Punch: Punch (11.1846)

PUNCH, Oil THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 259

THE WAR IN MEXICO.

In the course of this campaign, the chief difficulty has not been to
oppose the troops, but to defend positions against those disagreeable
enemies and expert tacticians, the wild beasts. It is bad enough to be
obliged to hold out against the assaults of a file of soldiers, but it is
terrible to be compelled to resist a furious cohort of alligators, each of
whom has an entire file in his tongue, and a double column of teeth that
would make the oldest soldier admit that, in spite of all his manoeu-
vring, they saw through him. The bears form of themselves a squad of
heavy buffs, that are celebrated for the ardour with which they not
only hug themselves, in the confidence of success, but embrace—very

inconveniently—every opportunity. No infantry is so formidable as
that regular Bengal native, the Hon, and there is not a more efficient
lancer than the sting of one of those venomous reptiles from which the
poor Mexicans have been obliged to protect themselves. Richmond, in
his address to his army, seems to have anticipated what is now going
on in Mexico, when he energetically exclaims,

" Let us be tigers in our fierce department ! "
We confess that this style of coming to the scratch is about the most
tremendous that can be adopted ; and we wish our Mexican fellow-
creatures well out of it.

PLAYING AT "MAJESTY."

sabella is " woo'd, and married, and a'," and is,
de facto and de jure, Queen of Spain. But the
Conde Moxtemolin must be king ; and as
nobody will acknowledge him in his own
country or in France under that title, he comes
to England, throws himself into the arms of
the Morning Post, and is duly crowned in the
editor's room, the compositors assisting. The
ceremony of coronation must have been very
affecting, the king being anointed with printers'
ink. The solemnity concluded—we have not
space to give all the minutice,—the son of Carlos
becomes his Majesty—at least to the Morning
Post. " His Majesty" drives in the Park—
" His Majesty" visits the exhibitions—and " His Majesty" goes to the
Haymarket Theatre, where (how very easy and convenient is play-
house royalty!) " the orchestra," says the Post, " played the loyal
Basque air, a compliment the delicacy of which was felt and appreciated
by His Majesty, and by the noblemen and gentlemen of his suite." We
think the king ought to have sent for the leader of the orchestra, and
upon the spot have created him a grandee of the first class ; the title
would have been quite as valid—just as profitable, too—as that of the
Haymarket King of Spain. " You shall be a duke," says the potentate
of the old play to the ambitious simpleton, " you shaU be a duke, only
nobody must know it." And after this fashion has the Count been
enthroned and anointed. He is a king—avers the Post—only nobody
knows it.

REGENERATION OF THE BRITISH DRAMA.

A German company has been invited to come over next season,
and it is expected they will perform at the Princess's. A Spanish
banker is in treaty for the Adelphi for the performance of Spanish
dramas, and there is a loud talk of the Lyceum being taken by a real
Bohemian nobleman for the legitimate Bohemian Polka and Hungarian
tragedies. Sadler's Wells will, at the termination of the present
season, administer to the elevated taste of the present day with a
series of Poses Plastiques on the grandest scale—fifty professors are
engaged. Drury Lane will still maintain its character for ballet, as a
company of dancing Newfoundland dogs has been engaged, and will
perform the Battle of Waterloo, got up with dances and processions.
The celebrated French poodle Bijou will perform the part of Napoleon,
and take real snuff. The Haymarket will be opened with a troop of
Cossacks, who will give their national melodies, and act some of their
finest comedies. The St. James's will still remain in the hands of the
French company ; so that, with the Italian Opera at Her Majesty's
Theatre, and another at Covent Garden, there is every hope that next
year there will not be a single theatre in London where the English
Drama, now almost obsolete, will be performed. An Englishman who
wishes to see a play of Shakspease's will have to run over to Paris,
or else go out by the Great Western to New York.

A Boon for Royalty.

As the gun-cotton explodes without any noise, we think Her Majesty

might, instead of having her ears deafened, every time she appears in

public, with endless salvos of artillery, be received with discharges

of cannon loaded with the above silent material. If the " National

Anthem," also, could be discharged in the same way, without its

INVITATIONS TO DINNER. being heard, we are sure it would be a most pleasant relief to Her

m Tk_ /m, . c .^a i3 n t,i n, i Majesty ; but this is more than we can expect, as every little Mayor

The Duke of Cambridge, after visiting the Smithfield Cattle Show, | who runs out of Ms ish to nt himself and mace to the Qu]/

sent round^to the most.important competitors the ioUowmg circular, as is not likel vo si 1 smaU on such an occasi0n, as his great object
a proof of the high estimation m which he held them :—

" His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge presents his com-
pliments to the Prize Ox, and will be happy to have his company at
dinner any day next week, at the Freemasons' Tavern. A knife and
fork will be laid for any of the Prize Ox's friends as may please to
accompany him."

Invitations were likewise despatched to the Prize Pigs. Prince
Albert's, which won the prize, have been specially honoured by His
Royal Highness with a card for a tcte-a-tete dinner.

is to make as rr.uch noise as he can whilst he is about it.

AN OBLIGING OFFER.

(A Chemist's Shop.—Shopman and Old Lady.)

Old Lady. Now you are sure this is Carbonate of Soda—not Arsenic ?
Shopman. Quite certain, ma'am; try it.

DIPLOMATIC WASTE PAPER.

We have been favoured with a peep at the trousseau of the Duchess
of Montpensier. It is a joint present from Austria, Russia, and
Prussia, contained in a trunk lined with the Treaty of Vienna.

A Cat for O'Connell.

A portrait of Mr. O'Connell has been published at Dublin. It is
dedicated " To the greenest spot in the world." The inscription under-
neath runs as foUows :—" The only fulfilment of Mr. O'Connell's
promise that unless Repeal was carried in a twelvemonth, he would put
his head upon the block." We need not say that, for the sake of the
joke, the engraving has been done upon wood.