Punch: Punch (11.1846)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

ALARMING SYMPTOMS AFTER EATING BOILED BEEF
AND GOOSEBERRY PIE.

Little Boy.—" Oh, Lor, Mar, I feel just exactly as if my Jacket

was Buttoned."

the life and adventures 0*

MISS ROBINSON CRUSOE.

CHAPTER I.

dear aunt fainted, as she declared, at the smell of it. I could dance-
sing, and speak the very best Italian for—India. My father, seeing
me constantly poring over the ship advertisements in the Times,
'.guessed my intentions. One day he was confined to his room, having
dined the day before at Blackwall. He sent for me, and expostulated
with me on what he foresaw was my determination.

" My child," he said, " do you not perceive that you are born in the
happiest state—that is, in the middle state of life ? Consider how
much grief, either way, you escape by such a fortune. I will suppose
you an earl's daughter—in time, to be married to a duke. Reflect
upon the drudgery that would then await you. Compelled to be always
playing a part ; obliged, on all state occasions, to go and mob it at
court ; to stand behind stalls at fancy fairs ; to be trundled about in a
carriage, leaving bits of pasteboard from house to house ; and, worse
than all, if your husband should be a Cabinet Minister, to be obliged,
every other month, to be nothing more than a Court lady's-maid, with
this difference—that you 're allowed to wear your own diamonds, and
now and then permitted to see a follower. On the other hand, you
might have made shirts at fivepence apiece, and bound shoes at a
farthing a pair. Whereas, you hold the happy middle state of life ;
a state that peeresses would jump out of their ermine tippets to fall
into."

After this he pressed me not to think of leaving home ; and further,
promised that he would look about him for a husband for me—a
steady, respectable young man of my own condition. But I had my
head too full of rajahs and elephants to put up with steadiness and
respectability. My mother, too, often scolded me, and rated my father
for sending me to that finishing-school. " I always said what would
come of it," she cried, " when I heard that the girls, before they
went to balls and concerts, always swallowed eau-de-cologne upon lump
sugar to make their eyes twinkle—I always prophesied how she'd
turn out, and so it's come to pass."

Thus rebuked, I suffered a year to pass away in silence. One day,
however, being at Gravesend, eating shrimps upon the pier, six beautiful
East Indiamen, in full sail, passed down the river. The tears came
into my eyes, and my smothered resolution burst anew into a flame.
I resolved, without loss of time, to take my passage for the East.
I returned to London ; but, instead of going straight home, I went to
the Docks, where I accosted a Captain Biscdit, of the ship Ramo
Samee, of I don't know how many tons. Observing that as he passed
his tobacco over his tongue, he looked suspiciously at my youthful
appearance, I assured him that I had been married at fifteen, in India,
that the climate disagreeing with my only child, a lovely boy, I had
brought him to England, to remain with his grandmother, and was
now only too anxious to rejoin my beloved husband at Budherapore.
When I spoke of my husband, the quick eye of the Captain glanced
at my left hand ; happily, as I wore gloves, he could not observe that
no ring was on my finger. Instructed, however, by this accident, on
my way home I purchased a ring at a pawnbroker's in the Minories j
purchased it with a fervent hope that, sooner or later, the ring would
be found to be of more than money's value. I ought, however, to

I was born in the year-(but no—I claim the privilege of an un-
married woman, and will not set down the date)—in the city of West-
minster. My father was a foreigner of Heligoland, who settled first at
Sheerness. He made a good estate by dealing in slops, which he
profitably sold to the sailors ; and leaving off his trade, lived after-
wards in Westminster. Here it was he married my mother, whose J state that I took my passage with the Captain, the number of my
name was Robinson, whose ancestor was the famous Jack Robinson, cabin, 20. Eor this I was to pay seventy pounds. I paid him—for
of whom is still retained a popular proverb, relating to rapidity ofj I always managed to have money about me—twenty pounds in
expression. [ advance. " What name ?" said he ; " Mrs. Biggleswade." said I ;

Being the third daughter, and, unlike my two sisters, single—and and I saw him write down, " Mrs. Biggleswade, cabin 20," on the
my father having impoverished himself by bestowing two large dow- list.

ries, leaving nothing for me excepting at his death,—I had little hopes
of marrying in England, or, in other words, of bettering my fortune.
1 therefore resolved to cross the seas. I had read of several young
ladies who, with no money, and very small trunks indeed—and with
hardly beauty enough to make any man in England turn back to look
at them—had married general officers and rajahs in India. I "had
heard, and with the easy confidence of youth believed the story, that
such was the demand for young-lady-wives in the East Indies, that
the black men's boats that brought off cocoa-nuts and yams to the
ship, on her dropping anchor, also brought off gentlemen covered with
diamonds, and provided with wedding-rings. In many instances, the
ship carrying a parson, the ceremony was immediately performed in
the Captain's cabin ; and the happy couple on landing, immediately

As for three years past I had determined upon this step, I had
saved nearly all the money allowed me by my dear father for pocket-
money and clothes. And as, moreover, I made it always a point of
being lucky at cards, I found myself mistress of a hundred and fifty
sovereign pieces. " Now," thought I, " if my outfit even costs me fifty
pounds, I shall have, passage and all paid, thirty pounds left ;"
money, I thought, more than sufficient, even though a husband should
not come off in the boat with the cocoa-nuts and yams, to marry me
in the Captain's cabin.

All my thoughts were now bent upon my outfit. With this purpose,
I used to steal out morning after morning to make my purchases ;
having them all sent to the house of a good woman—she had been our
cook, and had married a green-grocer—to keep for me for the appointed

started five hundred miles up the country to spend the honeymoon, j time. I laid in six dozen of double-scented lavender ; adozen of the finest
With these thoughts haunting me all day, I dreamt of nothing at1 milk of roses ; twenty pounds of the best pearl powder , a gross of
nights but palanquins and elephants, and a husband continually giving court-plaster ; six ounces of musk ; a quart of oil of bergamotte ; two
me diamonds and pearls as big as swan's eggs. j boxes of rouge, and—not to weary the reader—a hundred of the like

And when I recollected the education my parents had given me— articles, indispensable to a young gentlewoman,
with all the advantages of the Blackheath finishing-school—I had no I I next visited Madame Crinoline's, and entirely cleared the dear
cause for despair. I could play at least six tunes upon the grand \ creature's window of her whole stock of petticoats, etcetera, of horsehair,
piano : I had worked a melon in Berlin wool so naturally, that my j I had heard that birds were caught with horse-hair; and why not ?—

Vol. 11.

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