Punch: Punch (33.1857)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [September 12, 1857.

THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL.

Time :—Midnight. a Sketch not a Hundred Miles from the Haymarket.
Bella. "Ah ! Fanny ! How long have you been Gay?"

CHUPATTIES AND LOT US-FLOW EES.

symbols, and, in as far as they were circulated, such is the purport of
the conspiracy."

Mr. Punch can't say that he exactly understands how symbols of
heaven and mercy can be appropriate to a conspiracy, signalised chiefly
by assassination and robbery, and the outrage and massacre of unresisting
women and innocent children. So he bowed his head over the lotus-
flower of the Great Asian Mystery, in meek ignorance, and cried in his
heart:—" Great is Disraeli ! " and waited patiently—like a priest of
Tentyra, on the borders of Old Nile—for the unfolding of the lotus.

And then there perched at his elbow a little bird from Leadenhall
Street, skilled in the things of the East, and sang this Ghazul:—

" Lift up thy head, oh Punch, and let thy soul be comforted witnin

thee

" The lotus is a mystery after the manner of the mysteries of Ben-
jamin, the son of Benjamin—

" Its roots are in the abyss: its head is in the clouds: its seeds
are emptiness, and its stalk is bosh—nothing—

" Behold, is there not a brass-pot, carried by the Brahmins —

" And on this brass-pot—filled with the water of the sacred river—
the Brahmin is wont to swear his great oaths—

" And the name of the brass-pot is lotah—

" And when Benjamin, the son of Benjamin, heard that the Brah-
mins had sworn upon their lotahs to rise and slay the Feringhee—

" Then Benjamin, the son of Benjamin, made a mess, after the
manner of Benjamin's messes—exceeding large—

" And in this mess he dropped the lotahs of the Brahmin Sipahees,
and, behold, they blossomed into the lotus—

" And this is the manner of the mysteries of Benjamin, the son of
Benjamin.

" What are an 'A' and £H' in the sight of Benjamin, the son of
Benjamin, that they should not change into a ' U ' at his bidding ? —

" Is not one vowel as good as another vowel—and do not flowers
grow out of pots ?

" Why not the lotus out of the lotahs ? "

So the little bird, skilled in the things of the East, having sung his
Ghazul, flew away, and Mr. Punch arose, and wrote this Ghazul, and
said:

" Wonderful are the facts of Benjamin, the son of Benjamin—
" And as his facts, even so also are his figures."

REMINDERS

To Fine Young English Gentlemen about to travel on the Continent.

Mind you take as the pattern of your costume the absurd caricatures
that the French Charivarists are in the habit of drawing of the English.
The more ridiculous the better.

Mind you insult everybody in their native language, if you can; but
if you cannot, then in your own nervous Saxon. A dash of Billingsgate
will rather improve the mixture.

Mind you leave your name behind you, in letters as big as your
conceit, on every monument you visit.

Mind, upon the slightest dispute or prevarication, you threaten to
write to Lord Palmerston.

Mind, if you are fond of tuft-hunting, that you do not mistake the
Tutor for the young Lord he is taking charge of.
Mind you keep your hat-on when you go into a Church.
Mind you assert the national privilege of grumbling, and finding
fault, justly or not, with everything, and everybody, wheresoever
you go.

Mr. Disraeli, in his Indian oration, talked mysteriously of certain Mind you abuse, to your heart's discontent, the Government of the

cliupatties and lotus-flowers, which passed from regiment to regiment
of Sepoys, before the mutiny, and which were supposed to be, some
way or other, connected with the plot. The cliupatties were constate
and officially verified. But nobody had heard of the lotus-flowers till
Mr. Disraeli transplanted them into his harangue. Lord Palmer-
ston, Mr. Smith of Cannon Row, the Chairman of the East India
Company, were equally flabbergasted at this new Asian Mystery. The
Indian Correspondence was ransacked; but no lotus-flower. Mr.
David Urqtjhart even, that great medicine-man and mystery-monger,
was applied to, but like other oracles, he contented himself with
looking wise—and shaking his head, in the manner of Sheridan's
Lord Burghley.

Last week there appeared in a contemporary, an elaborately
erudite and scientific article, apropos of the lotus-flower, as a Sepoy
symbol of mutiny—very pleasant to read, carrying us back to
Herodotus and Strabo, whisking us from Egypt to Cashmeer, and
horrent with barbarous mythology—Astarte and Isis, Ormuzd and
Osiris,—Horns the sun-god, and Kouan-Yin, the Bouddhist Goddess of
Mercy. The article, after a pleasant scientific and mythologic ramble,
winds up with the conclusion that cakes and lotus-flowers are the
symbols of the Queen of Heaven, the Hindoo Goddess of Mercy, and
Mother of God. "Such," adds the writer, "is the meaning of the

country through which you are travelling, more especially, if you have
any reason to suspect there are Secret Police about.

Mind you call for ale, porter, Harvey's sauce, soda-water, seidlitz
powders, port, pickles, Cockle's pills, or penny postage stamps, in the
most out-of-the-way places, where such things have never been heard
of before.

Mind the best insult to throw at a Frenchman is to call him " French
Frog," and no sarcasm stings a German more than to throw into his
teeth " Sourkrout."

Mind you cultivate the notion that you may do everything you like,
as long as you pay for it. Rest assured you may ring the bells of the
hotel all night, if it is only charged in the bill.

Finally, and distinctly, M ind you do everything that is nonsensical,
whimsical, outrageous, mad, ungentlemanly, or extravagant, so that it
is likely to bring into disrepute the credit and character of an English-
man. It is by such means that the honourable reputation of an
Englishman is best sustained abroad.

Emigration.—Mr. Vernon Smith is to be allowed, in one of the
Government ships, a free passage out to India, so that he may acquire
some little knowledge of the country.

I