Punch: Punch (38.1860)

January 28, 18G0.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

35

New clothes she denounces just as much as “old clo’,” and shows
how Nurses ought to dress for the part they have to act:—

“ A Nurse wlio rustles is the horror of a patient, though, perhaps he does not
know why. The fidget of silk and of crinoline, the rattling of keys, the creaking
of stays and of shoes, will do a patient more harm than all the medicine in the
world will do him good. But the noiseless step of woman, the noiseless drapery of
woman, are mere figures of speech in this day. Her skirts (and well if they do not
throw down some article of furniture) will at least brush against every article in the
room as she moves.”

Keep your tongues from chattering, and your limbs from stays and
crinoline, and silks and other finery : these are main points in a Nurse’s
duty to her neighbour, and when we next fall ill we hope that some-
1 body will put all our attendants through their catechism, and ascertain
that they both know, and are prepared to do, their duty to us. We
have no wish for our bedchamber to be turned into a chamber of
“horror” of our nurse, and our weak nerves to be fidgeted and fretted
by her finery. A Nurse in stays and crinoline, who can’t move without
creaking, must be as great a nuisance in a sick room as a barrel-organ ;
and if we ever have the misfortune to be plagued with one, and are
driven to distraction, and to death perhaps, in consequence, we hope
our relatives will issue a commission of inquiry, and our Nurse be taken
up for having maddened, if not murdered us.

But our Nightingale pours forth another Note or two on this
point, and inasmuch as they are highly complimentary to us men, we
trust that women generally will have the gallantry at least, if not the
good sense, to give ear to them:—

“ It is, I think, alarming, peculiarly at this time, when the female ink-bottles
are perpetually impressing upon us ‘ Woman’s particular worth and general
j missionariness,’ to see that the dress of women is daily more and more unfitting
| them for any ‘ mission,’ or usefulness at all. It is equally unfitted for all poetic
and domestic purposes. A man is now a more handy and far less objectionable |
j being in a sick room than a woman. Compelled by her dress, every woman now
j either shuffles or waddles : only a man can cross a sick room without shaking it.
What is become of woman’s light step? the firm, light, quick step we have been
asking for” [instead of the Sairey-Gampish slow and ponderously noisy one].

Listen to this, ladies. This is not what Punch, the ribald jester,

1 says of you. It is not Punch who brings this charge of crinoline
against you, and accuses you of sheer domestic suicide by dress. You
are seif-arraigned, convicted, and condemned. It is a woman who
denounces woman’s folly and her uselessness. It is a woman who I
j condemns you for following the fashion, even though the fashion lead
to sacrifice of service, and to duties being stifled by absurdities of
dress. Swaddled in her finery a woman cannot move except with
fashionable slowness, and is as useless as a mummy while she is so
swathed up.

Such, then, are a few of the Notes which have been lately brought
forth by our Nightingale ; and as, clearly, the more widely such notes
are heard the better. Punch is glad to give them echo in his world-
pervading print. Every father of a family should change his silver for
these Notes (their price is fixed so moderately he need not change his
gold for them), and. every member of a family should both hear and try
to profit by them. It is not too much to say, that no domestic library
can be complete without them; and considering the doctor’s bills they
probably will save him, any Paterfamilias who stupidly neglects to get
these JSotes will deserve to get a stress laid on his last Latin syllable.

The Conundrum that Won the Prize at the last Grand
Metropolitan Conundrum Show.

The Prize Question. Why is a sheep that is casting sheep’s-eyes, and
making love, like the absurd designation that is generally given by
blackguard little boys to a ErenchmanP

The Prize Answer. Because he is a woolly-woo (a Voulez-vous.)

It is perfectly unnecessary to state, as persons always say, when
they are about to state the very thing that is necessary, that the
winner of the above was a confirmed Cockney, brought up in the very
same school as the Wiwacious Wiscount.

An Orleans Plum.

“ The selection of the High Schools at Edinburgh for the Orleans Princes has
caused great offence to the Roman Catholic Clergy.”—Tablet.

Each Papist he winces at news, tart as quinces.

That all the Erench Princes seek Protestant schools,

But Punch, who ne’er minces, declares it evinces
Belief that all Catholics need not be Pools.

An Ominous Present.

\ The King of. Prussia, it is announced, has presented the Pope
with two porcelain vases, as a memorial of his stay at Rome last year.
The souvenir is appropriate in every respect. What could be more
fitting the position of both giver and receiver than a present as easily
cracked as the wits of the King of Prussia, and almost as liable to
an utter smash as the temporal power of the Pope.

GRAVESEND’S CASE STATED.

he papers say that a de-
putation from Gravesend
has waited upon the
Government, and de-
manded that in the new
Reform Bill provision
should be made for
giving a member of Par-
liament to that odori-
ferous borough. The
Government rather
snubbed the deputation,
which reception Mr.
Punch thinks was rude,
and he has therefore
resolved to aid the op-
pressed, and assert the
claims of Gravesend to
a share in the repre-
sentation. He has re-
quested the Mayor and
Corporation to give him
a list of the reasons why
Gravesend considers it
should have a member
in the people’s House,
and he lias pleasure in
publishing the grounds
on which the demand
is based. They are
these:

1st. Because the aristocratic element predominates far too largely
in Gravesend, it having no fewer than three Piers.

2nd. Because bait’ its population lets apartments, and woi Id therefore
expect its member to spare no panes in setting a Bill in a proper light.

3rd. Because the other half of its population boils sir imps, and is
therefore not likely to be deceived by political Peelers.

4th. Because it is quite opposite Tilbury Port, and therefore likely
to resist profligate military expenditure.

5th. Because it is celebrated for its water-cresses, ?nd is therefore
likely to enforce official reform in the way of Small Salary.

6th. Because its lodging-letters rob their lodgers’ brandy bottles,
and therefore must understand the spirit of the age.

7th. Because, being burned down about once a year, there is no kind
of Policy with which it is not familiar.

8th. Because there is a popular demand for a Digest of laws, and a
person accustomed to Gravesend cookery can digest anything.

9th. Because it is next Milton, and therefore as good as Shailspeare,
who is always being represented.

10th. Because genteel people now go on to Margate, and compen-
sation to Gravesend, in the way of election expenditure, would be
highly acceptable.

11th. Because it is aggravating to see so many returning officers
going over to Tilbury, and not to have one Returning Officer for
Gravesend.

THE PAPAL POSITION.

Save me from my friends! must be just now the aspiration of his
Holiness the Pope. His Holiness’s friends seem bent on button-
holing him whenever they’ve the chance, and telling him what they
would do if they were in his shoes. Of course the doses they prescribe
are most unpleasant ones to take, and every one advises him to do
what he don’t like. The most general opinion, however, seems to be
the one that friend Napoleon avows himself inclined to ; namely, that
his Holiness should give up earthly territory, and content himself with
exercising spiritual sway. The more the Holy Lather’s temporalities
are lessened, the more will his authority in spirit be increased. Such
is at least the view these friends of his have taken, but strange to say,
his Holiness does not quite seem to see it.

The Pope’s, in fact, is the position of the Malade Imaginaire, whom
Toinette can’t convince that if he will but, have one eye out,, he ’ll see
better with the other, and that lopping off his right arm will invigorate
his left. His Holiness is not to be persuaded by his friends that ampu-
tation of his provinces will increase his Papal power: and however
strongly hD friends may recommend it, his Wariness will doubtless
abstain, until he’s forced to it, from making the experiment.

A Double Opening.—Parliament opens on the 24th, and, on the
same day, Mr. Disraeli will, in all probability, open on—Ministers.