Punch: Punch (56.1869)

210

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 22, 1869.

THE STOLEN LADDER■

OR, HOW WILL THEY GET DOWN AGAIN.

The Lancet must be wrong. The head of
the Board of Works is called Layard. His-
antecedents have shown that if he cares for
architecture much, he cares for the British
soldier more. We call upon him from his
place in Parliament to contradict the slan-
ders of the Lancet, and to assure us that if
he has shut up one window in the Sergeants’
room at Buckingham Palace, it is only that
he may open two.

We were not aware, till so informed by
the Lancet, that the architecture of Bucking-
ham Palace could be spoiled. But if the
Board of Works considers that such a feat is
possible, we are sure it will not be done by
opening a window in the dog-hole known as
the Sergeants’ room; and that the most
aesthetic passer-by will gladly compound for
the irregular opening, when it is understood
to be the only provision for light and air in
a room occupied by the non-commissioned
officers in authority over soldiers who keep
watch against the intrusion of possible boy
Joneses into the Palace of the Sovereign.

A PRETTY SIGHT IN PARTS.

After all it seems that there is still some
good taste extant in the drawing-rooms of
Paris, although, from what the fashion-books-
and newspapers have told us, we may perhaps
have doubted if such could be the case. Mais
voild la preuve:—

“ Some young ladies of the elite of Parisian-
society have obtained at the last fetes a real
success, by showing themselves with their hair
simply braided.’’

Hair “ simply braided ” is indeed to our
mind simply charming, and we wonder how
young ladies who have prettily-shaped heads
can disfigure them with chignons and simi-
lar excrescences. A girl who simply braids
her hair and wears nothing on her head but
that which Nature has implanted there, will
please the eye not only of the lover of the
beautiful, but in like degree of the admirer
of the sensible. A pleasant sight she like-
wise will present to the pln'enologist, who
in these days of monstrous feminine hirsute-
ness can rarely get the chance of a sight of a
girl’s head; so much false hair is heaped
upon it.

A simple glance would be sufficient, where-
the hair was simply braided, to show which
bumps, or organs, appeared the most deve-
loped. Those of modesty and candour would1
be prominent, no doubt: while those of vanity
and folly would be reduced to cavities. A
man who wants to marry should look out for
a girl whose hair is simply braided, for he
then could form some notion of her cerebral
qualities, before if, was too late to escape
I being their victim.

The Gravity of a Flea,

LOOK OUT, LAYARD !

The Lancet some time ago called attention, not before it was needed, to the wretchedly insani-
tary state of the Guard-room at Buckingham Palace, where, in the Sergeants’ room more par-
ticularly, the arrangements for slow poisoning by foul air were carried to a pitch of perfection
hardly attained, much more surpassed, in any of our many highly pestiferous barrack quarters.

The Ijancefs ventilation of this abomination, we were glad to hear, was like to lead to the
ventilation of this dog-hole.

Proposals were submitted in the Estimates for new windows to give light and air, new Galton’s
stoves, a plentiful introduction of ventilators, and a new cooking apparatus.

The Treasury had approved. Parliament had sanctioned. The improvements were nearly
completed, under the authority of the War Office, which has control of the inside of the Guard-
room. But the outside, unluckily, is under the Board of Works. And the Board of Wrorks,
on the plea that the new windows were an architectural disfigurement, has given, so says the
Lancet, peremptory orders to the War Office to put things “ as they were.”

By an ingenious little instrument which is
called a pulexo meter, it has been found that
the strength of the Pa-lex irritans, or do- j
mestic flea, is “equal to eight hundred times
its specific gravity.” Without in the least
questioning the truth of this scientific state- ‘
ment, we may be allowed to say that it really
seems a joke to talk about a flea’s “specific
gravity.” As if any one could specify the
gravity of a flea ! One might as well attempt
to chronicle the humour of a cockchafer, as
pretend to specify the gravity of a flea.

O’Sullivan to Wit.—The best way to
dispose of a Bottle of Smoke—Un-Cork it.