Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

81

PUN C H'S VISIT

TO THE SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS

NDERSTanding that there was
to be a Sylvan Fete at
these gardens, we were
seized with a sudden love
of the pastoral, and
jumped on to the top of
a Kennington omnibus.
We had already been
attracted by sundry hand-
bills promising a truly
rustic treat, and crammed
full of that bad spelling
which appears to have been the chief characteristic of " Merrie Englande
in ye Oldenne Tyme."

The merriment of our forefathers seems to have consisted a great deal
in the quaintness of their orthography, and in sundry ryghte stupidde
freakes of ye grosseste humbugge, of which the Sylvan Fete at the Surrey
Zoological Gardens was intended to furnish a specimen. Having ex-
changed grins of recognition with the hyena, and nodded familiarly to our
old friend the polar bear, we made lor the part ot the gardens where the
Rustic Games were being proceeded with, and our attention was first
attracted by a decayed old corporal, bent double with as;e, followed by a
venerable drummer and a superannuated fife, one of whom was playing
" In the merry month of May," while the other was vacillating between
"The Dashing White Sergeant" and "The Soldier's Tear." On refer-
ing to the bills, we found this to be " a real recruiting party from the
Tower." Nobody, however, seemed disposed to "follow the drum," and
indeed the drum was so eccentric in its variations from one tune to
another, that to follow him would have been exceedingly difficult.

The recruiting party having disappeared among the trees, was seen to
be quietly recruiting its own strength with a pot of half-and-half at the
back of the elephant ground. We did not observe that they enlisted any-
thing but the sympathies of all who saw them.

A gingling of bells announced the commencement of the peculiarly
English sport of the maypole, with its morris-dancers. We rushed to the
spot with truly British eagerness, desirous of studying
the sports and pastimes of our forefathers and fore-
mothers. Our disappointment at seeing the villagers
was more poignant and agonising than can be possibly
conceived. Corydon was an evident supernumerary
from Astley's, who, we will be bound, never had a
shepherd's pipe in his mouth, though a pipe of another
description was probably no stranger to his lips. The
maypole was richly bedizened with May flowers. There
was the calico pink made of pink calico, and the roses
of the lawn in the shape of lawn roses. They may talk
as they will about the powers of Nature, but Nature
could never make such artificial flowers as those with
which the maypole and the maidens were decorated.

The peculiarly English sport at length commenced by the lads and
lasses, one of whom looked ancient enough to be the original old lass of
Richmond Hill, who began to twirl themselves round and round the may-
pole to the sound of the pipe and tabor. The tabor was awfully out of
tune, and it several times completely put the other musician's pipe out.
The "peculiarly English sport" went off rather heavily, in spite of the
efforts of an individual in a white waistcoat and long hair., who super-
intended the dance, and who, it was whispered, was the celebrated C.
somebody or other from the Royal Pavilion ; but whether Brighton or
Whitechapel we could not exactly discover.

The next feature of the Sylvan Fele was the display of the noble science
of archery, by the members of the Toxopholite Club in their forest

costume. This forest costume wa3 of rather
a miscellaneous character ; for though one
Toxopholite wore on his head a ninepenuy
.Glengary, with a green tunic, such as Keeley
used to wear in the Beulah Spa, and a boy's
black leather belt, with pantaloons that
seemed to have walked, boots and all, out of
Doudney's window—though one Toxopholite
wore all this, the forest costume of the rest
included only the ordinary costume. There
was the wrapper fresh from the bonny banks
of Tweed, and we thought we recognised one
of the registered paletots ; but there seemed to be nothing peculiarly
adapted for forest wear about the dress of the mass of the Toxopholites.

One of the merrie archers had a sandwich-box slung round him by a
silken cord, and another sported a pair of moustachios, which he probably
keeps as his forest costume, which he takes off while engaged at the
desk, driving the quill instead of letting fly the feathered arrow. The
display of archery was, however, quite enough to justify the promise that
there should be a representation of Merrie Euglaud ; for the efforts of the

mmm

Toxopholites kept an audience of six thousand souls in one scream of
laughter from the beginning to the end of the exhibition.

If Friar Tuck and his merrie men made such a mull of it in Sherwood
Forest, we do not wonder at their having contributed to the mirthfulness
of Old England. The only thing the Toxopholites never
hit was the target. They sent their arrows over it, under
it, and on all sides of it, but never into it, amid the shouts
of the multitude. Friendly suggestions at length pro-
ceeded from the spectators, advising some unfortunate
Toxopholite to "shut his eyes and try his luck that
way." The Toxopholites at last got very cross, and
kept making all sorts of querulous excuses for not
hitting the target, saying it was because the crowd pressed upon them,
and putting forth other frivolous pretexts.

Among the other rustic attractions, " the manly and athletic game of
quarter-staff" was advertised ; but we saw nothing of it. The police, we
are told, are very good hands at the manly practice, and use their quarter-
staffs in a row with the most effective energy.

The next Sylvan excitement was a match at jumping in sacks ; and as
we could only see the heads of the competitors, we cannot give the colours
of the runners, whom we can only describe by what we
saw of them. We shall therefore take hold of their hair,
as the best method of distinguishing them. When the
word was given to start, grey went away at a brisk hop,
followed closely by carrots. Bald then made all the
jumping, and carrots was close up to him, when scratch-
wig got into the first rank, and, knocking up against
curly uhesnut, both of them fell heavily. The match
now lay between grey, bald, and carrots, and 8 to 7j
were freely taken on grey, while the backers of bald were
offering 0 to XX ; but no one seemed disposed to specu-
late. At length grey got his foot twisted in the folds of
the sack and tumbled, when bald, hopping past at a slap-
ping pace, struck his ancle against grey's heel, and rolled
over him. Carrots now had it all his own way, and did
the last six yards playfully, amid the applause of the assembled multitude.

We have now noticed all the principal features of this Sylvan Fete, wi.l/
the exception of some " real gipsies," who were so exceedingly eccentric
that we were glad to make the best of our way out of their encampment.

After having supported the awful ennui of the merrie makynge in the
oldenne style, we repaired to the Refreshment Room,
which is conducted on teatotal principles — tea and
coffee only being obtainable. We however detected
in a glass jar the insidious brandy lurking under the
harmless cherry, for there was an enormous jorum of
cherry-brandy on the counter of the Refreshment
Room.

• By the way, as we were going out of the Refresh-
ment Room, we were stopped at a bar till we had pro-
duced certain bits of card with the word " paid " upon
them, which had been given to us when settling for
our frugal meal of juvenile coffee and boys' bread and
butter. Can it be that the proprietors fear their visitors
may realise the old fable of two teas making their
escape over the palings ? The arrangement, whatever
may be the cause of it, is not very complimentary to
the guests who honour the gardens with a visit.

Though our remarks on the Sylvan Fete have not been particularly
flattering, we must do justice to the general attractions of the Surrey
Zoological Gardens. Auld Reekie, with its pasteboard pinnacles and
canvas chimney pots, is, indeed, a glorious sight, while the pyrotechnic
display, including the rising of Britannia from a lake, with Victoria and
Albert under each arm, must be regarded as one of those singular
triumphs of fiction over fact, which the pyrotechnic artist is famous for.

THE WIXNKH.

PUNCH'S JUSTICE.

There is a venerable saying, that a certain old gentleman ought to
receive what is fairly due to him ; and we therefore hasten to do justice
to the Ki ng of Prussia, by acknowledging that we fell into an error when
accusing him of having made a composer bow before his portrait,—the
King of Bavaria being the delinquent in the case alluded to. The
German despots are all, however, so much alike, that it is sometimes
difficult to distinguish them. It is so unusual for Punch to make a
mistake of this kind, that we have received exactly fourteen hundred
and seventy-eight letters ou the subject; the writers of which request
the insertion of their epistles.

a3 this would involve the necessity for a series of monster supplements
and an occasional extra number, with an appendix at the end of the year,
we must decline printing the correspondence, but we have much pleasure
in making the amende to the King of Prussia, whose visit to our office,
two or three years ago, established an intimacy between ourselves and
him, which his own despotic conduct to his subjects has unhappily
interrupted.