Punch: Punch (36.1859)

March 5, 1859.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

93

THE TICKET FOR SOUP.

The wisdom and propriety of encouraging mendicancy by giving
money to street beggars was beautifully illustrated the other day by
the subjoined police case:—

" Guildhall. —Kezia Cadge, a respectably dressed woman, was charged with,
begging.

"Purnell, the Mendicity Society's officer, said he relieved the prisoner a few days
ago at the West End, and on meeting her again in Cheapside, recognised and
followed her. She solicited charity from about forty persons ; and when he took
her into custody, he found on her '2s. lOd. On making inquiries, he ascertained
that she had a most comfortable home ; that her husband was a carpenter, in
respectable employment, earning 30s. per week ; and that she had displayed a con-
siderable amount in sovereigns to a neighbour only a few days previously. She had
also between £200 and £3n0 in the Bank, and boasted that she put by £1 a-week
out of her own and her husband's joint earnings. Her husband had frequently
cautioned her against the propensity she had for begging, but she was so attached
to that mode of getting money, that he found it impossible to break her of the
habit."

Perhaps Alderman Moon will have succeeded better than Mr.
Cadge in breaking Mrs. Cadge of what is commonly called cadging:

" Sir P. G. Moon said, it was as gross a case of imposition as ever came under
his notice, and committed the prisoner for 21 days with hard labour."

When Kezia Cadge comes out of Bridewell, having "had" her
"three weeks," it may at least be hoped, or feared, that she will lopk
carefully to see that the coast is clear of a policeman or Mendicity
Society's officer, before imploring the passenger to "relieve a poor
distress-ed creechur," and give her "a 'apeny to buy a bit o' bread."
To this kind of appeal, however, we would by no means advise the
affluent to turn a deaf ear, or a closed fist. Instead, however, of
answering it with coins of the realm, let them meet it with tickets, to
be obtained for a pecuniary equivalent of subscription from that same
Mendicity Society. " Gentleman! ar yer got ar-a-copper to give a
poor man ? " is a demand with which most of our readers are probably
familiar. There may not be much question about the deserts of the
utterer of this very professional language. If he had them he
probably would not escape whipping. But there may be some doubt.
Give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. Don't give him
"ar-a-copper," or "a'apeny," but give him a Mendicity Society's
ticket; and then perhaps the poor man will bless you,—perhaps he
will do the reverse. In either case, you will experience that inward
complacency that arises, on the one hand, from the consciousness of
having done a really benevolent action, or, on the other, from the
knowledge that you have "sold" a rogue and vagabond.

must be understood to be distinctly Barnumian; taking rank with
humbug only by the favour of Barnum. Great as is Mr. Barnum's
genius m the kne of humbug, his humbug is not all humbug pure and
simple. Merely to give an object designed for exhibition a long com-
pounded Greek name in order to invest it with attraction for the
British Pubbc, is genuine humbug. If the Greek compound involves
no misstatement of fact, anybody who is allured by it to pav his money
for seeing something which, if he understood the meaning of its strange
name, he would not care to see, is merely humbugged—he is not
cheated. By a skikul operation on a certain weakness of the vulgar
mind, that of being captivated with the grandiloquence which it cannot
comprehend, the dupe is caused to take himsek m, and ought to call
himsek a fool instead of calling the party who imposes upon him a
knave- although he may with exact propriety call him a humbug.
But when we construct the skeleton of a fictitious animal out of the
bones of several other real ones, and give it a pompous name signifying
what never existed, we dkectly do and say the thmg which is not, and
if we make an exhibition of the sham, and let people in to see it for so
much a head, we then obtain money upon incorrect representations, of
which the incorrectness lies in our word and deed. Illusion and artifice
of this kind are too coarse to be caked humbug, which can never be
resolved into downright falsehood or fraud.

The respect which we entertain for Mr. Barntjm's elevated position
in the domain of humbug proper, makes us regret that he should have
given, by example and precept, the sanction of his high authority to
the practice, under the name of humbug, of arts which are, to say the
least of them, unworthy of that respectable appekation. The misnomer
involves a compliment to the Artful Dodger, and an insult to the
Archbishop of Canterbury.

PROFESSOR OWEN ON BARNUM.

Professor Owen, the other afternoon, in lecturing at the Boyal
Institution on the fossil mammalia of the middle tertiary strata,
diverted his audience with some ikustrations of Barnumian humbug.
Having informed them that among the remains of mammals, principaky
those of Cetacea, found in the tertiary strata, there exist those of a
very_ remarkable sort of whale called the Zeuglodon, an immense
herbivorous creature that kved upon sea-weed : remains discovered in
the United States :—•

" Professor Owen said, that about ten years ago there was exhibited in the
Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, under the auspices of Mr. Barnum, an immense fossil
skeleton which had been brought from America by a Mr. Cooke. A long com-
pounded Greek name was given to the animal whose remains it was represented to
be, and crowds were consequently attracted to see the prodigious monster. Pro-
fessor Owen soon detected that this immense fossil animal with the strange Greek
name was composed of the fossil bones of three large Mastodons put together to
form one."

This Barnumised compound of pre-Adamite remains was bought for
the British Museum; and one good Mastodon was made out of a selec-
tion of bones from those of the three imperfect specimens that con-
stitutedthe Poluphoisboio Thalasses, or whatever name Mr. Barnum
caked his monster. Mr. Cooke, notwithstanaling he was a practitioner
of humbug, was nevertheless a veritable fossk-hunter; and accordingly—

" Mr. Cooke, on his return to the United States, was recommended by Professor
Owen to continue his researches in the same stratum for the remains of other
animals, and the result was the discovery of the fossil bones of the enormous species
of herbivorous Cetacea, the Zeuglodon. The bones of several were found, and by
putting together those of three or four of them, a compounded skeleton was formed
nearly 300 feet long, which was exhibited in New York as the skeleton of a veritable
Sea-serpent. Mr. Cooke was afraid to bring it to this country, but he exhibited it
in several cities in Europe, and it was bought for the Museum at Berlin. The real
length of the animal was about ISO feet."

Very like a whale was the Zeuglodon per se ; very like a Sea-serpent
when conjoined with three or four others by the ingenuity of Mr.
Cooke. Prom the latter of the foregoing cases of humbug, Mr. Cooke
appears to have been a pupk of Mr. Barnum, and one worthy of his The teetotakers have been meeting in Exeter Hak with a view to
master, inasmuch as he contrived to cook up the skeleton of a Sea-! obtain the power of passing local Maine Laws. Let these frantic
serpent and induce the Yankees to swakow it. The kind of humbug j beings adopt the motto of true temperance, which is "Moral Suasion;
under the head of which proceedings of this sort may be arranged but no Maine Force."

A Condensed Family History.

" H'm, h'm," murmured Mr. Jones, running his eye down the
Times Parliamentary report, "Government introduced an Act for
Amending the Winckng-Up Act." " I am glad of it," said Mrs. Jones,
who was cutting the bread and butter, "Perhaps it will save watches
from being scratched all over by gentlemen who have_ been dining out
on particular business, that keeps them till two in the morning."
Mr. Jones had the good grace to be ashamed of himself, and to
mention that his wife would like to see Masks and Faces.

a set of maineiacs.