Punch (9.1845)

02 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE DROP SCENES OF LONDON.

THE LYCEUM.

It is a shocking, though very common, occur-
rence, to hear of a young lady destroyed in
her prime by the malady just mentioned;
whose origin it is no less common to hear
ascribed to a cold caught at a ball. Now, as
the atmosphere of Almack's is much more
consumptive than that of Billingsgate, and as
dances in the open air on a village green are

We are not aware to whose four pound brush, and ingenious paint-pot, we are indebted for the
■design of the Lyceum Drop, but there can be no doubt that his whole soul was in his pipkin, when

he imagined the extraordinary scene with which he has enriched the gallery of dramatic drop- J considerably less dangerous than at the llan-
flcenes in this metropolis. The character of the landscape is decidedly pastoral—though some fruit
and bottles in one corner shows that " apples, oranges, ginger-beer, bottled-porter, and a bill of the
play," were all running in the artist's head when he made the design which is the subject of our
■critical comments. The principal object in the picture—and a precious object we must admit

over Square Rooms, we have our doubts about
the connexion of the disease, in such cases, with
cold.

The question has been mooted, whether
consumption is contagious. We do not mean
to assert that it is ; and we would not frighten
anybody, especially a sensitive young lady, or
her anxious mamma, unnecessarily ; but we do
declare that we should not, were it consistent
with our sex, at all like to be in the frocks of
those whose dresses have been worked by con-
sumptive fingers. We shall say no more on
this subject, except that we hope we have
now thrown out a little hint, which may induce
those for whom it is intended to interest them-
selves, for their own sakes, in behalf of the
over-worked silkworms.

THE

INDIAN MAIL AT BOULOGNE.

Awful complaints are made of the treatment
of the Indian Mail on its arrival at Boulogne.
The officer in charge of it is obliged to go
begging with the letter-bags before he can find
any steamer that will take him and his bag-gage
for the shabby sum that the Government allows
him to cross the Channel. While the Times
has a boat, at fifteen pounds a day, waiting to
bring over its separate express, and the Herald
goes to the same expense for the same purpose,
the British Government allows its officer only
a five-pound note to make the best bargain he
can with any one who will take him as a pas-
senger. One day the unfortunate man was
compelled to go to sea in an open boat, a party
»<" >^\p' i^r °f fishermen having agreed to get the poor
fellow and his letters across somehow or other,
for the shabby stipend that he was enabled to
offer them. A squall, however, came up, and
the Indian Mail, with the officer in charge,
were nearly going to the bottom, when the
packet, returning from carrying over the Times

which he is sometimes placed by not being able
to go higher than a " five-pun note," for his
conveyance across the Channel, is sometimes
very distressing. He is obliged to haggle with
steam-boat captains, and very frequently gets

him to be—is a sage, while at the feet of the sage some onions are growing, which may be said to be
quite in character.

The sage, by the bye, has got a book in his hand, and his eyes seem to be starting out of his head
—drawn probably by the onions immediately under him. His cottage in the background is smoking i

away at such a rate as to lead one to suppose that the sage has not tried the patent apparatus for I dlsPat,cn> Plck<Ld UP representative of the
curing chimneys, or that the Smoke Prohibition Bill does not extend to this particularly pastoral ' ?ntwh P08*-0^. and towed h»m wltha11 h,s
district. A party of Irish reapers are kicking up a species of fillaloo under a large tree, which le*t.e"^a.cc,k1!^l^lj^Ll Z LthT^lhU-
combines the trunk of the oak with the leaves of the gooseberry, the flowers of the daffodowndilly,
and the fruit of the pine-apple. An enormous thistle in the foreground has been thrown in to show
that the sage is not such a donkey as he looks, or the thistle would not be safe within only a few
yards of him. Altogether the picture is a proof of the triumph of scene-painting over the difficulties
which Nature throws in the way of the artist.

The few sheep in the foreground are dreadfully woolly, but they tell a little story of themselves ; for hooted after b^ the very CabJ.n 1?0yS' M !
when we look at the one standing up, we are enabled to say, with the poet, « thereby hangs a tale " cove wot wa,nts to §° acr0SS % ne.xPfe9|> and
of no common order. Jo harn-t got the money to pay for it. Some-

times he has a row in broken French with the
owners of the fishing-boats, and he has been
several times threatened with the fate of the
PUNCH ON THE SILKWORM. Noyades, for offering a paltry cent-vingt-cinq

franc* for what the mariners declare vaut bien

bo dazzling is the magnificence of the ladies' dresses at the balls and assemblies of the nobility Jmienx cda on account of the importance
and gentry, that it is but a safe precaution, on entering one, to put on a pair of green spectacles. ! f fa ' edition and the danger attending it.

uia?P-1 .fVe£,m a,shor! tlme becomes tolerable; and then the now thinking mind inquires, : SomethinF„ shouid be done immediately to pro-
what did it cost? We refer that question, in a financial sense, to the Lords-and gentlemen— ^ , » of safe and d foP
whom it concerns, and who will discuss it, no doubt, with a due proportion of groans. Fine fashions
cost something more than fine fortunes. Silks, it is well known, cannot be produced without
silkworms; but it is not known as generally that their making up involves the sacrifice of numbers
of those poor things.

The silkworms we allude to possess legs and arms, which are not, however, by any means in the
condition in which arms and legs ought to be. These said silkworms are very generally kept shut
■ap in close, ill-aired cages, at work, not only from morning to night, but also from morning to The profits annually returned on railways
morning, in consequence of which they are mostly very sickly, and numbers of them are continually ; are something enormous ; but the largest item
dying off. Need we say that our silkworms are "the creatures commonly known as Needle-I in railway returns bids fair to be the list of the
women ! Now the disease most incidental and most fatal to these human silkworms is Consumption. [ killed and wounded.

the Indian Mail on its arrival at Boulogne.

Railway Returns.