Punch (10.1846)

78

PUNCH, Oil THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THt BROOK GREEN VOLUNTEER.

The WCllitla-TVIan, having cured his Cold with lium-and-Water, resolves not to go Home " Till Day-light

does appear." He assures the Policeman that "It's all right."

/CONSIDERABLE curiosity has been excited to know the name of eight o'clock'bus, whenever the emergencies of the nation require tli€

^ Punch's One Militia Man ; but the gallant fellow has resolved on ob- sacrifice.

serving a strict incognito. There is a rumour that he has already won his 1 The ardour for arms is extending to some of the tradesmen in the
laurels on the field of glory, but we can state that the embryo hero is not vicinity, and it is expected that Hammersmith will become a camp, if the
the proprietor of any laurels but the two (in pots) beside the gate of his same spirit continues to display itself. When it is remembered that the town
garden. These he did not win, but paid for like a man, at au adjacent commands the river on one side, the road to the capital on the other, and
nursery. is skirted by the Bush in which the Shepherds tend their flocks, as well

Among the recent military manoeuvres of the Militia Man has been as the celebrated Scrubs, rich in the Wormwood so useful for chemical
that of taking up a position in the trenches, for which the great open j purposes ; when all this is remembered, it must be admitted that Ham-
ditch running along Brook Green affords the finest facility. This ditch ! mersmith is the Chubb's Patent Safety of the metropolis. It is gratifying
is further adapted for a military position by the fact, that the vapour i to know that this lock will not be easily picked by the enemy,
arising from it renders it generally unapproachable. The Militia Man We have heard a rumour that the glazed horse-guard looking hats of
delights in exposing himself to it, that he may become accustomed to the I the disbanded corps of Hammersmith Sapier Pompiers, or fire brigade,
atmosphere of any unhealthy climate to which his country may hereafter j wbich dissolved itself and its funds some time ago in beer, are about to
call him. ! be purchased for the volunteers who are likely to be embodied in this

There is a rumour that the local police of Hammersmith are infected j gallant suburb. Hammersmith will, we suspect, be the Hexham or
with the military enthusiasm of the One Militia Man, and the inspector—(Hastings of some future history; Brook Green will become a second
an old soldier, who has exchanged the bayonet for the baton—has declared I Waterloo, and the turnpike-gate the Torres Vedras of the twentieth
himself ready to bring up his little local cohort to death or glory by the I century.

NICHOLAS "AT HOME."

Hts Imperial Majesty has been in a high passion. Like many small
domestic tyrants, he had a face of honey, and words sweet as sugar-plums,
when abroad ; but, once come home again, he looks the old fury, and
raps out his customary bad language. To be sure he gave the Order of
Saint Lollypop—or some order worthy of the Calendar—to his son for
his good behaviour : (whether the youth had chained and starved and
scourged a convent of nuns, after the example of gracious papa, has not
yet transpired.) Next, however, his Imperial Cruelty took to task all his
ministers ; snubbing some, breaking some, and hinting at Siberia to
others. And what for ? They had brought disrepute upon his Govern-
ment ; they had been tyrannous and sanguinary, and had caused him to
be reprimanded by the Pope ! And all this is to throw dust—devil's dust,
surely, if any dust soever may deserve the name—in the eyes of his
1 Foliuess, It is needful that there should be a sacrifice of somebody, to
conciliate the Vatican, and so Nicholas offers up a minister or a governor.
Does the reader recollect the sacrifice required to stay the plague among
the beasts? It was not the lion, or the tiger, or the wolf, for its carni-

vorous sins ; not the men-eaters and flock-destroyers ; but the poor ass,
that confessed, in a moment of temptation, to have eaten a cabbage.
And some such victim does Nicholas offer to his Holiness !

LEGAL BIOGRAPHIES.

The success that has attended the publication of Twiss's "Life of Lorii
Eldon," and Campbell's " Lives of the Chancellors," has, we believe,
suggested the notion of a series of Lives of Lawyers' Clerks, which will
be a great addition to the legal literature of the country. The struggle*
of the great are often by no means so interesting as the energetic efforts
of the little, and the career of the Clerk is very frequently a series of
heart-burnings, which terminate in his getting the sack—which is. after
all, the sumraum bonum of the would-be Chancellor. The life of a Thom-
son is not likely to be less interesting than the biography of a Bacon, for
it has been well said by the philosopher, (ourselves, of course,) that it is
easi,er to learn how to act in a high position than to behave with propriety
in an humble station.