Punch: Punch (15.1848)

U PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE MONKEY THAT WENT UP IN A BALLOON.

andtdly, Mr. Punch, I am
a monkey, and not ashamed
to own it. (I could wish,
Mr. Punch, that all of my
species residing in London
were alike ingenuous.)
Well, Sir, 1 am a foreigner;
and therefore, it seems, my
feelings are to be violated ;
my liberty, for a season,
outraged. This, however, is
the result of the feverish-
ness of the times. John
Boll thinks it only a proper
display of his own security,
to put contempt upon the
poor alien. John Bull is
himself so delighted with
his institutions, his sea-girt
isle, and all that—that to
complete his happiness he
must, be contemptuous to
the stranger.

" Mr. Punch, I have been
some years an inhabitant of
London. You may possibly
not recollect me ; but I am
the same green monkey—

with a thoughtful earnest face, and restless eyelid—that has twenty times taken
off his Polish cap to vou from the top of an organ. My former master was an
Italian, late of SaffronHill, now of the House of Correction, for feeding his poor
little bovs from Naples with melted tobacco-pipes instead of macarone.

" The music I have suffered upon the top of that organ I shall not speak of; at
least, only a word or two. What have I endured from the Ethiopian melodies .'' for,
Sir, 1 am a native of Ethiopia. Therefore, the music—the airs of my country—have
carried me back to my golden clime ; have, in thought, wafted me back to a green
wife, and a green and happy family, where the only cane 1 ever knew was a cane

How the sun twirled and twirled about like the pewter
plate upon the point of a juggler's sword j how the whole
sky went round and round like a bright-blue humming-top,
All this—it is only fair to my publisher—I shall keep for
my book.

" And now, Mr. Punch, let me ask where is this to stop ?
I have already communicated with the Ambassador —
Abd-el-Mtjff-of-a-pellah— for Ethiopia, who will no-
doubt demand his passports of Lord Palmers-ton. The
other two monkeys being natives of Gibraltar, and therefore
under British supremacy, have, I fear, no remedy; unless
a remedy much worse than the grievance : I of course allude
to Mr. Urquhart.

" But let me close with the reporter:—

" ' The monkeys were brought back in safety to the grounds,
and received the caresses of a very large assembly, attracted by their
enterprise.'

" Now, Mr. Punch, to a monkey of proper feeling—to
a monkey possessing any claim to the common decencies of
Monkeydom—this is the greatest insult of all. My life,
whether I will or no, is to be put in danger, and then I am
to be ' caressed' if I escape with a whole skin. What a
reasonable monkey—as I really am—considers a piece of
arrant tomfoolery, is to be turned and twisted to his glori-
fication.

" I shudder to think of it; but from what I have already-
heard, there is a conspiracy getting up among certain young
ladies of certain families to coerce me to all their evening:
parties, as—par excellence—

" The Monkey that went tjp in a Balloon."

Oje Intriguant policeman.

They' say we are resigning!

Heed not the idle tale
Of crafty knaves, combining

with sugar uTit. Many a'Yime, Sir/have I sa* upon the top of that organ-trying No—till life" threadbe broken

to think it a palm-tree—with my thoughts buried in my wite ana lamiiy,—wnen an We'll ne'er desert the lists

inhuman tugging at my chain would almost wrench my heart, out;_ and with my
bosom running out in tears at my eyes, I have been compelled to twitch my Polish
cap from my burning brow to beg a halfpenny !

"Mr. Punch, for two years I was compelled—in the dress of an officer of Lancers
—to ride a poodle in the streets of London; and, to make the mortification all the
greater, the brute had no tail for me to bite to ease my heart in moments of
desperation. I have been made to dance the slack-wire—I have—
But let me hurry t o the extreme of degradation.
" At length, Mr. Punch—%X length, and to cumulate my misery—they have sent
me up in a balloon !

" Yes, Sir, the person, the liberty of the helpless foreigner upon your shores has
been grossly violated in my unhappy person. To sit squat upon an organ was bad
enough ; to beg for halfpence was worse ; to ride a tail-less poodle was, I thought,
the extreme of degradation; until I was made to skip upon the slack-wire.
Degraded to this, I snatched my cap from my brow, and screamed defiance at fate.
' Destiny,' I yelled, 'you have done your worst, and I defy you.' Miserable me!

" The next day I was sent up in a balloon from Cremorne Gardens ! I refer you
to the columns of the Times newspaper for the particulars. But I will myself strive
to pluck up the nerve to repeat them. I was—permit me to say—packed in a
parachute for an experiment. An experiment! Upon me ! Descended from the
Blue Monkey, with a diamond in his head that no king can boast of in his crown.
But, read, Mr. Punch. The demoniacal reporter observes :—

" ' The ascent was a fine one;—[was it ?]—the balloon took a course from the west over London ;
there was little wind, and the sky being clear, it continued long in sight, so that a good oppor-
tunity was afforded to the spectators to form an opinion of the parachutes.'

" It is not now my intention to write a book upon the ascent. I do not at
present purpose to tell May Pair how it really looks to people really above it;
how small, and of what little fillagree work much of its greatness is. This work,
when it has sufficiently fed upon my brain—like a worm upon a hazel kernel—shall,
like the worm, come out.

" The cold-blooded penny-a-liner continues—' When the balloon was at an
immense elevation, the parachutes were let off simultaneously.' There were three
parachutes,_with an inoffensive foreigner in the shape of a monkey in each. The
reporter, with a diabolical coolness, proceeds :—

"' The parachute of Mr. Hampton was obviously *he best ; it preserved a perfect perpen-
dicular throughout the whole of the immense space through which it descended, and came down
steadily and without any dangerous rapidity.'

"True enough; but no thanks to Mr. Hampton. No, Sir, the credit is due
to me—to me, the monkey passenger of that conveyance, whose nerves ' preserved
the perfect perpendicular' of the parachute, that otherwise would no doubt have
wiggle-waggled itself into annihilation.

" I shall not spoil my book by here disclosing my emotion upon my descent.

We '11 ne'er desert the lists
Which—duty's noble token—
We wear around our wrists.

In spite of service doubled,

And though of rest debarr'd,
Whilst public peace is troubled

We '11 stick to Scotland Yard ?
Yes, unfatigued, undaunted,

Our oil-skin capes we '11 don;
And still, when we are wanted,
Our cry shall be "Move on! "

No—by each area-railing
To recollection sweet,
Never, with courage failing,
Will we desert our beat!
The loved one—and the luncheon—

This heart shall ne'er forget,
This hand shall wield the truncheon.
And wear the Berlin yet.

Who was the faithless talker

That raised the rumour mean ?
Was't the perfidious Walker,

Or Cheeks, the false Marine ?
We scout the accusation;

'Tis all a hoax—a do—
We scorn the fabrication—
Our corps is still true blue.

Cruel Hoax.

Punch is requested by Lord Brougham to state " that
there is unhappily no truth in the report of a sum of money
having been bequeathed to his Lordship by the late Mr.
Watt, of Aston-Hall." However, for the information of
affluent parties who may feel disposed to do what Mr. Watt
has, most emphatically, not done, namely, to leave £20,000
to an ex-Chancellor who has deserved well of his country,
Punch is further desired to state that copies of a legal form
of bequest may be had upon application at No. 4, Grafton
Street, Bond Street. An early application is required.