Punch: Punch (17.1849)

40

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PUNCH'S OWN FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

By Punch, Ms own Correspondent.

Having been for some time quite abroad among the accounts sent
home of events on the Continent, and puzzled with paragraphs
about Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark, and the Duchies, with extract s
from Wiener Zietungs, relative to Miekaslawskt's movements, and the
occasional advances of O'Szony—a sort of Irish Hungarian probably—
towards this, that, and the other, Mr. Punch determined to go out in
the capacity of his own Correspondent to the disturbed parts of the
Continent. He had offered the task to a trusty contributor, who,
having heard of innocent individuals being constantly popped off at the
hands of the various patrioticpopoli, resolutely declared that he would
be shot if he undertook such a dangerous mission.

Mr. Punch accordingly accredited himself as his own ambassador,
and having invested himself with the circular order of the Bank of
England, and granted an audience to his own till, to which he extended
the benefits of the clearing system, he took his passage down Bride
Court towards the Continent. He was accompanied by Toby, and
Mr. Punch taking no other luggage than a shirt, Toby was satisfied
with the collar. Passing over the voyage from England, and omitting
to notice the blustering of Boreas, who planted one of his heaviest
blows on the very chops of the Channel, Mr. Punch contents himself
with reporting some of the results of his personal observation.

On arriving at a given point, he looked out for an omnibus to Puszta
Harkaly, where he had heard the brigade of Benbdek was holding out,
and where Mr. Punch believed the presumed Pus or Puss, in Puszta,
might give a sort of impetus to Toby's activity. He soon arrived at a
spot which Mr. Punch discovered to be Nagy-sgmarcl, and on demanding
an interview with O'Szony he was collared and captured by two strap-
ping satraps of the Kaiser Somebody, who dragged him before a general,

whose name ended in ski, and who, to show his relationship to the
Skies, was covered all over with stars, besides having a cloud on his
brow, though he had anything but a milky way with him. Mr. Punch,
though he had an excellent explanation at his fingers' ends, was unable to
translate it into the required tongue, and a series of guttural sounds
having been sent forth from the throat of the General, it became
evident that Mr. Punch and his faithful dog were ordered to be shot as
spies by way of upshot. Mr. Punch had already begun to feel the
difficulty of conveying the reports of the fatal muskets in the character
of his own reporter, when, as the poet says—

Before a file or men,
Poor Pwnch was on his knees ;
Toby sent up a dismal yell,
That floated on the breeze.

So frightful was the sound,

That, pale with abject fear,

The soldiers turn'd upon their heels-

The ground for Punch was clear.

Encouraged by his fortunate escape, Mr. Punch became bold, and
happening to have one of the numbers of his own publication in his
pocket, he fortunately produced it, and found that it served as a passport
everywhere. More fortunate even than some of the foreign correspond-
ents of the daily press, who merely get invitations to dine with the
Generals on both sides, and have public galleries placed at then sole
disposal, to write their " copy " in, Mr. Punch found himself honoured

with tickets out of number for " private views " of the various fortifi-
cations, and he received an undated order for " himself and friend" to a

private (sentry) box in the theatre of war all over the continent. He
had in fact the entree behind the scenes, and was called to inspect all the
properties about to be introduced into the grand ballet of action that

was the subject of a sort of repetition generate in all the places he visited.
He strolled ad libitum among the " set pieces," and walked unmolested
through cut woods amid groups
of soldiery, forming the grand
tableaux in the revolutionary
dramas being performed
throughout nearly the whole of
Europe. To him, a pitched
battle was little more than a
performance at Astley's, and he
had the satisfaction of seeing
the corps of Wohlgemuth
come down upon the brigade of
Raimbith as comfortably as if
he had witnessed the whole
affair from the front row of the
dress boxes at JMr. Batty's es-
tablishment. However crowded
the " seat of war," there was
always a " reserved seat"
for Mr. Punch, who with the
Generals on both sides became
a general favourite. It would

be impossible to enumerate the places through which he passed on
his journey home, but any reader may supply himself with a tolerably

accurate catalogue by throwing together a qusiitity of consonants—
with a very small sprinkling of vowels—and cutting them up into
words of as many letters as may be convenient. The names of

generals may be obtained by the addition of the syllable kick, as in
Jellakick, for it is observable that the parties opposing any generals