Punch: Punch (54.1868)

January 4, 18G8.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

GREAT DAYS AND EVENTS.

m-
* * *

BOXING DAY. As Bubke says, the age of Christmas Boxes is
past—for me: no servility of attention, no parade of civility would
procure me a single shilling. But it procures me a holiday.
The Public Department to which I am attached (devotedly) is
liberal in the article of holidays, and Boxing Day is one of them.
I occupy it in recording a few current reflections suitable to
plum-pudding season. Could I do better P No, especially as the
fog outside is so thick that I can scarcely see across Woobyrne
Place, and grey horses in cabs emerge from the mist like phantom
steeds. If the Society of Arts, who are laudably placing memorial

tablets on those houses
where eminent men have
lived, and loved, and
smoked, wish to know the
number of the mansion
occupied by your contri-
butor, Mr. Punch, with
a view to inserting a neat
enamelled slab in the
outside brick-work
scribed “Here * * *
lived,” he will be glad to
communicate it to the
Secretary.

To revert to Boxing Day.
I hope it will be made
clear on this foggy anni-
versary of it to every
foreigner who is passing
his first Christmas in Lon-
don, and who may have
read that la hoxe has been
put down in this country,
that the shops are not
closed and a holiday given
to those employed therein
to enable them to spend
Boxing Dav in fist-fight-
ing, an old English sport

and pastime not now kept up, except under the influence of an excess of liquor. Pugi(n)lism
being mainly restricted to conflicts on the question of who was the architect of the Houses
of Parliament.

Envy is not among those emotions of the mind (.see Dugald Stewart and Sir James
Mackintosh passim) which ought to be the liveliest at this season, but I have detected
myself envying Walter Francis, age 15, coming home from school for six, or rather five
weeks’ revelry—for the last week is embittered by the thought of returning to Dr. Cane
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses—with his Christmas Box, if in these times of general gentility
there is such a thing, and it is not thrust aside by the gentlemanly portmanteau and the
polite valisse; and I foresee that I shall be envious of Minnie, age 10, Mary, age 12, and
Philip, age 14. in their Christmas Box at the Royal Palatial Theatre, enthusiastically
delighted with Harlequin Little John, Sister Anne in the Tower, and the One-eyed Gnome;
and I should also envy the same little party those Christmas boxes of bon-bons whicli
Uncle Adrian will supply, did I not still retain my relish for crystallised fruits, which, if
I please, can be'gratified to repletion at Sweetnum and Jason’s. One more thought comes
with Boxing Day. I hope it is not inconsistent with the regulations laid down by the
Police Authorities, for members of the Force to receive those well-earned gratuities which
I apprehend everybody just now, will he disposed to give them ungrudgingly.

New Year’s Day. What do I hear ? The rustling of all those new leaves we are turning
over. What do I see ? The inscription upon them in a firm hand of all those excellent
resolutions we have moved and earned nem. con., without the formality of a public meeting,
to get up earlier in the morning, to read through the entire works of Shakspeare, Milton,
Gibbon, and Adam Smith, in the course of the next twelve months, to take more exercise,
to lay by something, however small, for the pluvious day, to leave off flirting, to keep a
diary, to put down all our expenses, never to play more than sixpenny points at Whist,
gradually to give up smoking, and to discontinue that last tumbler.

Is there anything remarkable about the incoming 1868 to distinguish him from the outgoing
1867 ? I carefully scrutinise a certain Pocket-Book, not unknown to you, Mr. Punch, which
in the language of Blair, Archdeacon Paley, Dr. Johnson, and other standard authors,
felicitously combines instruction with amusement, and is calculated equally to inform and
delight, and I find that this is Bissexstile, or Leap Year. Many reflections are the result
of this discovery in the Calendar.

Imprimis. Take any party of well-dressed, well-mannered people who will assemble within
the next week to dine or dance, and ask them, when the conversation flags, for an explanation
the term Bissextile. Do I leap to a conclusion when I predict that their answers would

I should without delay make it public that you
have contracted with one of your regular pur-
veyors for a supply of levities amply sufficient
for your wants, and must decline to deal with
any other jokester. Lastly, I recollect with
sorrow that persons condemned to hard labour
in Public Departments will have to serve an
additional day in 1868 without the stimulus of
extra remuneration, but, as a compensation, I
remember the excellent dinner I shall get, on the
29th of February in the Albany with Pinkie
White, who is only born once in four years.

On further reference to the P.-B. mentioned
before, I make myself master of a great mass of
usefixl information dealing with the Golden
Number, the Epact, the Dominical Letters,
which are not in any way influenced by_ the

Post-office Sunday Regulations, and the Solar
Cycle and Solar Ingresses, on all which subjects
I should be glad to have the opinions, between
the courses, or preparatory to the last figure in
the Lancers, of those festive parties to which it
has been proposedto refertheBissextile difficulty.
I do not neglect also to ascertain the exact day
when the Jewish year commences, and the year
of the Mohammedan era begins, and for pur-
poses of abstinence I carefully note the date of
the recurrence of “ Ramadan.” (Ladies and
Gentlemen, what is Ramadan ?)

The Stamp Duties on Leases or Tacks, “with
or without any sum of money by way of fine,
premium, or grassura,” look interesting, bur,
they must be passed by for the Astronomical
Notices in which I regret to observe the same
partiality for other countries, to the neglect of
England, which is too often noticeable in the
behaviour of the Eclipses. If the assiduous
watchmen on the hill at Greenwich, who it is
reported have never had a night’s rest for
years, wish to see the total Eclipse of the Sun
on August 18th, they must take their smoked
glass to the Cape of Good Hope or Mauritius,
and even the far inferior performance on February
23rd, the annular (Mrs. Malaprop is warned
not to confound this with annual) eclipse of Sol,
is grudged to a country which has produced a
Dollond and a Flamsteed. There will be no
irregularities this year in the conduct of the
Moon, but a transit of Mercury over the Sun’s
disk, which reads like one railway being allowed
running powers over another, will be partially
visible at Greenwich (notice again the unwilling-
ness to give us full measure) unfortunately in
November after the Whitebait Season is over,
or the Astronomer Royal would have been happy
to see all the London stars (of the first and sub-
sequent magnitudes) to dinnerat the Observatory.

of

frequently be vague and indrrrect ? My next thought is of the ladies. Leap-year brings
round again their quadrennial privilege of making, instead of receiving, matrimonial proposals.
Is there any well authenticated instance, say in the archives of the Statistical Society, of
a Sl u j w,oman- ava^n» herself of this traditional prerogative ? Just as Sir George Lewis
doubted the existence of a modern centenarian, so do I doubt, not that ladies make offers
but that they make them because of, and only in Leap-year, which year will of course be the
year for those who joy in the diversion of hunting, and the occasion of a great many more
tremendous jokes, exhumed after four years hybernation, as I suspect that you, Mr. Punch
will know to your sorrow before the infant year is many days old. Were I on your throne

ALTER ET IDEM.

The Pali Mall Gazette—which has a relish
for the discovery of literary mare’s nests, not
quite in keeping with other characteristics of
one of the best journals of the day—lately
echoed—with that cheerful alacrity which dis-
tinguishes its note in such cases — a cry of
“stop thief,” first raised in the Athenaeum,
against a_ certain unlucky Dr. Burette,
accused of producing as his own, in London
Society, under the title “How I fell into the
clutches of King Theodore,” a translation
from the German of F. H. Apel, published in
Zurich last year.

It now turns out that Dr. Burette and
F. H. Apel are one and the same, in short that
it is a case of identity of person with a mere
difference of Appel-ziion. Of course the Athenaeum
and Pall Malt have done penance for their
slander in their own sheets.

ADVICE TO SERVANTS OP ALL WORK.
“Learn to labour and to wait.”