Punch: Punch (32.1857)

200

[May 16, 1857

A CRIMINAL LAW OF COPYRIGHT WANTED.

Foremost among the means which were employed in the
cookery of the British Bank accounts, mention has been
made of a certain " small green ledger " as forming an
important part of Me. Cameron's cuisine, and helping
him especially to do things nicely brown. Tnis utensil
may be said to have been used as a sort of common melting-
pot, and anything put in it to the credit of the bank (such
as the eighteen pounds odd shiUings of the late M.P. for
Tewkesbury) was soon melted down, and became undis-
tinguishable. In the half-yearly farce called the Inspection
of the Books, this greatly used small ledger instead of
being seen over was always somehow overlooked. Those
who should have audited had never even heard of it; and
! so dark was it kept by the Cameron Obscurer, that its
green may be said to have been the invisible.

Now, as we find that this small ledger proved of no
small service in defrauding the public, we should like to
see steps taken to prevent its being used hereafter as a
precedent. We have no wish to see any one take a leaf
out of this, or from any other book of Mr. Cameron's
| concoction; and we should be glad therefore to find that
j they were made strictly copyright. Perhaps, if an in-
| fringement were regarded as a criminal offence, that to
would-be plagiarists might prove a strong deterrent: and
we should therefore recommend that every such leaf which
can be traced to Mr. Cameron should be pronounced on
the authority of Parliament a dock leaf, and that a lesson
in its botany be forthwith given at the schools, which were
originally established under Government inspection, at
Botany Bay.

ROYAL ACADEMY, 1857.

Mr. Punch (reads). "No 24. H.R.H.—A Field-Makshal, evidently.—Hm-m
Vert good, indeed. What Sanguinary Engaglment can it be )"

UNWARRANTABLE LIBERTY.

We should like to know who put the following saucy
advertisement relative to our respectable neighbours named
in it, into the Times:—

PUMPS.—FOWLER AND CO., Whitefriars Street, Fleet
Street, e.c.

If we had seen the foregoing chalked upon a wall, we
should not have been surprised, concluding it to have been
the expression of the impertinence of some disrespectful
street-boy. But no boy would spend in advertising, even
for the purpose of insulting somebody, the money which he
might lay out in lollipops.

JOHN TROT AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

When I was last in Londun, I went—just you guess where,
To the 'Cadummy o' picturs in What-d'ye-call-un Square. _
The tickut was a shil'n, and that bain't no gurt price to gie:
And the zight is wuth the money, if you likes them things to zee.

'Tis wonderful sitch works should be done by fellers' hands :
And how it is they does 'em, I'm blest if I understands.
To me sitch paaintuu do zeem impossible amost.
I should find it a hard job if I'd a got to paaint a post.

I zee a lot o' people a standun, starun hard
At one gurt grand big pictur, resembluu a dockyard.
Wi carpentern a gwiun on, chaps workun, buildun ships,
How nateral their shavuns wus, and rayal all the chips !

Another gurt big pictur too I likewise did behold,

Wi a old chap upon hossback in his armour all o' gold;

And a little gal afore un, and a small buoy at his back,

As had got a bunch o vaggots that zim'd pull vrom out a stack.

There was another paaintun as zim'd in the same way done,
Wi a gal a chap was helpin of vrom gaol to cut and run,
In a sart o' kind of yaller dress wi devvles on't and vlames,
Reprezentun priestcraft, simmunly, and that there kind o' games.

A gal a tyun on a scarf, moreover, I did note,

Around a chap as had got on a queer long scarlut quoat,

An old gal zittun in a chair, and a lady lookun on,

Ihinks I, now that there pictur is oncommonly well drawn.

I marked a goodish pictur, too, about the Rooshun war,

Zum officers inzide a shed, one smokuu a cigar;

They'd got a box just open'd zent to 'em by their vriends,

lhe walls wi prints was idver'd, and the vloor with odds an ends.

On boord a boat a gwiun, I zee a sailor lad,

And, I spose she wos his mother, a whimperun like mad ;

I dwoan't know much about un, but I thinks a was well done—

That pictur of the sailors, the 'ooman and her zon.

Zum stags, a little rabbit, an eagle in the mist,
A top a rock I vancied show'd a precious clever fist;
I wish the chap as did 'em 'ood paint zum pigs I've got:
For they be purty pigs although I says it as should not.

A quoast in storm and tempest, did also catch my eye,

Wi' a lot o' rocks like organ-pipes a stickun up on high,

And wrecks o'vessels lyun among the waves below

1 zeem'd to hear the waves rhooar and the winds to hear, like, blow.

A pictur o' the 'Sizes did also take my mind,

The jury a consider'n their verdict for to find,

The pris'ner's poor old veather, his mother, and his wife,

He beun, as I took it, on trial vor his life.

There also was a Yrenchman, at laste as I suppose,

Or anyhow a feller dress'd up in voreign clothes,

A talkun to a female as had on man's attire,

And that was a performance which I '11 own I did admire.

A lot of other picturs, too many for to name,
I gurtly wus delighted wi—zum wusn't wuth the frame.
I knows what i should do wi 'em perwided they wus mine,
Stick 'em outzvie a public-house, thereof to be the zign.

And what was they ? you '11 ax me. Why, I baint a gwine to tell,
The less is said the better about them as baint done well.
The painters does the best they can, and if so be they fail,
What need to holler 'em up hill, and cry 'em all down dale ?

Lave 'em aloan; that's bad enough; their picturs is their bread;
Zay nothun of 'em if so be as no good can't be zaid;
Don't take away their bread-and cheese—don't meddle wi' their gains,
I hopes thev'll'all paint better when they comes to take more pains.