whiskers have escaped, and that he himself is going on

favourably.”

We spent an entire night in endeavouring to discover where the wit lay

in this cutting paragraph; but were obliged at last to give it up,

convinced that we might as well have made

A tailor measures a very tall man. AN ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER THE LONGITUDE.

SONGS OF THE SEEDY.—No. V. What am I? Mary, wherefore seek to know?

For mystery’s the very soul of love.

Enough, that wedding thee I’m not below,

Enough, that wooing thee I’m not above.

You smile, dear girl, and look into my face

As if you’d read my history in my eye.

I’m not, sweet maid, a footman out of place,

For that position would, I own, be shy.

What am I then, you ask? Alas! ’tis clear,

You love not me, but what I have a year.

What am I, Mary! Well, then, must I tell,

And all my stern realities reveal?

Come close then to me, dearest, listen well,

While what I am no longer I conceal.

I serve my fellow-men, a glorious right;

Thanks for that smile, dear maid, I know ’tis due.

Yes, many have I served by day and night;

With me to aid them, none need vainly sue.

Nay, do not praise me, love, but nearer come,

That I may whisper, I’m a bailiff’s bum.

Why start thus from me? am I then a thing

To be despised and cast aside by thee?

Oh! while to every one I fondly cling

And follow all, will no one follow me?

Oh! if it comes to this, dear girl, no more

Shalt thou have cause upon my suit to frown;

I’ll serve no writs again; from me secure,

John Doe may run at leisure up and down,

Come to my arms, but do not weep the less,

Thou art the last I’ll e’er take in distress.

A PAIR OF DUCKS. “Pray, Sir Peter,” said a brother Alderman to the City

Laurie-ate the other day, while discussing the merits of Galloway’s plan

for a viaduct from Holborn-hill to Skinner-street, “Pray, Sir Peter, can

you inform me what is the difference between a viaduct and an aqueduct?”

“Certainly,” replied our “City Correspondent,” with amazing

condescension; “a via-duck is a land-duck, and an aqua-duck is a water-

duck!” The querist confessed he had no idea before of the immensity of

Sir Peter’s scientific knowledge.

[pg 180] PUNCH’S THEATRE. MARGARET MAYFIELD; OR, THE MURDER OF THE LONE

FARM-HOUSE. A couple next to a flowery tree form a letter P. rodigious!

The minor drama has exhausted its stock of major crimes: parricide is

out of date; infanticide has become from constant occurrence decidedly

low; homicide grows tame and uninteresting; and fratricide is a mere

bagatelle, not worthy of attention. The dramatist must therefore awaken

new sympathies by contriving new crimes—he must invent. In this the

Sadler’s Wells genius has been fortunate. He has brought forward a

novelty in assassination, which is harrowing in the extreme: it may be

called Farm-house-icide! Just conceive the pitch of intense sympathy it

is possible for one to feel, while beholding “the murder of a lone farm-

house!” Arson is nothing to it.

Out of this novel domiciliary catastrophe the author of “Margaret

Mayfield” has formed a melodrama, which in every other respect is

founded, like a chancellor’s decree, upon precedent; it being a good

old-fashioned, cut-throat piece, of the leather-breeches-and-gaiter,

plough-and-pitchfork school. A country-inn parlour of course commences

the story, where certain characters assemble, who reveal enough of

themselves and of the characters assumed by their fellows (at that time

amusing themselves in the green-room), to let any person the least

acquainted with the literature of melodrama into the secret of the

entire plot. There is the villain, who is as usual in love with the

heroine, and in league with three ill-looking fellows sitting at a

separate table. There too is the old-established farmer, who has about

him a considerable sum of money—a fact he mentions for the information

of his pot-companions, on purpose to be robbed of it. The low comedian

as usual disports himself upon a three-legged stool, dressed in the

never-to-be-worn-out short non-continuations, skirtless coat, and

“eccentric” tile.

A scene or two afterwards, and we are surprised to find that the farmer

is safely housed, and that he has not been robbed upon a bleak moor on a

dark stage. But we soon feel a sensation of awe, when we learn that

before us is the interior of the very farm-house that is going to be

murdered. The farmer and his wife go through the long-standing dialogue

of stage-stereotype, about love and virtue, the price of turnips, and

their only child; and the husband goes to some fair with a friend, who

had just been rejected by his sister-in-law in favour of the villain.

The coast being left clear, the villain and his accomplices enter, and

we know something dreadful is going to happen, for the farmer’s wife is

gone out of the way on purpose not to interrupt. The villain draws a

knife and drags his sweetheart into an out-house, and then the wife

comes on to describe what is passing; for the audiences of Sadler’s

Wells would tear up the benches if they dared to murder out of sight,

without being told what is going on. Accordingly, we hear a scream, and

the sister of the screamer exclaims,—“Ah, horror! He draws the knife

across her throat! (Great applause.) But no; she takes up a broken

ploughshare and escapes! (A slight tendency to hiss.) Now he seizes her

hair, he throws her down. Ah! see how the blood streams from her——.”

(Intense delight as the woman falls flat upon the boards, supposed to be

overcome with dread.) A bloody knife, of course, next enters, grasped by

the villain; who, as usual, remarks he is sorry for what has happened,

but it can’t be helped, and must be made the best of. The woman having

suddenly recovered, escapes into an additional private box, or trunk,

placed on the stage for that purpose; stating that she will see what is

going on from between the cracks. The villain then murders the child,

and walks off with his hands in his pocket; leaving, as is always the

case, the fatal knife in a most conspicuous part of the stage, which for

some seconds it has all to itself. The farmer comes in, takes up the

knife, and falls down in a fit, just in time for the constables to come

in and to take him up for the murder. The wife jumps out of the box, and

by her assistance a tableau is formed for the act-drop to fall to.

Our readers, of course, guess the rest. The farmer is condemned to be

hanged; and in the last scene he is one of the never-omitted procession

to the gallows. At the cue, “Now then, I am ready to meet my fate like a

man,” the screech in that case always made and provided is heard at a

distance. “Hold! hold! he is innocent!” are the next words; and enter

the wife with a pair of pistols, and a witness. The executioner pardons

the condemned on his own responsibility; and the villain comes on, on

purpose to be shot, which is done by the farmer, who seems determined

not to be accused of murder for nothing.

To these charming series of murders we may add that of the Queen’s

English, which was shockingly maltreated, without the least remorse or

mitigation.

THE TWO LAST IMPORTANT SITTINGS. Mr. Ross has had the last sitting of

the Princess Royal for her portrait, and the Tories the last sitting of

Mr. Walter for Nottingham.

SIBTHORPIAN PROBLEMS. Colonel Sibthorp presents his compliments to his

dear friend and fellow, PUNCH, and seeing in the Times of Wednesday last

a long account of the extraordinary arithmetical powers of a new

calculating machine, invented by Mr. Wertheimber, he is desirous of

asking the inventor, through the ubiquitous pages of PUNCH, whether his,

Mr. W.’s apparatus—which, as his friend George Robins would say, is a

lot which seems to be worthy only of the great Bidder—(he thinks he had

him there)—whether this automatical American, or steam calculator, could

solve for him the following queries:—

If the House of Commons be divided by Colonel Sibthorp on the Corn Laws,

how much will it add to his credit?

How many times will a joke of Colonel Sibthorp’s go into the London

newspapers?

Extract the root of Mr. Roebuck’s family tree, and say whether it would

come out in anything but vulgar fractions.

Required the difference between political and imperial measures, and

state whether the former belong to dry or superficial.

If thirty-six be six square, what is St. James’s-square?—and if the

first circles be resident there, say whether this may not be considered

as an approximation to the quadrature of the circle.

State the contents of the House of Commons upon the next motion of Sir

Robert Peel, and whether the malcontents will be greater or less.

Required the capacities in feet between a biped, a quadruped, and a

centipede, and say whether the foot of Mr. Joseph Hume, being just as

broad as it is long, may not be considered as a square foot.

Express, in harmonious numbers, the proportion between the rhyme and the

reason of Mr. Benjamin D’Israeli’s revolutionary epic, and say whether

this is not a question of inverse ratio.

Whether, in political progression, the two extremes, Duke of Newcastle

and Feargus O’Connor, are equal to the mean Joseph Hume.

Is it possible to multiply the difficulties of the Whigs, and, if so, am

I the figure for the part?

What is the difference between the squares of Messrs. Tom Spring and

John Gully, and whether the one is the fourth, fifth, or what power of

the other?

A SLAP AT JOHN CHINAMAN’S CHOPS. Peter Borthwick lately arrived at the

highest possible pressure of indignation, while reading some of the

insolent fulminations from the Celestial Empire. But Peter was sorely at

a loss to account for their singular names: he was instantly enlightened

by the Finsbury interpreter, our Tom Duncombe, who rendered the matter

clear by asserting it was because the Emperor was very partial to a

A Chinese soldier looks at another, surprised Chinese man looking at a

paper. CHOP WITH CHINESE SAUCE.

HUME LEEDS—WAKLEY FOLLOWS. Joe Hume has written over to Wakley (postage

unpaid) begging of him to take warning by his beating at Leeds; as he

much fears, should Mr. Wakley continue his present line of conduct, when

he next presents himself to his Finsbury constituents there is great

probability of

A wagon followed by slaves and men wielding whips. FOLLOWING IN THE

BEATEN TRACK.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1. OCTOBER 30, 1841. [pg 181] THE

GREAT CREATURE. That “great creature,” like some other “great

creatures,” happened, as almanacs say, “about this time” to be somewhat

“out at elbows;”—not in the way of costume, for the very plenitude of

his wardrobe was the cause which produced this effect, inasmuch as the

word “received” in the veritable autograph of Messrs. Moleskin and

Corderoy could nowhere be discovered annexed to the bills thereof: a

slight upon their powers of penmanship which roused their individual,

collective, and coparcenary ires to such a pitch, that they, Messrs.

Moleskin and Corderoy, through the medium of their Attorneys-at-law,

Messrs. Gallowsworthy and Pickles, of Furnival’s Inn, forwarded a writ

to the unfortunate Hannibal Fitzflummery Fitzflam,—the which writ in

process of time, being the legal seed, became ripened into a very

vigorous execution, and was consigned to the care of a gentleman holding

a Civil employment with a Military title, viz. that of “Officer” to the

Sheriff of Middlesex, with strict injunctions to the said—anything but

Civil or Military—nondescript “officer,” to secure and keep the person

of Hannibal Fitzflummery Fitzflam till such time as the debt due to

Messrs. Moleskin and Corderoy, and the legal charges of Messrs.

Gallowsworthy and Pickles, should be discharged, defrayed, and

liquidated.

Frequent were the meetings of Messrs. Gallowsworthy and Pickles and

their man-trap, and as frequent their disappointments:—Fitzflam always

gave them the double! Having procured leave of absence from the Town

Managers, and finding the place rather too hot to hold him, he departed

for the country, and, as fate would have it, arrived at the inn then

occupied by Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk.

In this out-of-the-way place he fondly imagined he had never been heard

of. Judge then of his surprise, after his dinner and pint of wine, at

the following information.

Fitz. “Waiter.”

“Yes, sar.”

“Who have you in the house?”

“Fust of company, sar;—alwaist, sar.”

“Oh! of course;—any one in particular?”

“Yes, sar, very particular: one gentleman very particular, indeed. Has

his bed warmed with brown sugar in the pan, and drinks asses’ milk, sar,

for breakfast!”

“Strange fellow! but I mean any one of name?”

“Yes, sar, a German, sar; with a name so long, sar, it take all the

indoor servants and a stable-helper to call him up of a morning.”

“You don’t understand me. Have you any public people here?”

“Yes, sar—great man from town, sar—belongs to the Theatre—Mr. Fitzflam,

sar—quite the gentleman, sar.”

“Thank you for the compliment” (bowing low).

“No compliment at all, sar; would you like to see him, sar?—sell you a

ticket, sar; or buy one of you, sar.”

“What?”

“House expected to be full, sar—sure to sell it again, sar.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“The play, sar—Fitzflam, sar!—there’s the bill, sar, and (bell rings)

there’s the bell, sar. Coming.” (Exit Waiter.)

The first thing that suggested itself to the mind of Mr. Hannibal

Fitzflummery Fitzflam was the absolute necessity of insisting upon that

insane waiter’s submitting to the total loss of his well-greased locks,

and enveloping his outward man in an extra-strong strait-waistcoat; the

next was to look at the bill, and there he saw—“horror of horrors!”—the

name, “the bright ancestral name”—the name he bore, bursting forth in

all the reckless impudence of the largest type and the reddest

vermilion!

Anger, rage, and indignation, like so many candidates for the exalted

mutton on a greased pole, rushed tumultuously over each other’s heads,

each anxious to gain the “ascendant” in the bosom of Mr. Hannibal

Fitzflummery Fitzflam. To reduce a six-and-ninepenny gossamer to the

fac-simile of a bereaved muffin in mourning by one vigorous blow

wherewith he secured it on his head, grasp his ample cane and three

half-sucked oranges (in case it should come to pelting), and rush to the

theatre, was the work of just twelve minutes and a half. In another

brief moment, payment having been tendered and accepted, Fitzflam was in

the boxes, ready to expose the swindle and the swindler!

The first act was over, and the audience were discussing the merits of

the supposed Roscius.

“He is a sweet young man,” said a simpering damsel to a red-headed

Lothario, with just brains enough to be jealous, and spirit enough to

damn the player.

“I don’t see it,” responded he of the Rufusian locks.

“Such dear legs!”

“Dear legs—duck legs you mean, miss!”

“And such a voice!”