Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

95

THE ENGLISH IN LITTLE.

bt general tom thumb.

THE GENERAL IS SEVERELY KISSED, AND HITS UPON AN
EXPEDIENT TO RELIEVE HIMSELF.

re you ready, Gen'rai ? " ses
Barnum. " Quite ready," ses
I. " You may let the critters
in." With this Barnum waves
his hand, Majesty-like, arid
the doors fly back. Well,
never on airth did I see such
a shoal of humans ! If they
didn't swim in—like herrins
—over one another's shoul-
ders, I'm a sea-horse. I could
see them through a leetle hole
in the curtain ; for I hadn't
walked out upon the table
yet. And there they was !
Sucli a mighty sight of grand-
mothers, and mothers and
daughters ; ten women to two
men, and one in. Well, I will
confess it : I couldn't help
sayin agin to meself—" You
hippopotamuses ! haven't you
got nothin o' your own at
home to nurse—no babbies ; or, if no babbies, not even a spaniel
or a kitten, to make a screeching hubbaboo about, but you must
come out o' your own houses, to break your stay-laces, and have
your ribbons—that cost them honest critters, your husbands, so
much—tore slick off your bonnets, scrougiDg tc see the smallest piece
on airth of human natur ? " Yes ; I will say it : I do have these
thoughts that belittle me—all really great critters have, Barnum
tells me ; and the bigger they are, he says—in spirit, in coors, I
mean—the leetler will they sometimes insist upon bein. " It's all
in the brain," ses Barnum ; " and the brain," ses he, "is jist for all the
world like a bit of ingy-rubber ; the further you pull it out, with
the greater the force, and all the backwarder it will go back." How-
ever, about these female critters. When the room was quite full—
and, with the fine clothes, and the ribbons, and all that the women
had about 'em, you would have thought it had been a gen'rai meetin
of all the rainbows, past and to come, of all creation—when the room
was as full, and as noisy as a whole forest of cockatoos, I steps out.

Well, you should have heerd the shrekin ! You should have heerd
the precious names they called me—'t was enough to break the heart
of a peacock with delight, as Barnum said to me afterwards. As
for meself—you know I'm used to it, now—I was bashful, shame-
faced like, they said sich things to me. If I didn't blush to that
degree that my shirt was tinder, I'm a varmint. Well, I danced in
coorse, and sung my songs, and all that ; and the critters were all but
faintin with pleasure. At last, when we got a leetle quiet, Barnum
pinted out to the people the dimond ring that Gracious Majesty had
given me—and the dimond studs, and the goold pencil-case, and all
the jew'llry. I sartinly did think that some on 'em would have
dropped upon their knees, when they looked at 'em. And then they
stared at me agin, as if somehow—knowin how I'd been treated at
the palace—they thought I'd brought somethin royal, precious like
about me, when I came away, But there was one thing happened
that whips the universal airth. And this is it.

These critters think that whatever comes from a palace must have
kinder magic in it : and so, one old lady comes up to Barnum, with
tears a runnin down her face like rain-drops down window-frames,
and ses—"My dear Mister, could you do me the leetle favour to lend
me the dimond ring that Gracious Majesty give to the Gen'rai."
" What on airth ic ~ou want it for ?" ses Barnum.
" Why, jist for this,"' ses the old lady. " The fact is—my leetle
boy—poor critter! has got a humpback."

" Well ?" ses Barnum, as much as to say—" I havn't."
" And I'm mortal sure on it," ses the old lady, " that if a leetle
pimple, or sty, is to be rubbed away by a plain goold ring—as it
always is "—

"Well ?" ses Barnum agin—" AUowin it—what then ?"
"Why, that my leetle boy's humpback could be rubbed quite
straight by the ring with the Queen's dimond in it."

Dreadful, isn't it, to think on the superstition of these poor critters ?
But so it is, or I'm worse nor a snake. Well, now I'm a goin to tell
you the beginnin o' my troubles.

After I'd done my dance and my song, and the postures—the
Erc'les a stranglin the Nimmim Lion was, arter the 'Pollo, the special
favorite—the critters, jist as if they was askin nothin, said they
should like to kiss me. Well, not having any fear—being sure they
wouldn't bite—I said, "Very well, you critters; come along." The
young and the pretty ones, if I must tell the truth, did not go aginst
the grain, by no means ; but it is a leetle too bad to be left to have
no choice. Well, they all, one arter the other, fell a kissin me ; aDd
the older they were, I do really believe the harder they kissed. I felt
my face a goin away—a meltin like a peach ; and I cried out, and
screeched ; and at last was obligated to jump slick into Barnum's
coat pocket ; and hold, I may say, a kinder parley like, afore I'd come
out. "I tell you what," ses I, "I've no objection on airth to be
kissed ; but then I do like to choose my own lips. Now it's mighty
cur'ous, but I ne'er could bear to be kissed by leetle gals in all my
life. No : I don't think kisses come to their full growth and flavour
till thirty—so here I am proud and happy to be kissed by any female
critter that is risin thirty-one." You should have seen 'em : they all
hung behind in a minute ; and nobody would from that minute beg
a kiss, 'xcept it was a pretty pussy critter that knew her lips, and
eyes, and roses in her cheeks made it kinder joke to be thought even
two-and-twenty. And after that fashion—for the first day—at least,
I was only kissed by the young and tender.

And so the first day was over ; and arter a time, I got home ; well
nigh, I may say it, kissed off my legs. My face was skinned again—
(what the critters had to answer for !) and Barnum went for Sir
Benjamin Brodie, (he didn't live far from us,) and he recommended
a poultice of cold cream and rose-water outside ; with a mutton-chop
and a julep—for he said the American constitution required a julep—
a-goin to bed.

Well, next mornin, I rose like a giant clean shaved ; and went agin
private to the Hall. I must say it—it was beautiful to see Barnum
with his ear a half-cock kinder listeoin to the shillins droppin at the
door—as he would say, such a tarnation shower of silver ! And never
since this airth began, did any duck or goose—not that Barnum's
either, not he ; quite as far from one as t'other—ever enjoy a shower
as Barnum did them silver-drops.

Well, on the third day, I'd hardly got to the Hall, when Barnum's
man comes runnin as if there was a ghost at the pay-place that
wanted to come in for nothin—but it wasn't: quite the contrary.

" What's the matter ? " ses Barnum.

" The Dook of Wellington's at the door," cries the man.

"Is he ? Then I '11 go and talk to him—kinder gammonin him—•
while you, like greased lightnin, dress the Gen'rai as Napoleon. We
can do no less ; and the Dook will take it handsome."

FOOD FOR MEN AND BIRDS.

The proposal ha3 been made to cut off the oats which are usually
given to horses, and make bread for men ; but there is another
consuming class which is allowed with impunity to take the food out
of the poor man's mouth. We allude to the hares and rabbits. Every
rabbit consumes a bushel of wheat—so says the calculation before us ;
robbing the farmer of his money and not benefiting the landlord. We
think, therefore, when there is not a mouthful of too much food to
spare, it would be as well to get rid of these epicurean rabbits and
hares, and so increase the stock of provisions, it wo^M be a delightful,
item to read amongst the subscriptions to the Irish and Scotch
Destitute Fund :—

" The Abolition of the Game Laws .... 2,000,000 bushels of wheat."

It would be only a small addition (the bushel of wheat being six
shillings) of £600,000 ! By the bye, what has become of the Game
Law Committee ? The members require starting a bit, for they do
nothing apparently but sit upon their forms.

Who will lend us Eight XtXilUwH*

A meeting of City capitalists, the Times informs us, took place last
week at the Treasury, to offer their opinions as to the best mode of
raisins the proposed loan to Ireland. It may be difficult to find any
one able to advance a sum of a figure so high as that required. But
we think we know one individual who, on good security, and perhaps
at fifcy per cent., would supply the needful. Let the Government try
Lodis Philippe. He is the likeliest person we know to have eight
millions about him.