Punch: Punch (17.1849)

PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

247

BOXING DAY.

THE day is rapidly approaching when every one who wants at
Christinas what he calls a Box, prepares to make a demand on
John Bull's chest. We have already noticed some of the most alarming
symptoms of a contemplated attack upon our pockets, and all those
who wish to get their hands in, are commencing their practice in this
harassing species of rifle exercise. The dustman begins to call more
loudly and more punctually for his dust, while he is already on the look-
out for a dog with a dent in one eye, to prove the eye-dent-it-eye of
the "regular" claimant of our household ashes. The waits are heard
at midnight going through their classical quartette concerts on three
trombones and a drum, and we know the result of this brazen conduct
will be a demand on Boxing-day from "your constant waits," who, in
many cases, will have to wait long enough before they obtain the
reward of their constancy.

Our postman, whose independence all the year (although very much
under-paid) has been so great that we have frequently mistaken him for
a colonial minister in the Windsor uniform—which by the way is the
postman's costume to a shade—our postman, we repeat, who has all the
year scarcely condescended to greet us with an odd nod, has, evidently
with a view to his annual box, been making a series of low bows,
which for some time we thought were ironically meant, until we re-
membered the compliments of the season, and it occurred to us that
another kind of compliment would be looked for in exchange.

Our newspaper boy, instead of pitching our daily print into our area,
as he has done since last Boxing-day, without even troubling himself to
ring the bell, has begun to stand at our door, vociferating, in a sonorous
tone of voice, the word " Pa—per," with an emphasis which smacks
strongly of an expectation of the usual gratuity. The beadle,
whom we have never seen since last Christmas, and whom,
during the year, we are accustomed to regard as a myth, ha3
come across us, like a phantom, in his gold-laced coat, with crim-
son cape. And we have heard of the bellman — a functionary
who comes, like the grottos, "only once a year,"—having purchased
a rhyming dictionary, to enable him to come out strongly in his
" copy of verses " for the coming holidays. The milkman has begun
for a while to put a little less of the pallida mors, or deadly whitewash,
into his milkpails; and even the butcher boy is on his best behaviour,
for he has only broken our bell-wire once a week for the last month,
instead of every other day, as he has been in the habit of doing when
Boxing-day was not imminent. Poor John Bull, at the " festive season,"
—as it is humorously called—is like Gulliveb at the mercy of the
Lilliputians, for every little extortioner takes the opportunity of having
a pull at his pocket. It is a pity that he has allowed himself to be tied
down by custom to such exactions as are usually practised upon him at
Christmas, and, though he has been loosening the bonds for some time
past, he has not yet cast them off altogether.

MAGPIE MOURNING.

Mb. Magpie deals in black and white. Mb. Magpie would make
the most of his commodities. Mb. Magpie is a tradesman, and in the
pursuit of thrift, will say anything. Mb. Magpie's tongue—like the
tongues of magpies—being cut with silver to be made eloquent. Do
we blame Mb. Magpie ? Certainly not. He picks up his early worm
upon a royal grave, as in Magpie instinct bound to do. Magpies
must live.

Our quarrel is with the Magpies—not of the shop, but of the Press.
It is well enough for Mourning Magpie to chatter about " all-absorbing
feelings," the while he cocks his head, and has his cold blue eye upon
the slit of his till; it is only the nature of the biped (not in feathers)
to make his nest cozey and warm, at all ventures. Therefore;, let

Mb. Magpie perch upon a royal hearse, and call all the world about
him, while he chatters lamentation, and now calls out " Queen
Dowageb," and now " Pbincess Chablotte." Nay, let Mb. Magpie,
if he have tongue and brass enough, insinuate that he—Magpie—has
been made the depositary of Court secrets as to Court Mourning, upon
which lie, let him rejoice consumedly, but—let not Press Proprietors,
for so much money paid over the counter, print in Magpie black and
white, the trading abomination. If Magpie will turn the commercial
penny upon mock misery and Brummagem woe,—at least, let the news-
paper proprietor stand with [Advebtisement] before the grossness, to
give warning of the nastiness of thrift; not make himself, by lack of
warning, part and parcel of the trading indecency. Let the advance
guard of £ s. d. show that it is wholly an affair of pocket, and not of
pocket-handkerchiefs,