Punch (34.1858)

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Amu. 10. 1858.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. J5i

"blow, blow, thou wintry wind.

Sir,

I have lived to see and hear a great many strange things,
rrnt I never expected to live to hear an English poet singing the praises
of the North-East Wind, as I am amazed to find the Rev. Charles
Kingslet has been doing. What does the man mean? Has he a
nerve in his body ? Is he susceptible of catarrh, influenza, bronchitis,
and the other ills that miserable flesh is heir to in this climate ? Has
he a constitution of cast iron, a skin of triple brass, and muscles of
steel wire ? Does he not know what it is, as he lies in bed of a
morning, to feel that twinge of indescribable all-overishness, which
announces that the East Wind is blowing outside the house ? Does
he not feel his eyes smart, his skin scorch and shrivel, his every limb
ache, appetite go, and his temper break down altogether, whenever this
same abominable wind prevails, as it does three days out of four in
this infernal climate of ours ?

" I say again, what does the man mean by it ? I am told he is the
poet of a school of muscular Christians ! I hate your muscular people
—they are, as a rule, impudent, blustering, loud, and overbearing.
They grate on one's nerves. They act upon one a good deal as the
East Wind itself does—set one longing to be wrapped up warm, and
rolled away into a corner, or at all events buried, it matters little how,
out of the 'misery of this dreary world—and as if it is not enough to
have to endure the East Wind, I must submit to have it sung, cele-
brated, praised, rejoiced in, made much of! No, Sir, if we are to have
a song of the North East Wind, I submit that mine is more the thing
than Mr. Kingsley's, and therefore beg to enclose it for your journal,
which has occasionally, though at distant intervals, beguiled a miserable
half-aour for, Mr. Punch

" Your dyspeptic reader,

" MlSERRIJUlS MeaGRESON."

MY SONG OF THE NORTH WIND.

Hang thee, vile North Easter :

Other things may be
Very bad to bear with,

Nothing equals thee.
Grim and grey North Easter,

Erom each Essex-bog,
From the Plaistow marshes,

Rolling London fog—
" Tired we are of summer "

Kingsley may declare,
I give the assertion,

Contradiction bare;
I, in bed, this morning

Felt thee, as I lay :
" There's a vile North Easter

Out of doors to-day ! "
Set, the dust-clouds blowing

Till each face they strike,
With the blacks is growing

Chimney-sweeper like.
Fill our rooms with smoke-gusts

Erom the chimney-pipe,
Fill our eyes with water,

That defies t he wipe.
Through the draughty passage

Whistle loud and high,
Making door and windows

Rattle, flap and fly ;
Hark, that vile North Easter

Roaring up the vent,
Nipping soul and body,

Breeding discontent!

Squall, my noisy children;

Smoke, my parlour grate;
Scold, my shrewish partner;

I accept my fate.
All is quite in tune with

This North Eastern blast;
Who can look for comfort

Till this wind be past ?
If all goes contrary,

Who can feel surprise,
Wit h this rude North Easter

In his teeth and eyes ?
It blows much too often,

Nine days out of ten,
Yet we boast our climate,

Like true English men !
In their soft South Easters

Could I bask at ease,
I'd let France and Naples

Bully as they please,
But while this North Easter

In one's teeth is hurled,
Liberty seems worth just

Nothing in the world.
Come, as came our fathers

Heralded by thee,
Blasting, blighting, burning

Out of Normandie.
Come and flwy and skin us,

And dry up our blood —
All to have a Kingsley

Swear it does him good !

LIFE AND LIMB VALUATION FOR RAILWAYS.

The compensation-money paid by railway companies in case of
accidents arising from their mismanagement, is, as the Times remarks,
measured by the pecuniary circumstances of the parties maimed or
killed. Thus, for the breakage of a prosperous physician's or barris-
ter's limbs or neck, they would have to pay a much larger amount than
the damages they would incur on account of the same fractures
inflicted on a common labourer or mechanic. This state of things must
necessarily tend to make directors very particular in their precautions
for insuring the safety of the express train, and rather economical in
their provisions for the protection of the parliamentary. Ji the law is
really no respecter of persons, it ought to charge as much for one man's
life or limbs as it does for another's; and the excess, if any, of the
sum charged, over the value of the poor man's limbs to himself, or

that of his life to his family, might go to the Crown, or to the County
Hospital.

Juries, however, make sometimes a very moderate estimate of the
value of limbs, as limbs. What diamond that could possibly be worn
on any human finger is worth the finger ? Yet many a dozen of men
in a box would award to a plaintiff a greater compensation for a
diamond ring lost by the fault of certain defendants, than what they
would grant for the finger lost without the ring. If the worth of any-
thing is what it will fetch, mutilations ought to be rated in some
measure according to the marketable value of the member or the feature
spoiled. If, for example, a young lady's face is her fortune, she may
reasonably claim an almost indefinite amount of compensation for its
disfigurement through railway mismanagement. Who shall say that
the destruction of her beauty has not prevented her marrying a
millionnaire; and if her shapely ankles were crushed on some ill-con-
ducted line, would not justice require that they should be appraised
much more highly than the knobbed lower extremities of an old fogy ?

A CHANSON FOR CANTON.

John Chinaman a rogue is born,

The laws of truth he holds in scorn;

About as great a brute as can

Encumber the Earth is John Chinaman.
Sing Yeh, my cruel John Chinaman,
Sing Yeo, my stubborn John Chinaman;
Not Cobden himself can take off the ban
By humanity laid on John Chinaman.

With their little pig-eyes and their large pig-tails,
And their diet of rats, dogs, slugs, and snails,
All seems to be game in the frying-pan
Of that nasty feeder, John Chinaman.
Sing lie-tea, my sly John Chinaman,
No fightee, my coward John Chinaman :
John Bull has a chance—let him, if he can,
Somewhat open the eyes of John Chinaman.

POPULAR ASTRONOMY.

A Rural Correspondent complains of having been mystified by some
of our contemporaries in their accounts of the recent eclipse of the
Sun. He observes that those narratives contained numerous allusions
to the "limbs " of the Sun and Moon. Now, he says, that the Moon,
indeed, has eyes, nose, and mouth; a fact which is discernible by the
naked eye: and, that being the case, he can very well believe that the
Sun possesses the same features; so that the ordinary public-house
sign-board representation of that luminary is correct. But he contends
that the Sun and Moon are all face more strictly than even tomb-stone
cherubs; so that, although they both of them rise and set, to sit is
wholly impossible for either, and people who talk about the limbs
of those celestial bodies, have not, themselves, a leg to stand upon.