Punch: Punch (11.1846)

98

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

A HINT FOR THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER.

Now that the price of the exhibition of the Abbey is so much
reduced, the object of the authorities seems to be the gaining of the
greatest possible amount of speed in carrying the public through the
buildiDg. The Dean and Chapter have made the discovery that " it is
only the quantity that can pay," and as a single visitor can claim to be
admitted at the wholesale price, the only chance consists in driving a
wholesale business.

For this purpose it is proposed to introduce the railway system
into the Abbey, so that parties may be carried in large quantities up
and down, at a great velocity. A train should start every five
minutes, and day-tickets might be granted at a trifling increase of
fare to those who should be desirous of taking a less cursory glance than
would be afforded by the rapidity at which the train would necessarily
travel.

Miss Flora Macfungits. " I dare say yod think me a very odd girl, and
indeed, Mamma always says I'm a giddy, thoughtless creature, and "—

Partner. " Oh, here 's a vacant seat, I think."

THE LAMENT OF WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

Pitt the sorrows of a poor old bridge

Whose tottering state has made him quite a bore ;
Whose arches dwindle to the river's ridge,

As they approach on either side the shore.

Those falling stones my craziness bespeak,
My smoke-dried aspect tells my lengthen'd years,

And many a furrow, worn into a creek,
The rain has made a channel for its tears.

Yon houses built on the adjacent ground
Have upon me my final doom bestow'd :

The Commons there a residence have found ;
The Peerage a magnificent abode.

Hard is the fate of an infirm old pile,
While daily sinking on a cold damp bed ;

If they don't move me in a little while
I certainly shall tumble down instead.

My wretched lot your interference claims.

Much longer I cannot together hold ;
Some morning I shall drop into the Thames,

For I am weak and miserably old.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old bridge,

Whose tottering state has made him quite a bore,
His piers have sunk down to the river's ridge,

Oh ! cast him off, lest he should tumble o'er

JENKINS ON RAILROADS.

Jenkins is reviewing Father D'Arcey, and says :—

" What a cheering picture does the author draw of those happy times, when the bold
peasantry were really their country's pride, before the swett brow 0/our fatherland wai
furrowed with railways, and ere Manchester millowners suddenly leaped into colossal
fortunes which were wrung from the hard toil of their starving workmen! "

And Jenkins—like a true man— loving those times when the sweet
brow of our fatherland was a Little flattened by broad-wheeled waggons,
never goes by rail, but always travels in the slowest coach, which
fully accounts for the very early intelligence always to be found in the

Morning Post I