Punch: Punch (38.1860)

HO PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. LApril 7, i860.

THOSE HORRID BOYS AGAIN!

Boy (to distinguished Volunteer). “Now, Capting ! Clean Yek Boots, and let ter ’aye a Shot at me for a Penny!”

REFUGEES AND RAGS.

What, Tyrants, do you, wanting gags
For Britain’s Press, deny us rags.

In order that you may, by dint
Of paper famine, check our print ?

Rags—ponder your resources well—

You surely have enough to sell;

For rags your policy creates,

Chief produce of misgoverned states.

Your rags, you ’ll own with grins and shrugs,
In your home market must be drugs.

Your slaves, debarred from use of type,

Need paper but to light a pipe.

Pursue, impoverishing your states.

The policy which rags creates;

Increase your hosts, your trade restrain,

And beggar those o’er whom you reign.

The time will come when discontent
Will overthrow your government;

Of subjects when your ragged rout
Will rise, rebel, and kick you out.

Then, if your rags old England lacks,

You ’ll come, and bring them on your backs ;
Yourselves and rags you ’ll hither bear,

And bundle all to Leicester Square.

The Suffrage and the Supplies—If taxation without represen-
tation is tyranny, what else is representation without taxation?
{ Democracy is as broad as Despotism is long.

“ THE GUARD DIES, BUT NEVER SURRENDERS.”

The above remark, which it seems was never made by anybody, except
by a French historian, who, having been a hack at one of the Boule-
vard theatres, thought it would he fine to put the mot into the mouths
of men who were much too brave to talk nonsense, may now be made
(when the parties have nothing better to do) by the gallant army
which, under one disguise or another, has so long been performing the
most glorious feats of war near the Westminster Road. Need Mr.
Bunch name the Army of Astley’s, that Army of the South, or rather
S.S.E., upon whose deeds he looks down from the Pyramid of his great-
ness, like forty sentries rolled into one ? We had feared that after Mr.
Cooke’s glorious Retreat of the Ten Thousand (or with that sum, and
more, we hope) the Army of the S.S.E. had finally evacuated the
scenes where they had covered themselves with so much glory and
saw-dust. But another trumpet has blown, and the air is Batti, batti,
and the noble veterans, reinforced by younger recruits, thirsting for
distinction, but not averse to porter, are about to be once more reviewed
by their former leader. General Batty has returned to them, and
the scene when Napoleon cameUack from Elba, and once more joined
his men, was not half so touching—nor ought it to have been, for
whereas Napoleon came, perjured, to ruin his soldiers, Batty came,
faithful, to benefit his. Like Achilles, “ all he asks is war,” and he
has already thrown down the gauntlet, and stuck up the poster. He
takes the field on Easter Monday, and his chevaux Defries have been
ordered from Houndsditch to the scene of action. We anticipate with
delight a series of sanguinary combats, for the Army of the S.S.E. is |
always ready for an engagement, and we hope has again got a good
one.

Patients on Wheels.

The Directors of an enterprising Omnibus Company, desirous of
qualifying the persons in their employment to sustain competition with
a rival association, have provided all their drivers and conductors each
with a copy of Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing.