Punch: Punch (56.1869)

140

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 3, 1869.

SANITARY MEASURES.

The Rhinoceros (British Museum) has been Suffering from Parasites—— Gover’ment orders him to be Varnished!

BERWICK WORKHOUSE ECONOMY.

A small bird has informed us that an extraordinary meeting of the
Berwick Poor-Law Guardians was held the other day for the purpose
of taking into consideration an answer, the only one received, to a
certain remarkable notification, lately published by them, of being in
want of a medical officer and a workhouse porter. It ran as follows:—

“ Gentlemen,—By an announcement which has appeared in several
of the journals, I am informed that you desire to engage the services of
a medical officer, and also of a porter. To the former you offer £25
a year, out of which he will be required to pay for all the medicine
which lie supplies, except cod-liver oil, and you expect candidates for
his appointment to attend before you at the election day at their own
cost. To the latter you offer £20 a year, with board and lodging.

I beg to propose myself, conditionally, as a candidate for the situa-
tion ol your medical officer. Circumstances, peculiarly narrow, will
preclude the possibility of my attendance at your Board, where, if I
could attend, perhaps I might not find any competitor. Accordingly,
should no applicant present himself, a line addressed to me as below,
accepting the proposal I am about to make to you, could summon me
immediately; and I would be with you punctually on the First of
April.

For the place of workhouse porter, 1 apprehend that you will expe-
rience no want of applications, it being obviously by much the more
eligible of the two. In case your views could be met by the combina-
tion of both officials in one person, allow me to propose myself to you
as ready to constitute that one. You would then obtain the advantage
of a resident medical officer, whose duties, as porter too, would not
forbid his visiting patients in the receipt of outdoor relief, because his
calls would occur chiefly during the night, and in the meanwhile,
whether by night or day, paupers and tramps seeking admission might
wait, as also might patients, whenever you, Gentlemen, arranged to
visit the workhouse.

My poverty prevents me from offering to perform your medical
officersnip merely. I couldn’t do it on the terms. To ask that you
will allow me to undertake both of those employments in union—may

I say workhouse union P—my poverty, and not my will, consents-
Accordingly I am. Gentlemen,

Your most obedient humble servant,

An Apothecary.

P.S. For testimonials I refer you to Mr. W. Shakspeare, Strat-
ford-on-Avon. Please address Mantua, Poste-restante.

The foregoing communication having been read, a discussion ensued
amongst the Guardians as to where Mantua was, and who and what
was Mr. W. Siiakspeare. On which points nobody present being
able to supply any information, the meeting was adjourned, a member
of the Board, who was able to write, having undertaken in the mean-
while to communicate with Mr. Shakspeare.

ANYTHING BUT COMB IL FAUT.

The Admiralty are advertising that they will receive tenders for
“Ivory Combs.” Onr belief in Mr. Childers as an economical
reformer has been great, but if he is aware of this piece of reckless
extravagance, and does not instantly order the advertisement to be
withdrawn, Punch will doubt his sincerity. We are quite at sea as to-
who can possibly require “Ivory Combs”—My Lords, or officers
afloat (no enemy to have a brush with now), or the clerks at Somerset
House and Whitehall P Whoever the requisitionists may be, we put it
to them whether, in the present state of the national finances, they
ought not to be satisfied with a less expensive material—horn, or gutta
percha, or ebonite P If ivory combs are supplied, why should not
ivory-backed hair-brushes, and other toilet requisites of the same costly
description, be also furnished at the public expense ?

Prom the North.

“ Bezique ! ” said an old Yorkshireman who had been reading all
the controversy about the game, “ I he ziqxie of it.”