Punch: Punch (39.1860)

September 1, 1860. j

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

S3

A SPIRITED ATTACK.

BY A STRONG-MENDED ASSAILANT.

0 Mr. Punch,—

“Accustomed as
you are to poke your
fun at the most solemn
subjects (have you not
profanely cut your
jokes about the wide
dresses and weather,
and punned your very
worst upon a hundred
other matters, which
everybody else con-
siders anything but
laughing ones?) I am
not at all astonished at
t.h tribald unbelief with
which the mysteries
of Spirit-rapping have
been welcomed in
your columns. Scep-
ticism is so frequent a
resource of sluggish
minds, and to ridicule
is always so much
easier than to reason,
that nobody who knew
you expected you
would own yourself a
convert to a faith
which taxes to their
utmost our powers of
credulity. Instead of

volunteering to come and be convinced by the arguments which nightly are extracted from
our furniture, you hold yourself aloof in lazy disbelief, and refuse to let a Medium come
across your threshold.* You turn a deaf ear to the truths which are rapped out of our
tables, and when a spiritual enthusiast is lifted to the ceiling, you regard his elevation as
the height of imposition, and rank it among one of a conjurer’s low tricks.

“ 1 must, however, grant that you do not cram your scepticism down the public throat,
without adding now and then a bit of sugar to the dose. You are not quite so one-sided as
areunbelievers generally, who when they choose to play Sir Oracle, allow no other dog to
bark. By admitting to your columns the interesting narrative of the spirit-conversation of
the Bloater and the Rapper, you let your readers have some knowledge of the wonders which
are working, and gave them a fair chance of conversion to our faith. Although you
sceptically headed the narration ‘ Strange, if True,' you did not tamper with t he facts that
were so lucidly described in it, but allowed them, in the majesty of all their grand momentous-
ness, to sink into the mind by the force of their own weight! For this you have my thanks,
Sir, and the thanks of every lover of justice and of truth. But as you seem to cast some
doubt upon the statement I refer to (every whit of which I need not say / thoroughly
believe), I should like to be the means of allaying your’suspicions, and convincing you that fisli
can talk and sing as well as/?/ and swim. Of the first/of these four facts I need cite no
further proof than the recent exhibition of the far-famed Talking Fish, whose premature
decease was almost nationally deplored. The second interesting truth is stated in these
words by Sir Emerson. Tennent, to whom, as one of the distinguished patrons of its
grandmother, the Bloater in the narrative so feelingly referred:—

“ I distinctly heard the sounds in question. They came up from the water of Lake Chilka. in Ceylon,
like the gentle thrills of a musical chord, or the faint vibrations of a wineglass, when its rim is rubbed by a
wet finger. It was not one sustained note, but a multitude of tiny, sounus, each clear and distinct in
itself: the sweetest treble mingling with the lowest bass. Ou applying the ear to the woodwork of the boat,
the vibration was greatly increased in volume by conduction. The sounds varied considerably at different
points, as we moved across the lake, as if the numbers of the animals from which they proceeded was greatest
in particular spots : and occasionally we rowed out of hearing of them altogether, until on returning to the
original locality the sounds were at once renewed.”

- “ Still further to prove the existence of these fish, which it appears are not confined to the
waters of Ceylon, another eminent naturalist, Dr. Adams, tells us—

“ While in the brig Ariel, then lying off the month of the river of Borneo, I had the good fortune Lear the
solemn aquatic concert of the far-famed organ-fisb, or drum—a species of Pogonias. These singular fishes
produce a loud monotonous singing sound, which rises and falls and sometimes dies away, or assumes a
very low drumming character: and the noises appeared to proceed mysteriously from the bottom of the
vessel. This strange submarine chorus of fishes continued t© amuse us for about a quarter of an hour, when
the music, if so it can be called, suddenly ceased, probably on the dispersion of the band of performers.”

“ Sir, the statements of these naturalists are, to my mind, quite as strange as the tales of
supernaturalists, which, instead of crediting, you hold iu sad contempt. Dr. Adams says that
he has heard a singing fish, and you believe him. Your narrator says the same thing, and
you disbelieve him! In the name of common sense and common justice, why is this ?
Why doubt that there are singing-fish existent here in England as well as in Ceylon?
Shaksfeare speaks of calling spirits from the ‘vasty deep,’ and is not this, Sir, I would
ask, the clearest proof that he believed in their marine existence r and will you. Sir, dare to
pit your knowledge against his, and cast your grovelling doubts upon the grand truths he

* This is not the fact. Madam, Mr. Punch has more than once said that he should be most fiappy to see any
of these gentlemen (or ladies) at his official residence. He will likewise he delighted to see them go through
what he still must persist to call their “ tricks,” on condition that he really is allowed to see them ; but, as
his sight is not a cat’s, he cannot be expected to do this in the dark.

believed in? Sir, the story of the Singing
Bloater, as narrated in your columns, may have
possibly seemed ‘Strange ' to you, but there
cannot be a shadow of a doubt that it is ‘ True.'
And if, after all the pains I have taken to con-
vert you, you still question if a herring can be
really heard to sing by a person who is under
the influence of spirits, come and take a cup of
tea with me, and let my Medium box your ears
for you, and. I ’ll wager that you ’ll hear a most
decidedtsinging in them.

“ I remain, Sir, yours expectingly,

“ Sophonisba Smith.

[A strong-minded Woman, and by no means
a. weak liancled one, as my table-turning
trials have repeatedly made manifest.)" :

“ AND SO SAY ALL OF US.”

i

lx the Lord Mayor’s Court, a few days since,
an action peculiarly fit to be adjudicated on by
that tribunal, was tried before the Recorder
and a Common Jury. It was brought by Mr.
William Sawyer, the landlord of the London,
at the corner of Chancery Lane, against Mr.
Jervis, a barrister, and Treasurer of an Insti- ;
tut.ion called the Social Club, to recover
£14 65. 11 d. for a supper had at the London .
in December, 1S59. In the report of the case it
is stated that—

«

“ Thirty-three sat down to supper, and they managed
to dispose of no less than thirty-eight crown bowls of
punch, besides beer and wine and spirits, for which they
paid at the time. There were also items for pipes,,
tobacco, aud broken glass, which were not disputed.”

The Social Club is described as composed
of “members of the bar, military officers,
merchants, and gentlemen. ” They are
stated to have “ proceeded with their merri-
ment and enjoyment until four o’clock in the .
morning.”

The item for broken glass in Mr. Sawyeb’s
account was probably very considerable. Thirty- j
eight crown bowls of punch alone, imbibed by |
thirty-three persons, might be expected to in- !
volve a ' very large breakage of that fragile- j
article. Add to all that punch an indefinite i
quantity of wine, beer, and spirits, and the result |
will in any case probably be the comminution 1
of every vitreous aud fictile vessel on the table, ;
and indeed in the room. On the occasion in j
question the crown bowls most likely went as
well as their contents, and it was a mercy if no- !
cracked crowns, as well as cracked bowls, were j
the consequence. The charge for broken glass j
was wisely not disputed—it was no doubt indis- \
putable. It would be satisfactory to know that
glass vessels were the only tumblers that sus-
tained any damage on this festive occasion.

The Dangers of Steeple-Chasing.

If the Union of Benefices Bill be carried out,
“Woe,” cry the Architects, “to all Wren’s- :
exquisite City steeples.” In fact, when these
architectural master-pieces are pulled down, we j
may give a new interpretation to the famous [
epitaph on the great designer of St. Paul’s. "Si
monumentum queeras, circumspice."—-" If yon ask
for his Monument, don’t you wish you may
iind it.”

LATEST CLUB NEWS.

Spain, put up by France and Austria, as a
candidate for admission to the United European,
has been blackballed by England, who declines
to associate with an Uncertificated Insolvent.
Spain is so frantic that she is half inclined to
pay her debts, but will probably think twice over
so rash an act.