Punch (10.1846)

210

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

GREAT MORAL LESSON AT MADAME TUSSAUD'S.

iiltOto all MtVL, That Madame Tussaud has come out as a great
public teacher. She has converted her Exhibition in Baker Street
into an educational institution, and has resolved herself and Sons into a
Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. For
she informs us. by Advertisement, that—■

TWENTY-FIVE MALE AND FEMALE MAGNIFICENT NEW
J- COURT DRESSES, of surpassing beauty, intended to amuse and instruct the

our collection some twice twenty-five, or more, shabby old working
dresses, of surpassing uncouthness, intended to amuse and instruct the
superior classes, by giving them an idea of laborious indigence. A
dustman, with his fantail hat and bell, velveteens, and gaiters, (the
legs being with especial care moulded after Nature,) would form a
diverting object of contemplation to the exquisite.

The same may be said of a costermonger, a chimney-sweep, a cab-
man, or a ploughboy, in their respective professional habiliments,
middle classes, and to give them an idea ol regal splendour, are just added to Madai\ik , . ' „ . * . 6 •>> , t. «\ . . r, , . . ,

Tussaud and Sons'Exhibition. | A_ lady of fashion would be greatly entertained by_surveying, at her

The middle classes owe Madame Tussaud a large debt of gratitude,
which, it is to be hoped, they will liquidate by many shilling-instal-
ments ; and sixpenny ditto in the case of children under eight years of
age. Her Court dresses will, at any rate, amuse them ; Court fashions
being singularly absurd. As certainly will they instruct the British
public, by giving it a correct idea of regal splendour, whicli people
generally imagine to be imposing, and not ludicrous. It is a pity, how-
ever, that the intentions of Madame Tussaud should be limited to the
amusement and instruction of the middle classes, since the higher
ranks are, equally with them, in want of the former, and need the latter
somewhat more than they do ; especially on a subject which she
could illustrate admirably.

If we were in the place of Madame Tussaud, we would superadd to

leisure, a Billingsgate fishwoman, and wondering how any creature
in female shape could wear a man's hat and smoke a short pipe, or put
her foot into a hobnailed boot. Street-children, too, and ragged school-
boys, would suggest a pleasing comparison with noble infants and
young Etonians.

Thus would one part of the world acquire, agreeably and easily, some
little notion of how the other part of it lives. The collection should
include specimens of the Irish peasantry, the hand-loom weavers, and
the other starving portions of the population, all in their characteristic
tatters ; and also the inmates of the various workhouses, in the igno-
minious garb prescribed for them by the Poor-Law. But this depart-
ment of the Exhibition should be contained in a separate Chamber of
Horrors, and half a guinea extra should be charged for admission to it,
for the benefit of the living originals.

THE MILESIAN MARTYR.

Mr. Smith 0 Brien having become very anxious to make himself
the lion of the day, has very properly been accommodated with a den,
by the House of Commons. Every attempt was made, in the first
instance, to subdue the would-be lion ; and it was only when the sooth-
ing system had totally failed that restraint was necessarily resorted to.
The Sergeant-at-Arms has been appointed to act as a sort of political
Van Amburgh, to keep the lion in subjection. It is true that Mr.
Smith O'Brien has only assumed the skin of the noble animal, but if
he is such a donkey as to try and pass himself off for a lion—imitating
the roar and the refractory nature of that formidable brute—he must
expect to be treated accordingly. He boasts of his patience, which is a
qualit.y we naturally look for in his case, and we do not wonder, there-
fore, at his professed determination to endure any burden that may be
put upon him.

SMITH O'BRIEN AND DTSRAELI.

If we had a gift to bestow—such as our artist has indicated in the
annexed Illustration—and if it bore the inscription Detur stultiori,
we should be sorely puzzled as to whether Smith O'Brien, or
Benjamin DTsraeli, would be the fitter person for us to bestow it on.
Knowing the fatal consequences of the Judgment of Paris, we decline
giving a decision in favour of either of the candidates for the crown of
papyrus now lying before us. There is an old saying, that " He whom
the cap fit3, may wear it ; " but the cap in question may fit both, and
a difficulty thus arises which we are quite incapable of determining.

" The reigning Duke of Brunswick paid a short visit to the Royal
Family at Hanover last week."—Morning Post. [He would have stayed
longer, but the King was at home.—/»nc/i.]