Punch: Punch (33.1857)

Acorn 8, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

53

THE STRAW STIRRED IK THE AUGEAN STABLE.

efore we get rid of
the practice of lock-
ing travellers in
railway - carriages,
Sidney Smith used
to say, some rail-
way company must
burn a bishop.

On the same prin-
ciple, we may hope
there is, at length,
some prospect of
the Thames being
purified, now that
it is beginning to
poison the House of
Commons. Mr.Ad-
derley, on Friday,
inquired of the
First Commissioner
of Works, what was
the meaning of the
stink that pervaded
the House when-
ever the windows on the river front were open—whether there was
any power to enforce better trappings of the drains, or a removal of
the deposits of bones and other refuse on the opposite bank—and so
forth.

It is to be hoped the House was satisfied with Sir Benjamin Hall's
answer, which showed that, if bone-boilers were free to create stinks
it was because the House had altered the law introduced to prevent
them, and that if local authorities neglected their duty, the Commons
had themselves struck out the section of the Nuisances Removal Bill,
which empowered justices to compel them. So long as bone-boilers
only poisoned the poor Lambeth householders, it was no doubt too
much to expect that the collective wisdom would interfere with the
great bone interest, or limit the vested rights of stinks and stenches.
But now that the smell is brought home to the Legislative nose, let
the bone-boilers look to it! That local authorities should be allowed
to neglect their duty, to the poisoning of the rate-payers, is one of
those proud privileges of local self-government, which cannot be
bought too dear, at whatever cost of preventible disease or excessive
mortality. But, now that the neglect incommodes Mb. Adderley
in his place, or the Speaker in his chair, Bumbledom totters ! As
somebody said of religion, so Mr. Punch exclaims, " Oh, Self-
Government, Self-Government, what iniquities are perpetrated in thy
name!"

Scotland demands an improved police.—" Centralisation! " exclaim
the parrots of Bumbledom. England asks for powers to cleanse her
towns and make her villages healthy.—" Centralisation ! " squeaks the
same choir of ill-omened birds. Talk of Aristocracy, Democracy, and
Ploutocracy, as the contending forces of modern society ! There is one
force more than a match for them all, that is " Job-ocracy." Its seat
is the Parish Vestry, or the Town Council: its livery is the Beadle's
uniform ; its cry is " Self-Government;" and its aim, end, and interest
is "Number One."

How long is John Bull to groan under the apathy, selfishness, and
penny wisdom of the almighty Bumble ?

Second Election Committee Bulletin.

Wise Mr. M'Cullagh

Looks duller and duller;

Good Mr. Watkin

For once, to luck's not kin;

John Moyer Heathcote

Must (Parliament saith) cut;

Gay Paddy Somers

Seeks comfort in rummers ;

And Auchmuty Glover

Is turned out of cover.
Difficult rhymes, but we've manaeed 'em cleverly,
For Yarmouth and Huntingdon, Sligo and Beverley.

The Sight of Netley.

"Master Punch,—What do urn mane by complainun o'theZite
o' Netley ? ^ The Cockneys be alwuz a gwiun to zee't; and by all
accounts I hears, moast on 'em conziders the pleace about as purty a
Zite as they ever zin.

" Yourn, Trewly, Zow-Wester."

THE OLD LADY'S EUREKA.; OR, DEATH TO

THE ELIES!

So oft I've said, Ah, drat the flies '.—and now at last my prayers is
granted;

For at the chemists' shops you buys the very thing I always wanted ;
That Papier Moure ; and blessed be whoever found out that invention,
Which is a secret as you see the shopkeepers decline to mention.

Like blotting-paper it appear—a sort of greyish reddish tinted,

With wopses, flies, and insects queer, and foring language on it printed.

You takes and puts a little bit into a saucer or a basin,

A drop of water pours on it, and sets it some convenient place in.

They buzzes into it, bizwiz, attracted by the hopes of suction;
And I can truly tell you 'tis their certain death and sure destruction.
No dirty dauby plaguy mess, all smeary, treacly, fulsome, sticking,
Nor none of that unpleasantness to see they nasty creturs kicking.

They comes and drinks, away they flies; you sees no more of them
there ribels,

Out of your sight they goes and dies, like mice and rats that pison
nibbles.

" Catch-em-alive-o-s ? "—fiddlestick ! I say let them speak as have
tried 'em;

To kill the swarmingdivils quick, they ain't forto be named 'longside 'em:

Which also, though they're pison rank to flies and all sichlike Philistians,
Don't injure_ cats, which goodness thank, and hasn't no effect on
Christians.

At least they says so—as to that, they may or mayn't hurt one or
t'other:

I wouldn't try 'em on my cat if I could try 'em on another.

THE GROTTO NUISANCE.

At this time of the year, anybody remaining in Town, will do well
to attire himself for walking out in the oldest clothes that he has got.
Most of his acquaintance are at the sea-side; and the oyster season
has just commenced. Therefore he will be seen by few who will notice
him with displeasure or derision, and he will perhaps avert the impor-
tunities of the children who pester the pedestrian with entreaties to
" remember the grotto." This is a great nuisance to everybody, but
it is peculiarly irritating to persons who are expected to take every-
thing coolly—namely, philosophers. The peripatetic philosopher is
interrupted in his meditations by the demands of the little imps who
annually, at this time of the year, torment the London public like
those other emissaries of Beelzebub, the flies.

No philosopher, moreover, has any money to throw away; and to
meet the annoyance with concession, would involve a constant and
progressive distribution of halfpence. This would be disbursement to
a pretty tune—not that of " Sing a Song of Sixpence"—for many six-
pences would be needful to constitute the required amount, and a
pocket frdl of halfpence would verv soon become empty. Any one
who, absorbed in thought, is going along with his eyes uplifted cloud-
wards, and not taking particular cognisance of things that are sub-
lunary and passing beneath his nose, will very probably walk over
several of these brats, for they throw themselves right in the way of
the fastest and fattest walker, without the slightest regard to his
momentum, or consideration of his corpulence. He therefore runs so
many risks of squelching an infant or breaking his own shins.

It is a case in which the police ought to step in and interfere; but
as they will not, the only plan to avert the applications and attacks of
the youthful bores, is the expedient of dressing shabbily. But, to be
effectually defensive, the dress must be very seedy indeed, so as to
bespeak a very near approximation to abject poverty. Those who
make a point of wearing new, or comparatively new, and well-made
clothes, would be astonished to know what a very old and extremely
cheap coat, with other habiliments to match, is required to secure the
wearer from being pestered by mendicants. A suit of fustian, a blouse,
or a smock frock and corduroys, would perhaps be requisite for sure
protection against the little beggars who make the return of the
oyster, and the pretence of building a grotto with oyster-shells, an
excuse for begging.

Destructive Habits.

It is said tnat the early bird picks up the worm : but gentlemen who
smoke—and ladies who dance—till three or four in the morning, will
do well to Consider that the worm also picks up the early bird.

A Well-earned Title.—The atrabilious Record, from the reck
lessness of many of its statements, is now, by all lovers of truth,
always spoken of as—The Random Record.