Punch: Punch (38.1860)

January 7, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

1815 AND 1860.

Sat beside the spent yule-log,
In its grey ashes lying;
Outside, in cold December’s
arms,

The Old Year lay a-dying.
The spirits of the bye-gorie
years

Moved round him, to and
fro;

And the young New Year
stood bent to hear
The red cock’s midnight
crow,

As the bells begin to ring
him in

Merrily over the snow.

But never New Year, me-
thought, did wear
Upon his baby-brow,

Less blithesome cheer than
this New Year
That we have crowned
e’en now.

His baby head is hekneted,
In his baby grasp a brand,
In his baby eye a mystery.
And a look of stern com-
mand :

And babe though he be, it is plain to see
He has man’s work on hand.

Proudly, but painfully, he stept
Up to the vacant throne,

Across the corpse of the dead Old Year
That lay uncrowned, and prone.

And to all the hosts of the past years’ ghosts
This haughty challenge threw :

“Your work ye have done, but never a one
Such work as I’ve to do;—

Prom the first of the eighteenhundreds
To him that I’m heir unto.”

When to answer his boast, forth stepped a ghost
Of diplomatic air;

His coat was broidered on all the seams,

His knee was gartered fair;

With stars and crosses and ribbons,

His breast it glittered sheen,

No order at all, so great or small,

But there its badge was seen;

Quoth he—“ You see here, that famous year
Eighteen hundred and fifteen.

“ ’Twas I that drew the protocols
Of Paris and Vienna;

Laid Europe’s best and bravest at rest
In Waterloo’s red Gehenna;

’Twas I pulled down Napoleon;

And set the Bourbon high ;

’Twas I gave Prance her last war-dance,

And her supper of humble-pie;

’Twas I that linked black eagles three
In a Holy Alliance tie.

“The map of Europe I recast
In the form it w-ears to-day;

Knocked frontiers about, dealt kingdoms out.

In a free-and-easy way.

I pooh-poohed national feelings,

I laughed at the claims of race :

What were they to escape my stout red-tape.

Or protest in my parchments’ face ?

So I bade them be quiet, and diplomates’/?«£

I set up in their place.

“All this did I, with a hand so high,

That the pressure yet remains ;

My mould I set on the world, and yet
That, mould the -world retains.

’Tis true that of my protocols
Kings and Kaisers have cracked a few ;

They have set up a new crown here and there,

And burked a republic or two,—

The Napoleons have turned up again.

And the Bourbons fallen through.

“ But still I’m the year that ail revere
As the ground of things that be;

Not a Kaiser or King his title can bring
To other founder than me.

And you dare come, you Hop-o’-my-Thumb,

To talk of your work,—pooh-pooh!

After all I have done; I should like to know
What there is left for you
Quoth young Sixty, serene/1 You forget,—Pifteen;
Your doings to undo! ”

LADIES’ TRAINS.

“ Mr. Punch,

“As you devote a considerable part of your columns to the
exposure, with a view to the correction, of the too many bad habits of
the female sex, I will trouble you, if you will let me, to denounce a
gross annoyance which ladies who travel by railway are very apt to-
inflict upon their fellow-passengers.

“The annoyance to which I allude is that of causing both windows-
of the carriage to be closed, even in the mildest weather, and thus
obliging all the people who are in it to continue for some hours
breathing an atmosphere consisting chiefly of the products of their-
own respiration.

“I was served this trick, Sir, by a foolish woman only the other day.
She asked me if I had any objection to have the window, by which I
was sitting, up. I made no answer, but raised it a foot or so, leaving
room for the escape of the air which we were contaminating. There
were some half-dozen of us all together, stifling ourselves in our own
breath. This was not enough to satisfy her, and presently she desired
to know if I had any objection to close the window altogether. I
grinned, and did it. Our united exhalations instantly condensed on
the inside of the glass, and I had to rub a hole in the dew which was-
formed by them in order that I might look out.

“ Is this lady aware that she continually gives out a lot of carbonic
acid gas and watery vapour from her chest, and that other people
exhale the same matters, of wdiich the repeated respiration is unwhole-
some, although she may not consider it unpleasant? Sir, I wisli to-
impress upon the female mind, that fresh air is salubrious, and that
foul air is poison, and that women commonly entertain an excessive
fear of the effect upon the chest of slight cold, and a reckless disregard
of the pulmonary influence of gross contamination.

“ Por fear, however, lest instruction should be refused,—as it cer-
tainly will by the majority of those to whom it is offered,—I would,
request Railway Directors to take steps for enabling reasonable
creatures to secure themselves from being half suffocated in railway
carriages by travellers of the opposite sex. Let ladies’ carriages be
provided expressly for ladies, and for those men whom choice may
cause to prefer such insanitary travelling-companions. How incon-
sistent it is to prohibit healthy smoking in railway trains, whilst
unwholesome fuming is permitted to any amount without regard to
ventilation!

“ Sir, women are willing enough to let you waste your breath when
you attempt to talk to them for their good, or for your own, and they
might not be so desirous, as they mostly are, to make you consume it
a hundred times over. But so it is. 1 say, then, let female railway
travellers have special carriages, if they needs must sit with closed
windows; let them have locomotive Black Holes of Calcutta all to
themselves, and to those who may be whiling to share their suffocation
for the sake of their society, amongst whom will certainly not be
included your elderly reader,

“ Oxygen.”

ALDERMANIC REASONING.

The following sentence -was dropped at Guildhall, and picked up by-
us, as being a great deal too good to be lost:—

“ Aldebman Finnis. You are an old offender, and although your conduct deserves
a heavy punishment, I shall not send you for three months, as you would be too
comfortable in prison. I shall therefore send you to prison for twenty-one days.”

Why, then, let ns ask, should this old offender have the opportunity
of being “ comfortable ” even for twenty-one days ? If prison is such-
a comfortable place, the great punishment would consist in a criminal
not being allowed to go there. It should be held out as a reward
rather than as a punishment, None hut the good and deserving should
be allowed to enter it, and occasionally the wicked and lawless should
be taken round the wards to see how very happy and comfortable the
former were in them.

j A Question for Burke.-
any guide to his Hank ?

-Is the “ locus standi” of a cabman

Von, 33.

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