Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 137

AN ODE TO JOINVILLE.

When Victoria, Britain's Queen,
Was expected at Treport,

There stood Joinville, grim of nsien,
Smoking on the Gallic shore.

Cool, amid the courtly crowd,
Puff'd away the Royal tar ;

Fast the fragrant, fleecy cloud
Blowing from his light cigar.

Joinville, free and easy Prince,
Terror of thy country's foes,

What a love thou dost evince
For the leaf Havannah grows !

Than in word, no less in deed,

Is it thy delight to fume,
That, of the Nicotian weed,

Such a deal thou dost consume ?

For one little volume thou
Didst, of vapour, once indite ;

Myriads thou producest now,
Puffing thus from morn to night.

Still, brave Joinville, let thy steam
Off on thy paternal strand ;

Let it not, though in a dream,
Waft thee to invade our land.

Bid all thoughts of conquest cease,
Say thy pamphlet was a joke ;

Take the proffer'd pipe of peace,
And thy bluster end in smoke.

A PUFF FOR TOM THUMB.

Thai very veracious and most unequivocal print " French paper"
gives a long account of the capture and disappearance of Tom Thumb.
He has been kidnapped, it is " supposed," by " four men in masks," who,
it is believed, "belong to the band of Zero." For ourselves, we feel not
the slightest alarm about the General; and would advise the perturbed
public to console itself. Tom Thumb will appear again, no doubt, though
possibly an extra sixpence be added to the usual price of exhibition, in
consequence of the dangers he has undergone in the hands of " banditti."
At all events, here is an opportunity for royalty and nobility to express
their sympathies with genius. The General has already received at the
hands of Queens and princes, watches, tooth-picks, and pencil-cases. Why
should not Queen Victoria—in her patronage of high art—present the
General with a diamond-hilted sword, to be used against future banditti !
Why should not the Queen Dowager add to her gift of a repeater, the
Baore graceful cadeau of a tiny pair of hair-triggers '?

Vol. 9.

BEULAH SPA.

by "punch's" commissioner.

The nearest Wells, except those of Sadler or Bagniggc (which are too
near to Pentonville aud Islington to require description for Londoners),
are, I believe, those comparatively modern Spas of Beulah, situated
among the pleasant hills of Norwood, and to be reached by a person
inhabiting the western end of the metropolis with not too much exertion.

Determined to examine these Wells, and averse to solitary travel. ^
put myself in communication with my young friend, Lieutenant Raw-
bold, of the 75th Lancers—selecting that young fellow, not on account
of his conversational powers, which are small; but rather because lie
possesses an exceedingly well-regulated cab and horse, or, as he says
(in his clever facetious w'ay), " the most hactionest hoss and the most
himpidintest tiger in the village of Lunding." In this vehicle we made
our way to the Spa in question.

The purlieus of London are not to be described. The mind sickens iu
recalling the odious particulars of the immediate neighbourhood of the
bridges. The hucksters and Jew furniture-shops, the enormous tawdry
gin-palaces, and those awful little by-lanes, of two-storied tenements,
where patent mangles are to let—where Miss Miffin, milliner, lives on
the first-floor (her trade being symbolised by a staring pasteboard dummy
in a cap of fly-blown silver paper)—where the street is encumbered by
oyster-shells and black puddles, and little children playing in them. All
these we passed : likewise grim-looking Methodist chapels, and schools,
churches, and asylums innumerable. But the road has possibly been
travelled by my indulgent readers.

I perceived that the persons at the turnpikes were facetiously inclined.
A species of jokes passed between them and Augustus Frederic,
Rawbold's groom, who was clinging on behind like a spread-eagle.

You emerge from the horrid road at length on a greenish spot, which
I am led to believe is called Kennington Common ; and henceforward the
route becomes far more agreeable. Placid villas of cockneys adorn eacli
side of the road—stock-brokers, sugar-bakers—that sort of people. We
saw cruelty-vans (I mean those odious double-barrelled gigs, so injurious
to horse-flesh) lined with stout females with ringlets, bustles, and varie-
gated parasols. The leading stout female of the party drove the carriage,
(jerking and bumping the reins most ludicrously, and giving the fat horse
the queerest little cuts with the whip) ; a fat boy, resplendent in buttons,
commonly occupied the rumble, with many children : in some cases I
remarked that disguised footboys, habited in a half-coachman's dress,
drove the vehicle. I. presume that Augustus Frederic, our Spread-
Eagle, must have made signals of various kinds to these persons from
behind ; for I perceived various expressions of indignation or wonder in
the persons' countenances as we passed their singular equipages.

In this cockney villa district I observed that the country was almost
tenanted by women. All the people walking were women, except young
stock-brokers in the arms of nursery-maids ; or occasional pages following
young ladies ; or the doctor's boy ringing at some willa gate ; or the blue-
clad butcherling arriving with the fillet of veal. The men are absent in
enormous, smoking London—'tis only with sunset that they come back to
their families and the fillet of veal.

The willas give each other the hand all the way up Camden Hill, Den-
mark Hill, &c. ; one acacia leans over to another in his neighbour's wall;
Dobbs's bell-pull runs cheek by jowl with Hobbs's ; one willa is just like
another; and there is no intermission in the comfortable chain. But by
the time you reach Norwood, an actual country is to be viewed by
glimpses—a country so beautiful that I have seen nothing more charming
—no, not in France, nor in Spain, nor in Italy, nor in the novels of
Mr. James.

1 had pictured to myself a watering-place like Ems or Wiesbaden, fre-
quented by a number of agreeable ladies and gentlemen ; woods, water-
falls, pic-nics, donkey excursions, and waltzing on the grass with loveiy
young ladies ; a little enlivenment of rouletlc in the evenings ; a battue.
perhaps, in the covers when the pheasant-shooting came; and about a
thousand people meeting every morning at the Spa—the majority of them,
of course, handsome women. In fact, I had stated such to be the case
to my young friend Rawbold, as we drove down.

We entered a lodge in the Swiss style ; and her^ a gentleman de-
manded a shilling from us before we were free of the Spa. " Is there
a great deal of company staying at the Spa ?" says I. " Tol lol," says lie,
and motioned us into the gardens.

They are beautiful. The prettiest lawns, the prettiest flowers, rocks,
grottoes, bridges, shrubberies, hermitages, kiosks, and what not ; and
charming bowers, wherein a man might repose by the lady oi lis

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