Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

13

MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES.

LECTURE XXII.

CAUDLE COMES HOME IN THE EVENING, AS MRS. CAUDLE HAS "JUST
STEPPED OUT, SHOPPING." ON HER RETURN, AT TEN, CAUDLE
REMONSTRATES.

R. CAUDLE, you ought to have had
a slave—yes, a black slave, and
not a wife. I'm sure, I'd better
been born a negro at once—
much better. What's the matter
now ? Well, 1 like that. Upon
my life, Mr. Caudle, that's very
cool. I can't leave the house
just to buy a yard of riband, but
you storm enough to carry the
roof off. You didn't storm ?—you
only spoke ? Spoke, indeed ! No,
sir : I've not such superfine feel-
ings ; and I don't cry out before
I'm hurt. But you ought to
have married a woman of stone,
for you feel for nobody : that is,
for nobody in your own house.
I only -wish you'd show some of
your humanity at home, if ever
so little—that's all.

" What do you say ? Wliere's
my feelings, to go shopping at night ?
When would you have me go ?
In the broiling sun, making my
face like a gipsy's ? I don't see anything to laugh at, Mr. Caudle ;
but you think of anybody's face before your wife's. Oh, that's plain
enough ; and all the world can see it. I dare say, now, if it was
Miss Prettyman's face—now, now, Mr. Caudle ! What are you
throwing yourself about for ? I suppose Miss Prettyman isn't so
wonderful a person that she isn't to be named? I suppose she's
■Aesh and blood. What ? You don't know ? Ha ! I dare say.

" What, Mr. Caudle ? Yoii '11 hare a separate room ? you '11 not be tor-
mented in thk manner ? No, you won't, sir—not while 1 'm alive. A
■separate room ! And you call yourself a religious man, Mr. Caudle ?
I'd advise you to take down the Prayer Book, and read over the
Marriage Service. A separate room, indeed ! Caudle, you 're
.getting quite a heathen. A separate room ! Well, the servants
« ould talk then ! But no : no man—not the best that ever trod,
•Caudle—should ever make me look so contemptible.

" I shan't go to sleep ! and you ought to know me better than to
ask me to hold my tongue. Because you come home when I've just
stepped out to do a little shopping, you 're worse than a fury. I
should like to know how many hours I sit up for you 1 What do you
say ? Nobody wants me to sit up ? Ha ! that's like the gratitude of
men—just like 'em ! But a poor woman can't leave the house,
ihat—what ? Why can't I go at reasonable hours ? Reasonable !
What do you call eight o'clock ? If I went out at eleven and
twelve, as you come home, then you might talk ; but seven or eight
o'clock—why it's the cool of the evening ; the nicest time to enjoy
a walk ; and, as I say, do a little bit of shopping. Oh yes, Mr.
Caudle ; I do think of the people that are kept in the shops just as
much as you ; but that's nothing at all to do with it. I know what
you'd have. You'd have all those young men let away early from
the counter to improve what you please to call their minds. Pretty
notions you pick up among a set of free-thinkers, and I don't know
•what! When I was a girl, people never talked of minds—intellect,
I believe you call it. Nonsense ! a new-fangled thing, just come
•up ; and the sooner it goes out, the better.

" Don't tell me ! What are shops for, if they 're not to be open late
-and early too ? And what are shopmen, if they 're not always to
attend upon their customers ? People pay for what they have, I
suppose ; and arn't to be told when they shall come and lay their
money out, and when they shan't ? Thank goodness ! if one shop
shuts, another keeps open ; and I always think it a duty I owe to
myself to go to the shop that's open last: it's the only way to
punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs about
•early hours.

r " Besides, there's some things I like to buy best at candle-light,
^h, don't talk to me about liuii auity ! Humanity, indeed, for & p«v?k

of tall, strapping young fellows—some of 'em big enough to be
shown for giants ! And what have they to do ? Why nothing, but
to stand behind a counter, and talk civility. Yes, I know your
notions ; you say that everybody works too much : I know that.
You'd have all the world do nothing half its time but twiddle its
thumbs, or walk in the parks, or go to picture-galleries, and museums,
and such nonsense. Very fine, indeed ; but, thank goodness ! the
world isn't come to that pass yet.

" What do you say I am, Mr. Caudle ? A foolish woman, that
can't look beyond my own fireside ? O yes, I can ; quite as far as you,
and a great deal farther. But I can't go out shopping a little with
my dear friend Mrs. Wittles—what do you laugh at ? Oh, don't
they ? Don't women know what friendship is ? Upon my life
you've a nice opinion of us ! Oh, yes, we can—we can look outside
of our own fenders, Mr. Caudle. And if we can't, it's all the
better for our families. A blessed thing it would be for their wives
and children if men couldn't either. You wouldn't have lent that
five pounds—and I daresay a good many other five pounds that I
know nothing of—if you—a lord of the creation !—had half the sense
women have. You seldom catch us, I believe, lending five pounds.
I should think not.

" No : we won't talk of it to-morrow morning. You 're not going
to wound my feelings when I come home, and think I'm to say
nothing about it. You have called me an inhuman person ; you
have said I have no thought, no feeling for the health and comfort of
my fellow-creatures; I don't know what you haven't called me ; and
only for buying a—but I shan't tell you what ; no, I won't satisfy
you there—but you've abused me in this manner, and only for shop-
ping up to ten o'clock. You've a great deal of fine compassion, you
have ! I'm sure the young man that served me could have knocked
down an ox ; yes, strong enough to lift a house : but you can pity
him—oh yes, you can be all kindness for him, and for the world, as
you call it. Oh, Caudle, what a hypocrite you are ! I only wish
the world knew how you treated your poor wife !

" What do you say ? For the love of mercy let you sleep ? Mercy,
indeed ! I wish you could show a little of it to other people. 0 yes,
I do know what mercy means ; but that's no reason I should go
shopping a bit earlier than I do—and I won't. No—you've preached
this over to me again and again ; you've made me go to meetings to
hear all about it: but that's no reason women shouldn't shop just as
late as they choose. It's all very fine, as I say, for you men to talk
to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile and all that—and some-
times shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs—and where you say we
have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be sure we have;
and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You '11 never catch me
shopping until the very last thing ; and—as a matter of principle —
I '11 always go to the shop that keeps open latest. It does the young
men good to keep 'em close to business. Improve their minds,
indeed ! Let 'em out at seven, and they'd improve nothing but
their billiards. Besides, if they want to improve themselves, can't
they get up, this fine weather, at three ? Where there's a will,
there's a wayr, Mr. Caudle."

" I thought," writes Caudle, "that she had gone to sleep. In this
hope, I was dozing off, when she nudged me, and thus declared her-
self :—' Caudle, you want nightcaps ; but see if I budge to buy
'em till nine at night !' "

Ifteatrings m Natural ^tstorp.

THE ROEBUCK.

" The Roebuck," says Goldsmith, " is the smallest of the deer kind
known in our climate ; " and it appears to have been growing ' small by
degrees, and beautifully less,' till it is now one of the most insignificant
animals to be met with even in the Commons. This extraordinary
animal sheds its horns, and, indeed, it has been known sometimes to
lose its head, particularly during the sitting of Parliament. " The
Roebuck," continues Goldsmith, " with humble ambition, courts the
rising slope." It does not, however, rise very high, though it once
took a leap at a bar which astonished every one. The Roebuck's motions
are very easy, consisting chiefly of motions of course, which are the
easiest of any. It is possessed of much cunning, and is found to make a
very good retreat by its various windings. The Roebuck is not a social
animal, and though very easily subdued, can never be thoroughly tamed.
It is subject to terror without a cause, and, indeed, it seems seldom to
bcv3 in view a cause of any kind. The Roebuck is never to be entirely
relied on, for it has capricious fits of fierceness. This animal is more
appreciated in America—particularly in Canada—than it is in Europe.