Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, November 20, 1841
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| Publié par | mosil |
| Publié le | 01 décembre 2010 |
| Nombre de lectures | 202 |
| Langue | English |
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 Author: Various Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14937] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***
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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1.
NOVEMBER 20, 1841.
MYSELF, PUNCH, AND THE KEELEYS. I dined with my old friend and schoolfellow, Jack Withers, one day last September. On the previous morning, on my way to the India House, I had run up against a stout individual on Cornhill, and on looking in his face as I stopped for a moment to apologise, an abrupt “This is surely Jack Withers,” burst from my lips, followed by—“God bless me! Will Bayfield!” from his. After a hurried question or two, we shook hands warmly and parted, with the understanding that I was to cut my mutton with him next day. Seventeen years had elapsed since Withers and I had seen or heard of each other. Having a good mercantile connexion, he had pitched upon commerce as his calling, and entered a counting-house in Idollane in the same year that I, a raw young surgeon, embarked for India to seek my fortune in the medical service of the East India Company. Things had gone well with honest Jack; from a long, thin, weazel of a youngster, he had become a burly ruddy-faced gentleman, with an aldermanic rotundity of paunch, which gave the world assurance that his ordinary fare by no means consisted of deaf nuts; he had already, as he told me, accumulated a very pretty independence, which was yearly increasing, and was, moreover, a snug bachelor, with a well-arranged residence in Finsbury-square; in short, it was evident that Jack was “a fellow with two coats and everything handsome about him.” As for me, I was a verification of the adage about the rolling stone; having gathered a very small quantity of “moss,” in the shape of worldly goods. I had spent sixteen years in marching and countermarching over the thirsty plains of the Carnatic, in medical charge of a native regiment —salivating Sepoys and blowing out with blue pills the officers—until the effects of a stiff jungle-fever, that nearly made me proprietor of a landed property measuring six feet by two, sent me back to England almost as poor as I had left it, and with an atrabilarious visage which took a two-months’ course of Cheltenham water to scour into anything like a decent colour. Withers’ dinner was in the best taste: viands excellent—wine superb; never did I sip racier Madeira, and the Champagne trickled down one’s throat with the same facility that man is inclined to sin. The cloth drawn, we fell to discoursing about old times, things, persons, and places. Jack then told me how from junior clerk he had risen to become second partner in the firm to which he belonged; and I, in my turn, enlightened his mind with respect to Asiatic Cholera, Runjeet Sing, Ghuzni, tiger-shooting, and Shah Soojah.
In this manner the evening slid pleasantly on. An array of six bottles, that before dinner had contained the juice of Oporto, stood empty on the sideboard. Jack wanted to draw another cork, which, however, I positively forbad, as I have through life made it a rule to avoid the slightest approach towards excess in tippling; so, after a modest brace of glasses of brandy-and-water, I shook hands with and left my friend about half-past nine, for I am an old-fashioned fellow, and love early hours, my usual time for turning in being ten. When I got into the street an unaccustomed spirit of gaiety at once took possession of me; my general feelings of benevolence and goodwill towards all mankind appeared to have received a sudden and marvellous increase. I seemed to tread on eider-down, and, cigar in mouth, strolled along Fleet-street and the Strand, towards my domicile in Half-Moon street—“nescio quid meditans nugarum” —sometimes humming the fag end of an Irish melody; anon stopping to stare in a print-shop window; and then I would trudge on, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy as I conned over the various ups and downs that had chequered my life since Jack Withers and I were thoughtless lads together “a long time ago.” In this mood I found myself standing before the New Strand Theatre, my attention having been arrested by the word PUNCH blazoned in large letters on a play-bill. “What can this mean?” quoth I to myself. “I know a publication called Punch very well, but I never heard of a performance so named. I’ll go in and see it. Who knows but it may be an avatar1of the Editor of that illustrious periodical, who condescends to discard his dread incognito for the nonce, in order to exhibit himself, for one night only, to the eyes and understandings of admiring London.” In another minute I was seated in the boxes, and found a crowded audience in full enjoyment of the quiet waggery of Keeley, who was fooling them to the top of their bent, accoutred from top to toe as Mynheer Punch the Great, while his clever little wife—who, by the way, possesses, I think, more of the “vis comica” than any actress of the day—caused sides to shake and eyes to water by her naïve and humorous delineation of Mrs. Snozzle. The curtain had hardly fallen more than a couple of minutes, when a door behind me opened hastily, and a box-keeper thrusting in his head, called out—“Is there a medical man here?” “I am one,” said I, getting up; “anything the matter?” “Come with me then, sir, if you please,” said he; “a severe accident has just happened to Mrs. Keeley; a falling scene has struck her head, sir, and hurt her dreadfully.” “Good heavens!” said I, much shocked; “I will come immediately.” I followed the man to the stage door, and was ushered into a dressing-room with several people in it, where, extended on a sofa, lay the unfortunate lady, whom I had but a few minutes before seen full of life and spirits, delighting hundreds with her unrivalled humour andespièglerie,—there she lay, in the same fantastic dress she had worn on the stage, pale as death—a quantity of blood flowing from a fearful wound on her head, and uttering those low quick moans which are indicative of extreme suffering. Poor little Keeley stood beside the couch, holding her hand; he was still in full fig asPolichinel; and the grotesqueness of his attire contrasted strangely with the anguish depicted on his countenance. As I came forward, he slowly made way for me—looked in my face imploringly, as if to gather from its expression some gleam of hope, and then stood aside, in an attitude of profound dejection. Having felt the sufferer’s pulse, I was about to turn her head gently, in order to examine the nature of the wound, when a hustling noise behind me causing me to turn round, to my infinite dismay, I perceived Mr. Keeley, having pushed the bystanders on one side, in the act of performing a kind of Punchean dance upon the floor, accompanying himself with the vigorous chuckling and crowing peculiar to the hero whose habiliments he wore. I was horror-stricken—conceiving that grief had suddenly turned his brain. All at once, he made a spring towards me, and, seizing my arm, thrust me into a corner of the room, where he held me fast, exclaiming— “Wretch! villain! restore me my wife—that talented woman your infernal arts have destroyed! You did for her!” “Mr. Keeley,” said I, struggling to release myself from his grasp—“my dear sir, pray compose yourself.” “Unhappy traitor!” he shouted, giving me an unmerciful tweak by the nose; “Look at her silver skin laced with her golden blood!—see, see! Oh, see!” This was rather too much, even from a man whose wits were astray. I began to lose patience, and was preparing to rid myself somewhat roughly of the madman’s grasp, when a new phenomenon occurred. The patient on the sofa, whom I had judged well nigh moribund, and consequently incapable of any effort whatever, all at once sat up with a sudden jerk, and gave vent to a series of the most ear-piercing shrieks that ever assailed human tympanum.
1. TheAvatar we do not allow—the illustrious periodical we do.—ED. OF PUNCH.
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“Oh! oh! Mon Dieu! je suis étouffée! levez-vous donc, monsieur—n’avez-vous pas honte!” I started up—O misery!—I had fallen asleep, and my head, resting against a pillar, had slipped down, depositing itself upon the expansive bosom of a portly French dame in the next box, who seemed, by her vehement exclamations, to be quite shaken from the balance of her propriety by the unlooked-for burthen I had imposed upon her; whilst apetit monsieurpoured forth a string ofsacresandsapristies upon my devoted head with a volubility of utterance truly astonishing. I gazed about me with troubled and lack-lustre eye. Every lorgnette in the boxes was levelled at my miserable countenance; a sea of upturned and derisive faces grinned at me from the pit, and the gods in Olympus thundered from on high—“Turn him out; he’s drunk!” This was the unkindest cut of all—thus publicly to be accused of intoxication, a vice of all others I have ever detested and eschewed. I cast one indignant glance around me, and left the theatre, lamenting the depravity of our nature, which is, alas! always ready to put the worst construction upon actions in themselves most innocent; for if I had gone to sleep in my own arm-chair, pray who would have accused me of inebriety? How I got home I know not. As I hurried through the streets, a legion of voices, in every variety of intonation, yelled in my ears—“Turn him out—he’s drunk!” and when I woke in the middle of the night, tormented by a raging thirst (produced, I suppose, by the flurry of spirits I had undergone), I seemed to hear screams, groans, and hisses, above all which predominated loud and clear the malignant denunciation—“Turn him out—he’s drunk!” Upon my subsequently mentioning the above adventure to Jack Withers, it will hardly be credited that this villain without shame at once roundly asserted that, when I left him on the afore-mentioned night, I was at least three sheets and three quarters in the wind; adding with praiseworthy candour, that he himself was so far gone as to be obliged, to the infinite scandal of his staid old housekeeper, to creep up stairsà quatre pieds, in order to gain his bedroom. Now this latter may be true enough, for it is probable that friend Jack freshened his nip a trifle after my departure, seeing that he was always something of a drunken knave. As for his calumnious and scandalous declaration, thatIin the least degree tipsy, it is too ridiculous to be noticed. I scorn itwas with my heels—I was sober—sober, cool, and steady as the north star; and he that is inclined to question this solemn asseveration, let him send me his card; and if I don’t drill a hole in his doublet before he’s forty-eight hours older, then, as honest Slender has it, “I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else.”
“ARE YE SURE THE NEWS IS TRUE?” We learn from good authority that Lord TAMBOFF STANLEY, in answer to a deputation from Scotland, assured the gentlemen who waited upon him that “the subject ofemigration under the serious was consideration of Her Majesty’s Ministers.” We hope that those respectable gentlemen may soon resolve upon their departure—we care not “what clime they wander to, so not again tothis;” or, as Shakspeare says, let them “stand not upon the order of their going, but GO.” The country, we take it upon ourselves to say, will remember them when they are gone; they have left the nation too many weighty proofs of their regard to be forgotten in a hurry—Corruption, Starvation, and Taxation, and the National Debt by way of
A HANDSOME LEG—I SEE (LEGACY).
A DOSE OF CASTOR. Peter Borthwick, late of the Royal Surrey Nautical, having had the honour of “deep damnation” conferred upon his “taking off” the character of Prince Henry, upon that occasion, to appear in unison with the text of the Immortal Bard, “dressed” the part in a most elaborate “neck-or-nothing tile.” Upon being expostulated with by the manager, he triumphantly referred to the description of the chivalrous Prince in which the narrator particularly states—
I SAW YOUNG HARRY WITH HIS BEAVER ON.
CUTTING AT THE ROOT OF THE EVIL. “Good heavens, Sir Peter,” said Hobler, confidentially, to our dearly beloved Alderman, “How could you have passed such a ridiculous sentence upon Jones, as to direct his hair to be cut off?” “All right, my dear Hobby,” replied the sapient justice; “the fellow was found fighting in the streets, and I wanted to hinder him, at least for some time, from again
COMING TO THE SCRATCH.”
TO PUNCH. We have received the following choice bit of poetic pathology from our old friend and jolly dog Toby, who, it seems, has taken to medicine. The dog, however, always had a great propensity tobark, owing doubtlessly to the strongtinctureofcaninethere was in his constitution:— MY DEAR PUNCH, Nothing convinces me more of my treacherous memory than my not recollecting you at the memorable “New-boot Supper;” for I certainly must have been as long in that society as yourself. Be that as it may, you have induced me to scrape together a few reminiscences in an imperfect way, leaving to you, from your better recollection, to correct and flavour the specimen to the palate of your readers, who have, most deservedly, every reliance upon your good taste and moral tendency. I have in vain tried to meet with the music of “the good old days of Adam and Eve,” consequently have lost the enjoyment of the chorus—“Sing hey, sing ho!” It would be too much to ask you to sing it, but perhaps you may too-te-too it in your next. May your good intentions to the would-be Æsculapius be attended with success.—I remain, dear Punch, your old friend, TOBY.
ASCITES. Abdomen swell’d, which fluctuates when struck upon the side, sirs; Face pale and puff’d, and worse than that, with thirst and cough beside, sirs; Skin dry, and breathing difficult, and pains in epigastrium, And watchfulness or partial sleep, with dreams would strike the bravest dumb. To cure—restore the balance of exhalants and absorbents, With squill, blue-pill, and other means to soothe the patient’s torments.
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GRINDER. Sure this is not your climax, sir, to save from Davy’s locker! STUDENT. Way, no,—I’d then with caution tap—when first I’d tied the knocker. Sing hey! sing ho! if you cannot find a new plan, In Puseyistic days like these, you’d better try a New-man. TYMPANITIS. The swelling here is different—sonorous, tense, elastic; On it you might a tattoo beat, with fingers or with a stick. There’s costiveness and atrophy, with features Hippocratic; When these appear, there’s much to fear, all safety is erratic. Although a cordial laxative, mix’d up with some carminative, Might be prescribed, with morphia, or hops, to keep the man alive; Take care his diet’s nutritive, avoiding food that’s flatulent, And each week let him have a dose of Punch from Mr. Bryant sent. Sing hey! sing ho! &c.
ALARMING PROSPECTS FOR THE COUNTRY. It appears that no less thanone hundred and sixty-fourAttorneys have given notice of their intention to practise in the Court of Queen’s Bench; andeleventhe fraternity have applied to be re-admittedof Attorneys of the Court. We had no idea that such an alarming extension was about taking place in
THE RIFLE CORPS.
“ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER ” . A poor man went to hang himself, But treasure chanced to find; He pocketed the miser’s pelf And left the rope behind. His money gone, the miser hung Himself in sheer despair: Thus each the other’s wants supplied, And that was surely fair.
We understand that Mr. Webster has solicited Sir Peter Laurie to make an early début at the Haymarket Theatre in theHeir(hair)at Law. Madame Vestris has also endeavoured to prevail upon the civic mercy. Andrew to appear in the afterpiece of theRape of the Lock. THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE.
CHAPTER X. WHEREIN THE READER WILL FIND GREAT CAUSE FOR REJOICING. onducive as Uncle Peter’s suggestion might have been to the restoration of peace in the family of our hero, it was decided to be impracticable by several medical gentlemen, who were consulted upon the matter. After sundry scenes of maternal and grandmaternal distress, Agamemnon succeeded in obtaining the victory, and the heir was vaccinated accordingly with the most favourable result. The pustule rose, budded, blossomed, and disappeared, exactly as it ought to have done, and a few days saw the health of the infant Applebite insured in the office of Dr. Jenner. Scarcely had the anxious parents been relieved by this auspicious termination, when that painful disorder which renders pork unwholesome and children fractious, made its appearance. Had we the plague-pen of the romancist of Rookwood, we would revel in the detail of this domesticated pestilence—we would picture the little sufferer in the hour of its agony—and be as minute as Mr. Hume in our calculations of its feverish pulsations; but our quill was moulted by the dove, not plucked from the wing of the carrion raven. And now, gentle reader, we come to a point of this history which we are assured has been anxiously looked forward to by you—a point at which the reader, already breathless with expectation, has fondly anticipated being suffocated with excitement. We may, without vanity, lay claim to originality, for we have introduced a new hero into the world of fiction—a baby three months old—we have traced his happy parents from the ball-room to St. George’s church; from St. George’s church to the ball-room; thence to the doctor’s; and from thence to THE END. Reproach us not, mamas?—Discard us not, ye blushing divinities who have, with your sex’s softness, dandled the heir of Applebite in your imaginations!—Wait!—Wait till we have explained! We have a motive; but as we are novices in this style of literature, we will avail ourselves, at our leave-taking, of the valedictory address of one who is more “up to the swindle.” To the Readers of the Heir of Applebite. DEAR FRIENDS,—Having finished the infanto-biography upon which we have been engaged, it is our design to cut off our heir, and bring our tale to a close. You may want to know why—or if you don’t, we will tell you. We should not regard the anxiety, the close confinement, or the constant attention inseparable from a nursery, did we feel that the result was agreeable to you. But we have not done so. We have been strongly tempted to think, that after waiting from week to week, you have never arrived at anything interesting. We could not bear this jerking of our conscience, which was no sooner ended than begun again. Most “passages in a tale ofany lengthdepend materially for the interest on the intimate relation they bear to what has gone before, or what is to follow. We sometimes found it difficult to accomplish this. ” Considerations of immediate profit ought, in such cases, to be of secondary importance; but, for the reasons we have just mentioned, we have (after some pains to resist the temptation) determined to abandon thisschemeof publication. Taking advantage of the respite which the close of this work will afford us, we have decided in January next to rent a second floor at Kentish Town. The pleasure we anticipate from the realisation of a wish we have long entertained and long hoped to gratify, is subdued by the reflection that we shall find it somewhat difficult to emancipate our moveables from the thraldom of Mrs. Gibbons, our respected but over-particular landlady. To console the numerous readers of PUNCH, we have it in command to announce, that on Saturday, Nov. 27th, the first chapter of a series under the title of the “Puff Papers,” appropriately illustrated, will be commenced, with a desire to supply the hiatus in periodical fiction, occasioned by the temporary seclusion of one of the most popular novelists of the day. Dear friends, farewell! Should we again desire to resume the pen, we trust at your hands we shall not have to encounter a
DISPUTED RETURN.
THE LAMBETH DEMOSTHENES. We are happy to find that Dr. Tully Cicero Burke Sheridan Grattan Charles Phillips Hobler Bedford has not been deterred by the late unsatisfactory termination to the “public meeting” called by him to address the Queen, from prosecuting his patriotic views for his own personal advantage. Dr. &c. Bedford has kindly furnished us with the report of a meeting called by himself, which consisted of himself, for the purpose of considering the propriety of petitioning the Throne to appoint himself to be medical-adviser-in-general to her Majesty, and vaccinator-in-particular to his little Highness the Prince of Wales. At 10 o’clock precisely Dr. &c. Bedford entered the little back parlour of his surgery, and advancing to the looking-glass over the mantel-piece, made a polite bow to the reflection of himself. After a few complimentary gestures had passed between them, Dr &c. Bedford hemmed twice, and in a very elegant speech proposed that “Doctor &c. Bedfordshooldtake thecheer.” Dr. &c. Bedford rose to second the proposition. Dr. &c. Bedford said, “Dr. &c. Bedford is a gentleman what I have had the honour of knowing on for many long ears. His medikel requirement are sich as ris a Narvey and a Nunter to the summut of the temples of Fame. His political requisitions are summarily extinguished. It is, therefore, with no common pride that I second this abomination.” Dr. &c. Bedford then bowed to his reflection in the glass, and proceeded to take his seat in his easy chair, thumping the table with one hand, and placing the other gracefully upon his breast, as though in token of gratitude for the honour conferred upon him. Order being restored, Dr. &c. Bedford rose and said,— “I never kotched myself in sich a sitchuation in my life—I mean not that I hasn’t taken a cheer afore, perhaps carried one—but it never has been my proud extinction to preside over such a meeting—so numerous in its numbers and suspectable in its appearance. My friend, Dr. &c. Bedford, (Hear, hear! from. Dr. &c. Bedford,) his the hornament of natur in this 19th cemetary. His prodigious outlays”— Voice without.—“Here they are, only a penny!” Dr. &c. Bedford.—“Order, order! His—his—you know what I mean that shoold distinguish the fisishun and the orator. I may say the Solus of orators,—renders him the most fittest and the most properest person to take care of the Royal health, and the Royal Infant Babby of these regions,” (Hear, hear! from Dr. &c. Bedford.) The Doctor then proceeded to embody the foregoing observations into a resolution, which was proposed by Dr. &c. Bedford, and seconded by Dr. &c. Bedford, who having held up both his hands, declared it to be carriednem. con. Dr. &c. Bedford then proposed a vote of thanks to Dr, &c. Bedford for his conduct in the chair. The meeting then dispersed, after Dr. &c. Bedford had returned thanks, and bowed to his own reflection in the looking-glass.
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A LEGEND OF THE TOWER (NOT LONDON). In the immediate vicinity of the pretty little town of Kells stands one of those peculiar high round towers, the origin of which has so long puzzled the brains of antiquaries. It is invariably pointed out to the curious, as a fit subject for their contemplation, and may, in fact, be looked upon as the great local lion of the place. It appears almost inaccessible. But there is a story extant, and told in very choice Irish, how two small dare-devil urchins did succeed in reaching its lofty summit; and this is the way the legend was done into English by one Barney Riley, the narrator, to whom I am indebted for its knowledge:— “You see Masther Robert, sir,—though its murduring high, and almost entirely quite aqual in stapeness to the ould ancient Tower of Babel, yet, sir, there is them living now as have been at the top of that same; be the same token I knew both o’ the spalpeens myself. It’s grown up they are now; but whin they wint daws’-nesting to the top there, the little blackguards weren’t above knee-high, if so much.” “But how did they arrive at the summit?” “That’s the wonder of it! but sure nobody knows but themselves; but the scamps managed somehow or other to insart themselves in through one of them small loopholes—whin little Danny Carroll gave Tom Sheeney a leg up and a back, and Tom Sheeney hauled little Danny up after him by the scruff o’ the neck; and so they wint squeedging and scrummaging on till, by dad, they was up at the tip-top in something less than no time; and the trouble was all they had a chance o’ gettin for their pains; for, by the hokey, the daws’ nest they had been bruising their shins, breaking their necks, and tearing their frieze breeches to tatters to reach, was on the outside o’ the building, and about as hard to get at as truth, or marcy from a thafe of a tythe proctor. “‘Hubbabboo,’ says little Danny; ‘we are on the wrong side now, as Pat Murphy’s carroty wig was whin it came through his hat; what will we do, at all, at all?’ “‘Divil a know I know. It would make a parson swear after takin’ tythe. Do you hear the vagabones? Oh, then musha, bad luck to your cawings; its impedence, and nothing but it, to be shouting out in defiance of us, you dirty bastes. Danny, lad, you’re but a little thrifle of a gossoon; couldn’t you squeedge yourself through one o’ them holes?’ “‘What will I stand—or, for the matter o’ that, as I’m by no manes particular,—sit upon, whin I git out —that is, if I can?’ “‘Look here, lad, hear a dacent word—it will be just the dandy thing for yes entirely; go to it with a will, and make yourself as small as a little cock elven, and thin we’ll have our revenge upon them aggravation thaves.’ How the puck he done it nobody knows; but by dad there was his little, ragged, red poll, followed by the whole of his small body, seen coming out o’ that trap-loop there, that doesn’t look much bigger than a button-hole—and thin sitting astride the ould bit of rotten timbers, and laffing like mad, was the tiny Masther Danny, robbing the nests, and shouting with joy as he pulled bird after bird from their nate little feather-beds. ‘This is elegant,’ says he; ‘here’s lashins of ’em.’ “‘How many have you,’ says Tom Sheeney. “‘Seven big uns—full fledged, wid feathers as black as the priest’s breeches on a Good Friday’s fast.’ “‘Seven is it?’ “‘It is.’ “‘Well, then, hand them in.’ “‘By no manes.’ “‘Why not?’ “‘Seein they’re as well wid me as you. “‘Give me my half then—that’s your’— “‘Aisy wid you; who’s had the trouble and the chance of breaking his good-looking neck but me, Mr. Tim Sheeney ’ . “‘Devil a care I care; I’ll have four, or I’ll know why.’ “‘That you’ll soon do: I won’t give ’em you.’ “‘Aint I holding the wood?’ “‘By coorse you are; but aint I sitting outside upon it, and by the same token unseating my best
breeches.’ “‘I bid you take care; give me four ’ . “‘Ha, ha! what a buck your granny was, Mistet Tim Sheeney; it’s three you’ll have, or none.’ “‘Then by the puck I’ll let you go. ’ “‘I defy you to do it, you murdering robber.’ “‘Do you! by dad; once more, give me four.’ “‘To blazes wid you; three or none.’ “‘Then there you go!’ “And, worse luck, sure enough he did, and that at the devil’s own pace. “At this moment I turned my eyes in horror to the Tower, and the height was awful.” “Poor child,—of course he was killed upon the spot?” “There’s the wonder; not a ha’porth o’ harm did the vagabone take at all at all. He held on by the birds’ legs like a little nagur; he was but a shimpeen of a chap, and what with the flapping of their wings and the soft place he fell upon, barring a little thrifle of stunning, and it may be a small matter of fright, he was as comfortable as any one could expect under the circumstances; but it would have done your heart good to see the little gossoon jump up, shake his feathers, and shout out at the top of his small voice, ‘Tim Sheeney, you thief, you’d better have taken the three,—for d—n the daw do you get now!’” And so ends the Legend of the Round Tower.
IRISH INTELLIGENCE. AWFUL STATE OF THE COUNTRY! (From our own Correspondent.) We are at length enabled to inform the Public that we have, at a vast expense, completed our arrangements for the transmission of the earliest news from Ireland. We have just received theOver-bog Mail, which contains facts of a most interesting nature. We hasten to lay our sagacious correspondent’s remarks before our readers:— Bally-ha-ghadera, Tuesday Night. PUNCH will appreciate my unwillingness to furnish him with intelligence which might in any way disturb the commercial relations between this and the sister island, more particularly at thepresent crisis, when the interests of that prosperous class, the London Baked Potatoe vendors, are so intimately connected, with the preservation of good feeling among the Tipperary growers. However, my duty to PUNCH and the public compel me to speak.—I do feel that we are on the eve of a great popular commotion. Every day’s occurrences strengthen my conviction. Bally-ha-ghadera was this morning at sunrise disturbed by noises of the most appalling kind, forming a wild chorus, in which screams and bellowings seemed to vie for supremacy; indeed words cannot adequately describe this terrific disturbance. As I expected, the depraved Whig Journalist, with characteristic mental tortuosity, has asserted that the sounds proceeded from a rookery in the adjoining wood, aided by the braying of the turf-man’s donkey. But an enlightened public will see through this paltry subterfuge. Rooks and donkeys! Pooh! There cannot be a doubt but that the noises were the preparatory war-whoops of this ferocious and sanguinary people. We believe the Whig editor to be the onlydonkeyin the case; that he may have been a ravin(g) at the time is also very probable. No later than yesterday theCloonakilty Expresswas stopped by aband of young men, who savagely ill-treated our courier, a youth of tender age, having attempted to stone him to death. Our courier is ready to swear that at the time of the attack the young men were busily engaged counting avast store of ammunition, consisting ofround white clay ballsbaked to the hardness of bullets, andevidently intended forshooting with. I have to call particular attention to the fact that a countryman was this day observed to buy a threepenny loaf, and on leaving the baker’s totear it asunder and distribute the fragments with three confederates!!! an act which I need not say was evidently symbolical of their desire to rend asunder theCorn Lawsdivide the landed property amongst themselves. The action also appears, and to analogous to the custom of breaking bread and swearing alliance on it, a practice still observed by the inhabitants of some remote regions of the Caucasus. I must again solemnly express my conviction that we are standing on aslumberingthoughtless and unobservant may suppose not; VOLCANO; the probably because in the present tee-total state of society they see nothing of the CRATER.
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TAKING A SIGHT AT THE FIRE. A man bearing the very inapplicable name ofVirtuewas brought up at Lambeth-street last week, on the charge of having stolen a telescope from the Ordnance-office in the Tower on the morning of the fire. The prisoner pleaded that, being short-sighted, he took the glass to have a sight of the fire. The magistrate, however,saw through excuse very clearly; and as it was apparent that thisVirtue had taken aglasstoo much on the occasion, he was fully committed. JOE HUME’S FORTHCOMING WORK. We have received the following note from an old and esteemed correspondent, who, we are rejoiced to find, has returned from a tour in Switzerland, where he has been engaged in a prodigious work connected with the statistics of that country. Reform Club-house.
DEAR PUNCH, Knowing the interest you take in anything relating to the advancement of science, I beg to apprise you that I am about publishing a statistical work, in which I have made it perfectly clear that an immense saving in the article of ice alone might be made in England by importing that which lies waste upon Mont Blanc. I have also calculated to a fraction the number of pints of milk produced in the canton of Berne, distinguishing the quantity used in the making of cheese from that which has been consumed in the manufacture of butter—and specifying in every instance whether the milk has been yielded by cows or goats. There will be also a valuable appendix to the work, containing a correct list of all the inns on the road between Frankfort and Geneva, with a copy of the bill of fare at each, and the prices charged; together with the colour of the postilion’s jacket, the age of the landlord and the weight of his wife, and the height in inches of the cook and chambermaid. To which will be added, “Ten Minutes’ Advice” upon making one shilling go as far as two. If you can give me a three-halfpenny puff in your admired publication, you will confer a favour on Your sincere friend, JOE HUME.
THE ROMANCE OF A TEACUP. SIP THE FIRST. In England one man’s mated to one woman, To spend their days in holy matrimony— In fact, Ihaveheard from one or two men, That one wife in a house is one too many— But, be this as it may, in China no man Who can afford it shuts himself to any Fix’d number, but is variously encumber’d With better halves, from twenty to a hundred. These to provide for in a pleasant way, And, maybe, to avoid their chat and worry, He shuts up in a harem night and day— With them contriving all his cares to bury— A point of policy which, I should say, Sweetens the dose to men about to marry; For, though a wife’s a charming thing enough, Yet, like all other blessings,quantum suff. So to my tale: Te-pott the Multifarious Was, once upon a time, a mandarin— In personal appearance but precarious, Being incorrigibly bald and thin— But then so rich, through jobs and pensions various, Obtain’d by voting with the party “in,” That he maintain’d, in grace and honour too, Sixty-five years, and spouses fifty-two. Fifty-two wives! and still he went about Peerin below the maiden ladies’ veils—
Indeed, itwassaid (but there hangs a doubt Of scandal on such gossip-whisper’d tales), He had a good one still to single out— For all his wives had tongues, andsomehad nails— And still he hoped, though fifty-twice deferr’d, To find an angel in his fifty-third. In China, mind, and such outlandish places, A gentleman who wishes to be wed Looks round about among the pretty faces, Nor for a moment doubts they may be had For asking; and if any of them “nay” says, He has his remedy as soon as said— For, when the bridegrooms disapprove what they do, They teach them manners with the bastinado. Near Te-pott’s palace lived an old Chinese— About as poor a man as could be known In lands where guardians leave them to their ease, Nor pen the poor up in bastilles of stone: He got a livelihood by picking teas; And of possessions worldly had but one— But one—the which, the reader must be told, Was a fair daughter seventeen years old. She was a lovely little girl, and one To charm the wits of both the high andthelow; And Te-pott’s ancient heart was lost and won In less time than ’twould take my pen to tell how: So, as he was quite an experienced son-In-law, and, too, a very wily fellow, To make Hy-son his friend was no hard matter, I Ween, with that specific for parents—flattery. But, when they two had settled all between Themselves, and Te-pott thought that he had caught her, He found how premature his hopes had been Without the approbation of the daughter— Who talk’d with voice so loud and wit so keen, That he thought all his Mrs. T’s had taught her; And, finding he was in the way there rather, He left her to be lectured by her father. “Pray, what were women made for” (so she said, Though Heaven forbid I join such tender saying), “If they to be accounted are as dead, And strangled if they ever are caught straying? Tis well to give us diamonds for the head, And silken gauds for festival arraying; But where of dress or diamonds is the use If we mayn’t go and show them? that’s the deuce!” The father answer’d, much as fathers do In cases of like nature here in Britain, Where fathers seldom let fortunes slip through Their fingers, when they think that they can get one; He said a many things extremely true— Proving that girls are fine things to be quit on, And that, could she accommodate her views to it, She would find marriage very nice when used to it. Now, ’tis no task to talk a woman into Love, or a dance, or into dressing fine— No task, I’ve heard, to talk her into sin too; But, somehow, reason don’t seem in her line. And so Miss Hy-son, spite of kith and kin too, Persisting such a husband to decline— The eager mandarin issued a warrant, And got her apprehended by her parent. Thus the poor girl was caught, for there was no Appeal against so wealthy lover’s fiat:
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