Punch (16.1849)

158

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

ALL THE FUN (!) OF THE FAIR.

PUNCH AT GREENWICH FAIR.

Determined on giving the Fair fair plav, we attended Richardson's
Theatre in a spirit of impartiality, resolved to dignify tiie performances
with the same criticism we should bestow on a play acted at any other
establishment. We are unable to state the name of the drama-for as
we saw no bill, the title of the piece, like its plot, its purpose, and its

the Brigand's Wife makes her appearance, sees her husband's Captive,
whom in a tit of jealousy she is about to despatch with a blue wooden
dagger, when, looking at the Captive's arm, a mark—possibly that of a
strawberry, or a port wine stain—induces the Brigandess to " old er
infanticidal 'and," with an exclamation of ': My long lost child ;" when

language, is enveloped in much mystery. The most staunch stickler for j with a tremendous bound she makes off, dragging the fair Captive after
the unities would, liowever, have been satisfied by some of the chaiac- j her. Anxious to release the maiden in the sarcenet body from a " villain's
teristics of the drama, for the play had one act, one hero, one ghost, and j fangs," which would assuredly have torn her muslin mittens, the
one heroine. We found in the first scene a Brigand Chief in love with a j Brigand?s Wife plunges her wooden poignard into the shirt-front of

fair Captive in a sarcenet body and muslin mittens. The Captive has a
Husband in a crimson surtout braided with gold door-leather, and in his
agony of despair he tears off some of the braiding down his coat, while
upbraiding tlie " spiler of bis appiness." He insists that his "art is

the Brigand, and a gong sounding without, brings up the usual quan-
tity of sheeting in the shape of a ghost, who has one peculiarity of a
pleasing nature, for as nobody has been killed but the Brigand, the
Ghost can be nobody's ghost, and nobody's feelings can be lacerated by

seriously sered " and be apostrophises the Brigand Chief as a "r-r-r-rc- i the shade coming to throw a shade over anybody's future existence
creant r-r-r-rufnan,'' uponwhom ' r-r-r-revenge" shallbe £wr-r-r-reaked" j We have left ourselves no room to speak of the usual intermezzo in
for having made him (the Husband) " a wr-r-r-retch, a wr-r-r-reck, and a j the shape of a comic song. We forbear to speak of the Pantomime—
r-r-r-ruin.'"

The subsequent scene introduces us to the brigand's eave, which
resembles a del ached arch of the Thames Tunnel. The Brigand Chieftain
tries a sentence or two of entreaty, in which the words " Lovely tyrant,
won't yer consent r1" were the most seductive that we happened to
catch ; and as this gets nothing but a look of what the fair one called
" unutterable scorn," with the usual number of surplus r-r-r-rs in the
syllables where that effective liquid occurs, the Brigand, dispirited at
such clear " contempt of Court," tries a threat, and rushes off to the
wing (where he was met by a woman with a pint mug and a slice of
bread-and-butter) to give time for the j aughty fair one " to think it

though we recognised the brigand's cave in that of Despair; and we
recollect our old friend the "abode of buss," as last year's "realms
of light and loveliness."

Seriously speaking, we are afraid that the Fair has lost all its humour
while retaining nearly all of its objectionable qualities. _ The "Tun of the
Fair" has degenerated into a child's scratcher and tin trumpet; wlule
dancing and drinking, interspersed with pocket-picking, gambling, and
quarrelling, are as much in the ascendant as ever. We are averse to
anything like a curtailment of the amusements of the people properly
so called, but Greenwich Fair has ceased to be much more than the
opportunity to the viciously disposed, the temptation to the waverer

ever. The process of cogitation can hardly have commenced, when I on the threshold of crime, and the harvest to the pickpocket

THE NEW MANIA.

The Railway Madness has happily disappeared, and the country is j eye; the profit is too often lust about as much as will go into its eye,
enjoying perhaps a lucid interval, but we already see symptoms of the j which, though causing blindness for the time, ends in the Patient seeing
late delusion bein^followed by a Mining Insanity. The public seldom l none the worse for it. Mining is now the rage, and we are expecting
remains in the position of the Ghost in Hamlet, who, we all know, had j every day to see the announcement of the formation of a Company for
"bo 'Speculation " in his eye ; but when Speculation gets into the public I " Developing the Mining Resources of the Minories."