Punch (37.1859)

80

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

(_August 20, 1859.



I


THE SERPENTINE THROUGH A SIEVE.

ome slight inconve-
nience is likely to
attend the ingenious
plan for cleansing
the Serpentine advo-
cated, and about to
be adopted, by Me.
Eitzroy. If the Ser-
pentine is to be fil-
tered, and there is
any filth in the Ser-
pentine, the filth must
collect on the filter.
If the filter is to
occupy nearly an acre
of ground, a great
quantity of filth will
be deposited on a
considerable surface.
If this extent of filth
is to be occasionally
exposed to the sun,
it will reek a little,
evolve a few rather
nasty gases in certain
quantities, and per-
haps engender some
fever.

Modern chemistry
enables the perfumer
to extract the sweet-
est scents from the
foulest dregs, dross,
sediment, sweepings,
rubbish, lees, refuse,
and unspeakable orts.
The residuary stuff
of gas-works, — the

nasty pitch and tar, and their graveolent kindred hydrocarbons, may, however, be men-
tioned. Perhaps some profound chemist will inform Mr. Eitzroy of a process by which
the mud of the Serpentine, collected on a filter, may be, not, indeed, deodorised, but trans-
muted into an odoriferous substance, which may be carted away in the day-time, dm using
a fragrance like that of jessamine, violets, syringa, or otto of roses.

Pirst, however, catch your fish. Collect your filth—if the Serpentine contains any. Mr.
Stephenson seems to think, not much

“ Ho was in the habit of riding almost daily by that river, and he must s iy that during the last three or
four years he had perceived nothing so offensive to his olfactory nerves as to lead him to coincide in the
outcry which had recently been raised. (Hear, hear.) He believed the, outcry was entirely unfounded,
Decause, whatever the state of the Serpentine had been, it was not now to the best of his judgment in an
offensive condition.’’

Perhaps, Mr. Stephenson, because, as Grandmother Shandy, observed, “you have
little or no nose, Sir.” The Serpentine looks, at least, like soup, if it has no smell. Mr.
Pitzroy, however, is catching his fish, according to the continued statement of our eminent
engineer:—

“ Supposing, however, that the water was impure, the question was, how the nu'sance should be reme-
died. The Serpentine was a stagnant lake (hear), and the other day, in riding along the banks, he observed
that a quantity of lime was being poured into the water. The consequence of this proceeding was, that he
saw dead fish floating on the surface, and occasioning the most offensive decomposition.”

Thus, Mr. Pitzroy is turning the water of the Serpentine into limewater, and killing all
the fish. So that he is catching his fish both literally and figuratively; he is poisoning
the roach and dace, and creating filth in the Serpentine; dead fish, occasioning, as Mr.
Stephenson says, “the most offensive decomposition,” and doubtless exhaling “a most
ancient and fish-like smell.”

If there had been no filth in the Serpentine, there was no occasion to put any lime in it,
particularly since the lime causes more filth than it cures. The same circumstance may be
considered to render steam-pumps and filtering-tanks unnecessary.

According to Mr. Pitzroy

“ Two questions which were quite independent of one another had been mixed up in this discussion, the
first relating to the mud at the bottom of the river, and the second with respect to the water itself.”

our great fashionable pond is to be carried
out, it will be necessary to consume the muddy
remainder by some more expeditious means, if
it cannot be sweetened by the aid of science.
Let a sufficient number of ducks be provided to
eat up all the mud,—a measure wbich every old
woman and every child knows will prove infal-
lible. The birds will soon pay their expenses:
Bayswater will smell of nothing worse than sage
and onions; and Sir Joseph Paxton will acknow-
ledge the mistake he made in opposing the grand
project for purifying the Serpentine.

ONE HUMBUG THE LESS.

We are glad to state, that one little concession
has been paid to the British Press, by the removal
of an absurd form that was of no legal, or moral,
good whatever. Formerly there existed a mock
ceremony that imposed on a paper the necessity
of making out securities to the extent of £300 or i
£500, and the trouble consequent on that regu-
lation was almost endless. Many a name of a
respectable referee had to be given before the
punctilious official would be satisfied with his
solvency. This exaction of security was all the
more nonsensical, inasmuch as Somerset House
never by any accident gave credit. Not a penny
stamp would it advance, in spite of all your secu-
rities, unless the penny was previously laid down
on the counter lor it. The Connaught Patriot
now informs us that this harassing process has
been done away with; and we beg most unfeign-
edly to compliment Somerset House on the won-
derful display of good sense that has prompted
the removal. It is so much the less red tape in
one of our government offices. All parties will
move and breathe the more freely for being
relieved of the useless trammel. After all, the
real security of the press is in the truth, talent,
and respectability with which it is conducted.
The public are the best judges and guardians for
seeing that those conditions are always conscien-
tiously complied with, and they know now to
inflict the heaviest penalty by no longer coun-
tenancing the paper that does not act up
honourably to the spirit of them. A warning,
far more effectual than any that could emanate
from a minister’s office, is a falling circulation.

A MILD COURT. MARTIAL.

The following, from the “Military and Naval
Intelligence” in the Times, is a remarkable sen-
tence. It is the sentence of a Court Martial ou
one Henry Preston, a Sapper of the Royal
Engineers, for desertion:—

“ Tlie Court, in consideration of liis former cliaracter,
sentenced him to be marked on the body with the letter
' D,’ and to be imprisoned in Fort Clarence for 56 days.”

Eight weeks imprisonment for desertion is a
merciful punishment; and instead of having
been merely marked with a letter on his body.
Sapper Preston might have had his back
scored with fifty lashes. He certainly had very
lenient judges, the rather inasmuch as he was
sentenced to be marked with “ D ” for Deserter,
in consideration of his former character !

In discussing tea, two questions are, in exactly the same manner, mixed up, wliicli are
as entirely independent of each other as the water of the Serpentine and the mud at the
bottom of it. The tea is mixed up with the hot water which is poured thereon, although the
tea-leaves have settled at the bottom of the tea-pot. Infusion after infusion of hot water at
length extracts all the goodness of the tea; and in the same way, Mr. Eitzroy appears to
think, washing after washing will remove all the nastiness of the Serpentine. Some time
may be occupied in this process, as the dirty bed of the Serpentine is to be washed by driblets,
with its own filtered water.

In preference to filtering the Serpentine, Mr. Eitzroy might, perhaps, as well leave it
alone, and, instead of throwing lime into it, stock it with eels. They would assimilate
its organic impurities, which, in the substance of eel, might ultimately appear in the shape
of stew, or spitchcock, affording abundant nutriment to i housands. But if the filtration of

An Extravagant Notion.

Civility, they say, costs nothing, and yet
looking at the Civil Estimates, and the enor-
mous sums annually disposed of under them,
we should say that it was a very expensive
article. It is fortunate that they are “Civil,”
or else perhaps John Bull would not put up
so quietly with them. We have always noticeu
that when it comes to a question of spending
money, what a remarkably Civil Estimate Minis-
ters do take of poor old John, to be sure 5