Punch: Punch (32.1857)

April 11, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

143

THE LITTLE WALL OF CHINA.

he Great Wall of _ China
having proved insufficient to
protect that interesting and
inoffensive nation from the
inroads and encroachments
of the Outside Barbarians,
another line of defences has
been recently set up in the
line of policy pursued by
the Cobden - and - Disrae-
lites. The formation of this
structure was completed in
the lobby of the English
House of Commons, about
two o'clock, a.m., on Wed-
nesday, the 4th of March:
and strange as it may seem,
the building is alleged to
have been wholly without
plan or previous contrivance.
As is recounted to have
happened with the Aichi-
tectural Atoms of the Re-
jected Addresses, certain

'1-Casual bricks, in airy-
climb,

Encountered casual horsehair,
casual lime ;" *

and stuck together for the time by a species of cohesion not in any
wav to be mistaken for the mortar of a coalition, but at any rate par-
taking somewhat of the nature of a Roman—or at least Tractarian—
cement. _„., .

The erection of this barrier to the brutalities of the British has not
as yet been thought to do much credit to its builders ; and it probably
will not be able long to stand against the battering ram of popular
opinion. In fact, it may be questioned if the " atoms " who concurred
in getting up the Little Wall of China, will not find that they have
merely made a wall for their own heads to run against.

* Note (not by Mr. Gladstone, but plagiarily like him). It is hoped the reader
will appreciate the subtlety of this quotation, and observe—(1), That the term
"bricks " is of course to be ironically construed : (2), That the " airy climb " was
to obtain a seat in Ministerial high places: and (3), That the "horsehair" is of
legal significance.

PUNCH'S COMPLETE TRADESMAN.
No. V.

Me. Ckoton, the Chemist, enters Ms shop from the street, followed by
his Apprentice, Mr. Potash. A new Apprentice, from Wales,
Mb. David Glycybrhizen, is behind the counter.

Mr. Grot on. Well, that's over, and I think we've got off much
better than could have been expected. The magistrate took an emulsive
view of the case, and I am sure you will not make such a mistake
again, Mr. Potash.

Mr. Potash. No, it was deuced stupid and awkward. I can't ac-
count for it, I'm hanged if I can.

Mr. Croton. I have some inkling of the truth. Davy, let it be a
warning to you never to gossip with a pretty customer while you are
serving another person, or you may put up arsenic for arrow-root, as
Potash has done, and seat the Coroner upon a whole family.

David {a slightly conventional type). Odds splutter hur nails, hur
will heed that hurself.

Mr. Potash. Anything sold during our absence ?

David. 'Deed truth, no. Yes, py the soul of Cadwallader, a
woman came for squilse.

Mr. Potash. Well, there's plenty of syrup of squills there.

David. The pig pottle ? Py Penmanmaur hur did not spy it out, so
hur gave hur tat.

Mr. Potash. That! Laudanum. By Jove, that's as bad as my - ,
mistake ; and what a leek-eating son of an everlasting Welsh goat you Ma^ be 1 wcm 1 °Pen ^ours-
must be not to know squills from laudanum. [Floors Messrs. Cboton and Potash (David diving down a

Mr. Croton. Don't be harsh with him, Mb. Potash. He is but a trap-door into cellar), sweeps^ down all the bottles within reach,

beginner, and our own mistakes should teach us charity for the errors
of others. I have reason to think that the consequences in this case
may not be precisely fatal.

Mr. Potash. Why, Sir ?

Mr. Croton {smiling). What is the laudanum of commerce ?
Mr. Potash. To be sure, to be sure.
Mr. Croton. Tell David, however, for his instruction.
Mr. Potash. Laudanum's opium, Welshy, and opium's the milky
•nice of the capsule, or seed-vessel of a poppy, evaporated and inspis-

sated by exposure to air and light, which make it dark and gummy.
Do you comprehend that, my bounding goat of Snowdon ?
David (grinning). Hur's awake.

Mr. Croton. Yes, Mr. Glycyrrhizen, but you would not be awake
long if you took real opium. I am glad to tell you that the pure juice
of the poppy passes through cleverer hands than yours before it is
prepared as laudanum to be sold by gentlemen from Wales.

Mr. Potash. Yes, they cook its goose, rather. To increase its weight
they put sugar, mud, sand, powdered charcoal, soot, and pounded
poppy petals. Plour is also added, and potatoe farina, and all sorts of
messes, and common gums.

Mr. Croton. Spanish liquorice, too. In fact, out of twenty-three
samples examined the other day, nineteen were adulterated.

Mr. Potash. That was the gum opium, Sir; but, my eye, the pow-
dered ! Thirty-one samples out of forty were cooked.

Mr. Croton. Don't be so slangy, Potash. Why not say vitiated ?
You are going into business for yourself. Do learn dignity.

David. Hur's astonished.

Mr. Croton. Nay, David, as your friend is leaving, let him impart to
you a few more of the secrets of the trade he has learned. Let us see.
You will hear of Scammony a good deal—there, on the second shelf,
fourth jar. That is a costly drug.

Mr. Potash. Yes, and I should like to know how much chalk, and
starch, and jalap, and gum tragacanth, and sand, and plaster of Paris
there is in that jar.

David. Hur's petrifaction.

Mr. Potash. Now there's jalap, my goat. An active purgative, on
account of its resin. Now there's another kind of jalap that has scarcely
any resin at all. They grind them up together, or put the real thing with
the cuttings of the tree, in equal quantities, and so we draws our jalap
uncommon mild, young Fluellex. The drug-grinder is always ordered
to make eighty-four pounds into a hundredweight.

David. Hur's bewildered.

Mr. Potash. We '11 bewilder hur a little more. Ipecacuanha, now.
That's another root they adulterate with wood fibres. In powder,
we put in tartar emetic, carbonate of lime, wheat flour, and starch. A
doctor prescribes so much ipecacuanha, meaning the original article,
but we improve on the doctor, for tartar emetic makes a chap twice as
sick—eh, my Welsh rabbit ?

Mr. Croton. I admit that this system makes it impossible for a
medical man to know what he is giving his patient, but that is a
question for the patient and the medical man.

Mr. Potash. I could tell hur some more, but hur seems stupefied.
Colocynth, my goat, we cook with wheat flour, or chalk, and the profit
is remarkable. Rhubarb we improve with flour and turmeric, and
squilse, as you call them, when in powder are floured like one
o'clock. You are always sucking liquorice. Do you know that it is
often only a mixture of the worst kind of gum, imported for making
blacking, but with a little of the real juice in it. Starch, and metallic
copper go into it, also.
David. Machynlleth ! Llanymynech ! Llanvihangellagwint !
Mr. Croton. I will not allow you, David, to use blasphemous lan-
guage in my shop,

Mr. Potash. It he swears at that, what will he say when he knows
that we put chalk into calomel, starch and sulphate of lime into
qirinine, lime into magnesia, water into nitre, croton ofl into castor oil,
and when a doctor orders conf. arom. we leave out the expensive things
and stick in turmeric for saffron, cassia for cinnamon, and chalk for
sugar ?

Mr. Croton. And then patients wonder that things don't do 'em
good. Ha ! ha!

Mr. Potash. And doctors don't believe they have taken the medicines.
Ha! ha!

Mr. Croton. Well, we must all live, chemists and druggists aud
undertakers among the rest.

David (wildly). Hur will go back to hur mountains, to hur trans-
lucent lakes of Bala, and of EUesmere, to hur peaceful vale of Llan-
gollen, and to hur foaming flood of Conway. There hur will find no
roguery, there hur Welsh harp will soothe hur to repose, there—
Enter an Dish artisan, of the bricklaying persuasion, in fury.

Terence M'Dermott. One of yees sould this bottle, I'm thinking?
(Exhibits an empty phial.) Me blessed family's as sound asleep as the
Hill o'Howth, and divd a one of me can make 'em open their eyes.

and performs a triumphant dance upon the counter.

Schooling for Cosmopolites.

The Manchester School has been converted into the School of
Adversity. It is to be hoped that this change will conduce to the
improvement of the scholars, who, in consequence of it, wdl get
grounded in a thoroughly English education.