Punch (12.1847)

126

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE MIDDLE-AGE MANIA.

The system of decoration is, just now, all of the character of the Middle Age, and our rooms are
crowded with Elizabethan ornaments. We may reasonably expect, therefore, that the next age will
adopt for its adornments the style which is prevalent at the present period. "What the armed knight
of our ancestors is to us, the policeman in uniform will be to our posterity. Already the watchman
of olden times is almost eligible to the honours of statueship, and the stage-coachman of our boyish
days will soon be entitled, on the score of antiquity, to take his place among our effigies.

Songs of tf)c Statues.

THE DUKE OF YORK'S.

Upon my pillar, lo ! I stand,

A public exhibition ;
Thus honour'd by my native land,

I hold a high position.
A grateful country thus requites

Its heroes and its sages,
Hoisting them on conspicuous sites,

The g>)zing-stocks of ages.

But people ask, who see me here,

Rais'd to a height so glorious,
In what respect was my career

So very meritorious ?
By what achievements did I win

Renown and estimation ?
How came I to be posted in

This lofty situation ?

Well—to the Army they will find

That I paid some attention :
I can't exactly call to mind

Wrhat else I did worth mention.
I wish I could belif ve I stood,

In History's f-iithful volume,
Together with ihe great and good,

As high as on my Column.

I fear, most famous for my debts

Posterity will find me,
Which I, with very few assets,

Unsett'ed left behind me.
What anybody owed to me

I should be posed in showing ;
More easy far to show 'twould be

From me how much was owiDg.

a eukdred tears hence.—a room ik the style of the nineteenth century.

EXPIRING ACTS OF PARLIA-
MENT.

We read in the Morning Post a few
days ago a m^st affecting paragraph
under the touching title of "Expiring
Acts of Parliament." We had pre-
pared a gush of tears—we always keep
an onion ready—to mourn over the
deplorable condition of these expiring
We pan fancy the effect of a room a hundred years hence, decorated with figures clothed in the ! Acts, for we expected to find half the
fantastic garb of the present century. Of course it is only antiquity that gives value to many of1 statute-book in extremis, and on the
those objects which figure in the catalogues of the present period, and are clutched up as bits of vertu eve 0f tumbling into the tomb of ah
by the connoisseurs of our own era. In the course of a century the cape of a policeman will have acquired the waste paper, which after failing
to the dignity of the cuirass of the past, and the official highlow of the present day will have obtained, ^0 turn tne sca]e' 0f public opinion, is
from the ripeness of age, the same curious interest that now belongs to the steel clogs or sabatynes of condemned to turn the scale in the
our ancestors. We can imagine what a ca'alogue might be made by the Edmund Robiks of the butter-shops. Upon looking at the
twentieth century, who might be intrusted with the sale of some collection of curiosities. mournful list with a full determination

Lot 1.—A Staff, supposed to have belonged to the Beadle of Burlington. The brass nob is rendered to bury our animosity, even towards
doubly interesting by an indenture which has been traced immediately up to the skull of a boy ot the most objectionable of expiring
the period. Acts, in the grave that was yawning

Lot 2—Is a Staff of peculiar construction, supposed to have been used by the celebrated Solitary of beneath it, we found that the very
the Exeter Change Arcade. This staff has a legend attached to it, of peculiar interest. It is said that first on the list of moribund measures
the staff was so long the only companion of its master, that he at length became incapable of enjoying was one that is not to expire until
any other society. There is an affecting anecdote also related in connection whh the staff, which, the National Debt is extinguished,
it is said, was ultimately seized as an heir-loom of an ancient family, which broke the heart of the Disgusted at being checked in our
beadle. sentimental mood by this remoteness

Lot 3.—The Truncheon carried by Mr. Commissioner Matne, when in attendance at the opening of any probability of having a defunct
of Parliament. This valuable relic is supposed to have dispersed four hundred mobs by the mode in Act of Pailkment to mourn over, we
which its celebrated owner stretched it forth in moments of tumult. actually put away our white pocket-

Lot 4.—A Policeman's Cape ; supposed to have been worn in four hundred different kitchens during handkerchief, and feeling that we
the celebrated crusade against the larders, by which the middle of the nineteenth century was should have no occasion for tears, we
distinguished. positively—Roasted our Onion—aye,

Such will probably be a few of the lots in the catalogue, destined to comprise the numerous objects aBd ate tt t00' wlthout remorse, for

that will become interesting by the course of time, which alone appears to give value to the most our supper. x,^;„n pn„

worthless articles. Our good friend of the J/ornin?/\w»

__ ought not to trifle in this manner

" with some of the finest feelings—mark

we have two sorts, namely, a set of the

The Wandering Statue. finest for grand occasions', and 3ome of

The Monster House at Albert Gate is to be fitted up for the reception of the Monster Statue at Hyde the coarser for daily use—of our nature.

Park Corner, until a site has been found for it on the surface of the globe. This seems to be an To lead off a list of Expiring Acts

admirable arrangement ; and if the house had been built expressly for the Statue, the accommodation with one that is to lire till the National

could not have been better. The Horse will orcupy the ground, first, and second floors, whilst the Debt is paid off—an immortality, at

Duke will have the entire use of the upper part of the hou«e. Another great advantage connected the hast—is a delusion, a snare, and

with this arrangement is, that the Statue will be completely concealed from public view. a mockery.