Punch: Punch (32.1857)

March 28, 1857 ] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 127

THE BOMBARDIER OF WINDSOR.

Few of our readers, perhaps, are aware of the warlike character of
the Corporation of Windsor. That civic body has quite the military
cast of a mediaeval municipality. The peaceful gown may constitute
the habitual attire of its members, but can, on occasion, be exchanged
for the arms and accoutrements of war by these stout burghers. They
have in their pay an artillery corps, and, according to a contemporary,
last week, on the birthday of Her Royal Highness the Princess
Louisa, after the customary bell-ringing,—

" At noon a royal salute was fired from the corporation ordnance, by the town
bombardier, in Bachelor's Acre."

A fine subject for a picture in the old Flemish style, one fancies,
would be afforded by the Town Bombardier of Windsor. To the eye of
imagination he presents the idea of a man of gigantic height and frame ;
an idea suggested by the fact that his sole strength was employed on
the management and firing of the corporation ordnance. We are not
informed that he was assisted by any subordinate artillerymen; and
hence, indeed, we are led to question whether he has any, and whether,
being a host in himself, he does not comprehend in his own person, the
whole artillery corps of Windsor. The office of the Town Bombardier of
Windsor must be, in one sense, a sinecure, for although he is employed
in firing birthday salutes pretty frequently, he has nothing to bombard.
If the Corporation of Windsor could spare their Town Bombardier for
a time, that tremendous artilleryman might be sent out to China, in
order that he might astonish the natives of Canton by bombarding
that town—if there is any of it remaining to be bombarded.

FASHIONABLE RECEIPTS.

HE vocabulary of Flunkeydom has
been lately enriched with a new
siang expression. The reporters of
high jinks in hiah life have taken
to informing their readers that this
or that lady of quality " received "
on such and such an evening.
Heretofore, it was customary to
describe the superior classes as
giving evening or other parties ; but
now they are said to receive in exer-
cising hospitality. In fact, giving
a party is giving a receipt- It does
not appear that the party given in
receiving is a new style of thing,
being otherwise called by the old
names of assembly, reunion, and
soiree. Whether a dancing-tea is
denominated a receiving, or recep-
tion we do not know. One would think that an entertainment,
whereof the giver receives, woidd be somewhat in the way of a
concert or a dramatic performance, to which visitors got admitted by
tickets or money taken at the doors. This last development in the
flunkeyistic dialect may appear open to some objection as an ill phrase,
for those who continually near that anybody has been receiving cannot
help being reminded of the old saying, that the receiver is as bad as
the thief.

A Satirical Senior.

One of those old gentlemen whose age is supposed to entitle them
to say anything, made the following extremely rude and personal
remark to a young officer in a distinguished regiment about to proceed
to China. " Well, Sir, well; you 're going to Canton, eh, Sir ? well, I
can only say, I hope you won't fall into the hands of the Chinamen,
alive or dead; for if you 're alive, they '11 kill you, and if you 're dead,
or when you 're dead, they '11 eat you. Sir, I believe it's an undoubted
fact that the Chinese eat puppies."

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sick cows of london.

The Lancet tells us that an epidemic rages among the cows of
London. A non-medical opinion inclines to consider the disease the
dropsy, contracted by the cows from an immoderate use of the pump.

We learn, with great gratification, that the Earl or Derby, with
that earnest feeling for religion and the well-being of the Church of
England that has ever characterised him, has refused to allow any of
his lordship's horses to be entered for any Steeple-chase in which the
Church, used as a post, is not in the hands of a clergyman of sound
principles.—Standard.

NEWS OF THE EASELS.

{From the Observer.)

The approaching Exhibition of the Royal Academy promises to be
an exceedingly good one. Among other characteristics which it will
possess is the general novelty of the subjects treated by the artists.
Instead of having recourse, as hitherto, to themes which have been
worked threadbare by hundreds of preceding painters, we are
delighted to learn that many of the intending exhibitors have looked
for themselves into English and other literature, and have selected
entirely fresh topics for illustration. Mr. Stuggs, we hear, has em-
ployed his masterly pencil in delineating a scene from an old but
admirable poem of the time of Charles the Second, in which the
birth and fall of our first parents are graphically described. A graceful
little novel, by a friend of the celebrated Dr. Johnson, comprising the
adventures of an amiable country clergyman and his interesting family,
supplies to Mr. Bumbledrof an incident (we think a simple youth's
sisters attiring him for a fair) which will advantageously display; his
artistic powers, while Mr. Bloggby, constant to the noble traditions
of his country, has lighted upon a grand yet touching episode in our
early history, when, according to writers of authority, the mortal
remains of the Sovereign who died in the fatal combat which gave the
throne to the ambitious Norman Conqueror, were discovered upon the
battle field, by a female prompted to the search by the gentlest of
sentiments. A poem of the last century, detailing the vicissitudes of the
seasons, supplies Mr. Weeble with a charming subject—a young lady,
bathing, receives a letter from her lover, stating that he is on the look
out to prevent her being disturbed, and she writes in reply, expressing
her gratitude; a happy idea, full of delicacy, at least in the estimation
of our grandmothers. An original anecdote from early English history
has been brought to light by Mr. Latherdabbeb, who represents
the celebrated monarch by whom we were delivered from Danish sway
superintending, or rather neglecting, humble culinary duty in the
cottage of an Eatherd (or peasant), whose wife had given him shelter.
Nor has foreign literature oeen a sealed book to the artists, and while
the romantic annals of Spain have been ransacked to supply to
Mr. Yopus the figures ol an enthusiastic and chivalrous knight-
errant who mistook a windmill for a giant, and of his lablache-like
squire, a quaint and singular compound of knavery and simplicity,
the satiric drama of our lively neighbours (the French) has fur-
nished Mr. Pogram with the idea of a ludicrous tradesman, who
attempts to acquire accomplishments, and is astonished to find that he
has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it. _ The reproach,
unjustly cast upon our artists, that they are unacquainted with the
classical writings will this year be triumphantly met, for both Homer and
Virgil afford subjects to painters, the Scian bard having suggested to
Mr. Madgeowlet the childish fear of the youthful Antinotjs at the
helmet and plumes of his father Achilles, when the latter takes leave
of his consort Helen ; and the Mantuan swan having afforded to Mr.
De Storter the opportunity of delineating the Carthaginian Queen
Hstening to the recitals of the hero of Troy. We must not omit to
add, that the too much neglected drama of our own country has been
ransacked, not without success, by Mr. Biddyboy and Mr. Bonassus,
and that the former has made choice of a most interesting, yet withal
most difficult, subject from the works of the Swan of Avon, where an
aged but petulant monarch is driven out of doors by his ungrateful
offspring, while the other has nobly advocated the cause of our oppressed
Jewish fellow-subjects by a masterly debneation of an Itaban Hebrew,
who is giving admirable counsel to an unthrifty daughter. We look
forward, therefore, with great interest to the opening of an exhibition
where not only the pictorial talent, but the gallant ventures of our
artists in fresh fields and pastures new are to be judged, but we have
no fear for the result—Spero meliora.

Five Heads to One Unmanageable Body.

We think the principal insurgents who have headed the Chinese
Bevolution (at home) will not, for any very great length of time, agree
amongst themselves. You will see that Gladstone, Russell,
Roebuck, Disraeli, and Cobden, will soon be quarrelling as to who
shall be "first-chop."__

orangemen of the opposition.

There were always a certain number of Orangemen in Lord
Derby's party, but they were Irish Orangemen. They are now to be
looked upon in the bght of China-Orangemen.

yankee notion of allum.

It is the decided opinion of all the American residents at Hong
Kong, that Mr. Allum, the baker, who poisoned the bread, is, or was
before he was shot, the greatest loafer in existence.