Punch (28.1855)

164

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

THE GREAT LION OE LONDON.

Air—“ Parlant pour la, Syrie.’’

It was Louis Napoleon
At Guildhall bound to dine,

At least to make a dejeuner
Of turtle-soup and wine :

And with the Empress Eugenie,

Who sat on his left hand.

Did his Imperial Majesty
Proceed along the Strand.

Along the Strand proceeded they,

As in triumphal car,

Beneath two lines of waving hags.

And came to Temple-Bar.

That splendid civic edifice
Arose upon their view.

Whose arch so many kings and queens,
And cockneys have gone through.

The Emperor viewed that noble pile
With wonder and delight;

Although have rankled in his breast
An envious feeling might.

And to the Empress Eugenie,,

Whilst all the mob did shout,

He cried “My love, this beats our Arcs
De Triomphe out and out! ”

JOHN BULL A LA MODE—A PROBABLE EEEECT OF THE ALLIANCE.

SISTERS OF BELGRAVIA.

We understand that, in token of their sympathy and admiration of the Rev. Mr. Liddell,
of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, certain Sisters of Belgravia have resolved upon undergoing
certain penitential discipline. Lady Teresa Goldenrod has sent her coach-horses to
grass, resolving not to ride in anything beyond a Hansom for these two months.

The Hon. Miss Magdalen St. Croix, with a contempt of the hollowness of life, and
the littleness of all earthly splendours, has given her present season ticket to the Crystal
Palace (in her emotion she forgot it was not transferable) to the apple-woman at the corner.

Lady St. Gudulde has resolved to wear her bonnet on her arm only the whole of the month
of June.

Miss Bleedinheart, of the Scourges, has sold her gold fish, and sent the proceeds in
penny stamps, to the Oratorians.

Thus far for acts of penance. We have now to state that a pair of stockings of the most
extraordinary texture is, at the present moment, being knitted for the incumbent of St. Mary’s.
Father Polycarps—what learning is in the wrinkles of his passionless forehead'.—had

IMPERFECT INSOLENCE.

Bluff Admiral Berkeley—our clever and
successful Admirals, our worthy successors of
Blake and Nelson, our great existing naval
heroes, are very prone to affect the bluff—is re-
ported to have remarked, speaking in the House
of Commons, in regard to the objection of naval
assistant-surgeons to live in the cockpit, that

‘‘ After the eminent men whom the cockpit had produoed,
he thought they need not be ashamed if they were obliged
to live in such a place.”

This was saying too little. Proceeding m the
same gentlemanlike strain, Admiral Berkeley
might have made a House-of-Commons-joke by
observing that the cockpit afforded a very suitable
accommodation to a class of men without pre-
tension to exalted birth.

A Word to the Un-wise

is the principle of modern

as an evil that cures

It is the principle of modern legislation re-
treat usury as an evil that cures itself, and
needs no law for its prohibition. Pei haps
the best advice to the possible victim to money
lending swindlers is Keep wide-awake, and, as a.
safeguard against, usury, use-your-eye !

suggested that, as in the middle ages (he quoted
Du Cange, Rete, id est ornamentum reticim ad
instar retis contextum) the mantles of the clergy
had often coverings of silk made, in the same
manner as fishing-nets, in order no doubt that the
piety of the wearer might show through their
meshes; he thought a gown of the middle-age
kind would be a handsome offering to the
suffering incumbent. The ladies, however, were
frustrated by a want of material; for the stockings
were to be made of cobwebs — consecrated
cobwebs. Brother Erancis had told the story
of a certain Jesuit, he is named by Disraelv
Pater, De Curiositate Literaria, who had a pair
of stockings woven of cobwebs; and the Brother
having in his possession cobwebs, collected and
blest, from the cupola of St. Peter’s, had placed
his precious relics at the service of the pious
Sisterhood of Belgravia, that they might spin a
pair of spider hose therefrom for the martyr of
St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge.

It is known to a few that Mr. Liddell
will, the first time he preaches in the stockings,
communicate the fact to the elect by wearing a
flower, the Star of Bethlehem, in his button-
hole.