Punch: Punch (33.1857)

July 11, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVAHI.

13

THE OLD PRINTERS HAVEN.

he enjoymerit of the intellectual
pleasure afforded by these and
other pages is greatly enhanced
by the beauty and clearness of
the type which is the vehicle for
the conveyance of our profound,
poetical, and facetious ideas, and
the like ideas of some of our con-
temporaries and predecessors, to
the human mind. Wit, wisdom,
imagination,become reading made
easy by means of fine and legible
print. The mental feast is served
in porcelain and silver: the intel-
lectual venison and turtle-soup
are dished up in precious china
and choice plate. The green fat
is rendered refreshing even to
the eye, and the sense of sight
itself is gratified by the graces of Alderman's Walk. Native humour
has imparted to it a visual charm like that which the native oyster
acquires by being elegantly scalloped. The art, however, which makes
literary things pleasant to the eye of the reader, is unfortunately apt,
to wear out that of the artist, and the gratification afforded by nice
typography is purchased by the amaurosis of pressmen, and the cataract
of compositors. Some working Printers, moreover, as well_ as some
other people, live to be old and infirm, and few who do attain to old
age have been able to provide for that contingency. Either their wages
have been insufficient for any such provision ; or if they have, in
themselves, barely sufficed for some such, the Income-Tax, under
Schedule D, has run away with the savings which they might have
invested to that end by dint of extreme parsimony.

What fate, then, awaits the poor old Printer, who is too much of a
Christian to commit suicide, and who probably cannot see his way to
do so if he would ? Not, necessarily, the punishment of the Work-
house—that punishment, of which, as of capital punishment, the object,
is simply example. No: the doom of the Workhouse; the condem-
nation of the pauper, condemned to imprisonment and degradation for
not having saved the money which he has been unable to save, is not
the inevitable lot of superannuated working Printers. There exists a
charitable, and not a penal, receptacle for them, or rather a number of
receptacles, called the Pointers' Almshouses : an assemblage of
comfortable abodes or asylums for deserving workmen past work.

The Sixteenth Annual Report of the Committee of the Printers'
Almshouse Society has lately been published: and from this docu-
ment it will be seen that the Society is making the most, for the comfort
and accommodation of the Inmates, of very moderate means. For
instance, the Committee reports the circumstance that a pump is in
course of erection for the supply of the Institution from an Artesian
well; whence will be effected an economy in the article of water.
This shows that economy is practised in every element of expenditure,
even in the pure element, if Chemistry will pardon the expression.

THE BATTLE OF THE PICTURES.

Why here's the House of Commons, by way of pleasing variety,
On Elcho's and Coningham's summons, turned Dilettante-Society ;
Where the one with playful i illery, the other with sterner strictures,
Palis foul of the National Gallery - its management and its pictures.
The newly-elected of Brighton, stout and strenuous William Coning-

ham,

Declares he'11 throw a light on "a certain high person's" cunning
game,

When (excusethe feeble witticism) he drives his German Waagen
With a load of German criticism to prop up each German bargain.
Whether of a Krtjger Collection, whereof, Brighton's stern truth-
teller

Declares, all but a selection by the buyer's been hid in the cellar,
Or else a Galvagna treasure, on which Herr Mundler blundered,
And for fifteen daubs with pleasure forked out two thousand five
hundred;

All to bag one fish in the haul—the Glan Bellini Madonna—
Which is no Gian Bellini at all, Mr. Coningham vouches his
honour.

Then there's Elcho, better known as late Hon'rable Prank
Charteris,

A Connoisseur full-blown, who to Eastlake a perfect Tartar is,
'Who puts spokes in Waagen's wheel, and assails poor agent
Mundler, —

With that stress on the dotted ",u" which makes the name rhyme to
" swindler,"—

Declaring of English Art-wonders that Mundler is the greatest,
And that all one can say of his blunders is, the worst is always the latest.
That his presence drives up art-treasures, as a hot hand does a ther-
mometer,

To a price beyond all measures, save of John Bull's purse-pedometer.
And that, when he comes in a place he's straight sucked in the
feelers

Laid out for him by the race of polypus picture-dealers :
And from old daubs in old shops you may hear some such midnight
cry as

" Here's Mundler! Here he stops! Hooray! he's a-going to buy us!"
So he closes his disquisition, with a peroration of stricture
Upon our last acquisition, the fourteen-thousand pound picture :
Whereon Wilson of the Treasury, though in art-matters somewhat
hazy, _

Boldly describes the pleasure he has had from that Veronese.
And, for further satisfaction, calls our more artistic Chancellor,
To declare that of " this" transaction the House ought not to be
cancellor.

And so the House comes to a vote on the Gem of the Casa-Pisani,

Varnished, henceforth, with a coat of double official blarney.

But Punch holds to Pam's conclusion, that the Commons don't do

themselves credit,
By this sort of art-discussion, or the speeches of those who led it:
And makes bold to consider it placed beyond doubt that Sir Charles
Eastlake,

We willnowquote as much of the Report as it is necessary to quote— ' Of knowledge and judgment and taste can't be proved to have shown

the least lack;

While, as for the few hundreds' salary of Secretary Wornum,

the portion of a sentence :—

" Our List of Annual Subscribers is not so large as could be wished

All persons addicted to the practice of charity are invited to con-
sider whether the above brief statement may not suggest to them a
way for indulging their besetting propensity. To any wealthy indi-
vidual who has never tried the luxury of feeding the hungry, and
clothing the naked, the Printers' Almshouses may be recommended
as affording a good case for a first experiment. This may be performed
by sending the Society any amount of money, which will be received
with rapture by the Treasurer, Trustees, Secretary, any Member of
the Committee, or the Collector, Mr. C. Pope, 14, Derby Street,
King's Cross, London.

How to Ruia your Health.

_ 1st. Stop in bed late; 2nd. Eat hot suppers ; 3rd. Turn day into night,
night into day; 4th. Take no exercise; 5th. Always ride, when you
can walk; 6th. Never mind about wet feet; 7th. Have half-a-dozen
doctors; 8th. Drink all the medicine they send you ; 9th. Try every
new quack; 10th. If that doesn't kill you, quack yourself.

a superstition removed.

A " Sub-Editor of Twenty Years' Standing " (for the Editor's
shoes ?) says that when Luther threw the inkstand at the head of the
Devil, it must have been the Printers' Devil, who had doubtlessly been
for hours dancing about his elbow, bothering him for " Copy ! "

The Trustees of the National Gallery have no doubt he means to
earn 'em:

And as for Mundler and Waagen and their patrons and protectors,
Let's wish ourselves joy of our bargain—both Nation, Trustees, and
Directors !

PUT OUT THE LIGHT.

It appears that a sort of controversy is waging, in the Jewish
Chronicle, on the subject of Proselytism to the Jewish faith, the
members of which are accused of rather giving the cold shoulder to a
convert. An idiot, who writes to proclaim that he was converted to
Judaism, eighteen years ago at Rotterdam, (after Scheidam, we sup-
pose,) alleges, however, that he has been very kindly treated. More
geese the Rotterdam Hebrews. We consider that the Jews, in dis-
liking converts from Christianity, are quite right. A man may not
choose to alter his habits so far as to travel by railroad, light his candle
with a lucifer, or read Punch ; but he must feel the utmost contempt
for another man, who, having known and tried those improvements,
falls back on the old coach, tinder-box, and Morning Herald. A real
convert to Judaism is almost an impossibility, but we are happy to say
that our Missionaries announce hosts of daily converts to Punch and-
Judyism.

Invaluable Advice eor Parliament.—Pcwer words, and more
Acts.