Punch (10.1846)

PUNCH, OR THE LOXDOX CHARIVARI.

155

PEEL AND POLK.

Tiie English Premier has taken the happiest method of dealing with the American
President. Polk fires off inflammatory messages, while Peel returns the attack with
Free-Trade measures. The latter will, we have every hope, prove irresistible, and
Polk will not be able to make a successful stand against the very felicitous mode of
warfare adopted by our Free-Trade Minister. It is not likely that the American people
will be misguided enough to continue a hostility, which will be so directly opposed to
their own interests.

Peel's Free-Trade must be victorious against Polk's firebrands. America may,
if it pleases, pelt us with its corn, while we return the compliment by pitching into the
United States some of our manufactured articles. This will be much better" for both
parties than an exchange of lead, whether in the form of swan or grape, or packed in
canister.

ADDRESS FROM MR. OLDCASTLE.

We have great pleasure in publishing the letter of this firm and consistent old
gentleman, about whom we have lately felt very uncomfortable. What, we have asked
ourselves, would be the feelings of a Pagan parent whose first-born son, on being sud-
denly converted to the Christian faith, should proceed to smash a golden calf in his
father's own private oratory ? Should we not pardon the very worst grammar, the
most unintelligible depths of bathos, the most unpleasant Billingsgate, in our commi-
seration for the sufferings of the Pagan gentleman in question ?

or infatuations of false men and treacherous Beadle*
ever devised for the reform and ruin of the place oi
their birth ! ! !

"Your affectionate

" Oi.dcastle.

"Little PedHngton, March, 1846."

Cfje ^urcri anti iCt)tltirrn at Sstlfp's.

It may have been observed by many of our readers^
that Her Majesty has not been once this season to
the Italian Opera, though she has visited the French
Plays frequently, and once, in the true spirit of a
British parent, "taken the < hildren to Astlev's.''
We like to see this disposition " to make the children
happy" by treating them to that establishment,
which was always the fairy land of our infancy. The
Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal have
passed that charming epoch in human existence—a
first introduction to Widdicomb. The very thought
brings us back to those days of light-heartedness and
light-jacketedness, when the bedizened Widdicomb,
in the same turned-down collar, the same Hessians,
the same cartridge-box, that he still wears, first
started upon our mazed and mithered vision.

Henceforth Widdicomb took his place in our
mental repository by the side of Little Red "Biding
Hood, Cinderella, and all the other fairy creatures
with whom our infant mind had already become
peopled. Widdicomb has now got into the head of
the little Prince and Princess, and there is no
brushing him out of the head into which he has once
found admittance.

While, however, we commend the kindness evinced
on the part of the Queen and Prince Albert, in
giving the little ones the Astleian treat, we must
express a hope that proper care will be taken to
point out the erroneous views of history that are
sometimes given in the amphitheatrical spectacles
of Mr. Batty's establishment. Juvenile Royalty
must not be left to the absurd supposition, that the
Battle of Waterloo was fought between 18 Scotch
Greys, headed by twelve Field-Marshals, against
Bro'xAparte, and a brilliant staff, leading on eight
cuirassiers and one Mameluke. Nor should the notion
be encouraged, that the troops secreted themselves
behind trusses of straw, like Les Moissonneurs, in the
celebrated pas of Les Danseuscs Viennoises.

Historv, as taught at Astley's, is an amusing, but
not a healthy style of instruction. It pleases the
imatnnation, but does not satisfy the judgment. It
is said of the celebrated Sismondi, the author of the
Italian Republics, that he fainted away at the Coburg.
to which he had repaired to witness the performance
of the Dumb Girl of Genoa, in the hope that he might
have been enabled to enrich his notes with some
excerpta from the melodrama, in reference to some
nice points of Genoese history. The illustrious
Michelet was " sold " in the same shocking manner,
when he repaired to Astley's to witness the exer-
tions of Mr. Gomersal as Napoleon. When the
Emperor began planning a vast campaign, assisted by

" To my FeUow-Parishroners :—

" Encouraged by your former kindness, I trust that it should not be mistimed
to encroach once more on your affectionate attention. If my grammar were bad, yet
my heart is in the usual situation ; and if my heart should be in the wrong position,
yet my soul beats with the best intentions. I might be artless and unsophisticated, but
I am an affectionate old man.

"About this time last year, I presumed to address you upon a subject of intense
interest then in progress. I then hazarded an opinion that the same ruthless taste
which altered the cut of the collar would not scruple to change the hue of the whole

coat. You have witnessed with stupefaction and abomination the hideous treachery and I a peasant, "whose sister had been ill-treated by a
tergiversation of the Beadle, which flared up suddenly upon your incredulous view, - French Officer, whose epaulettes Gomersal tore off
in the full blaze of its triumphant deformity, supported by a shameless effrontery, unex- j an(j indignantly trod upon, Michelet rushed out of
ampled in the annals of well-regulated parishes !

" The Beadle expected that he had so contrived and so judiciously settled the colour
which he has got permission for the present to wear, that becomingness was certain
—ridicule impossible. No man was ever more mistaken in his calculations, no Beadle
ever more deceived in an estimate of his own controlling (if not despotic) power and
individual essentiality. Instead of dismay from the fear of losing him, he finds that no
one desires to retain his services; and where he thought to raise admiration, he has only
raised a pitiless storm of scoffs from the boys, and scornful inquiries after his mother.
Faith and confidence in him have ceased, and his parochial sun is set!!

" Under the orange coat we have flourished ; under it and by it—observe well, not
in spite of it-—Little Pedlington has grown into a parish of the very first respecta-
bility. It is not, therefore, because I happen to possess some cloth of that colour,
which I have no other way to dispose of, that I call upon you all to lose not a day
or an hour ! but instantly and busily set to work to form and organise an Orange
Society around every fireside ! ! and with the energy, the just and firm, but, though firm,
still unbending determination of Pedlingtonians, and with the roar of the Pedlingtonian
Lion to back you, you may reasonably hope that you may be enabled to save your
insulted and injured parish from the most fearful perils which the machinations

the house, and ran wildly into the Westminster
Road, declaring that Lord (J. H.) Amherst, the
author of the piece, had endeavoured to stab the
honour of France with the steel pen of the dramatist.

In order to avoid mistakes of this sort on the
part of the infant Princes and Princesses, we repeat
our warning, that historical dramas should always
be taken cum nrano salis—with a chapter of Pinnock.

Terrible News.

We thought nothing could equal the rapidity with
which the Spaniards upset Ministries, and threw the
kingdom into a state of revolt, but we find a war-
steamer called the Terrible has just been constructed
at Woolwich, which has the power of making ao
less than fourteen revolutions in one minute.