Punch (59.1870)

£46 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 10, 1870.

BEAUTIES OF NORTH LONDON,

(hampstead—sunday afternoon.)

INSURING THE PREMISES.

I'm a hard working man, on the old-fashioned plan,

Of course 1 'm aware it's Philistine—
Of doing for home wife and bairns what I can,

And for taxes and rent getting grist in :
An old-fashioned house I keep over my head,

With a moat, and a roof that stands weather,
And a shop with a pretty complete stock-in-trade,

At no little expense got together.
1 'm not in the way to throw fireworks in play,

But for neighbours on all sides I've them as is;
So t think it's quite clear, though the policy's dear,

That it's worth while insuring the premises.

I've some Manchester friends that this notion offends :

Insurance, they say, is a blunder:
Not insured, but insurers, it helps to their ends :

They thrive on their customers' plunder.
Heavy premiums you pay, year on year slips away,

Unburnt, house and shop keep their places ;
While the money that should have warmed life's rainy day,

Has melted, without leaving traces :

To defer it were crime in this terrible time,

When fireworks and fire are folks' crazes ;
When my cool German neighbour spurns reason and rhyme,

And from books rushes wildly to blazas.
When every man over his neighbour's yard-wall

ts preparing to fling squibs and rockets ;
Wrhen on gunpowder trains, laid in corners, you fall,

And find crackers alight in your pockets.
Ere my house the fire enters, escapes, fire-preventers,

All against conflagration ad rem as is,
1 '11 provide at all cost; none shall call money lost

What is spent in insuring the premises.

THE EACE AND THE FLOUR-DREDGE.

When, in broad daylight, a fellow's eyes happen to be in the vicinity
of a young lady's face whereon the light falls, her cheek, in many
places, will present to them the appearance of a certain asperity, occa-
sioned by a white pulverulent substance extending over the skin. After
a waltz with her, on an evening, he may find his coat-collar and sleeves
whitened with a similar substance, of which he will too probably mis-
take the nature. Fellows, therefore, should know that this apparently
m-°^e-_Q§Ja^d B55»t!lre ™rl firfs People raise> : cutaneous efflorescence is not of an exanthematous character. It does

not arise from exfoliation of the cuticle of Beauty's cheek, and exhibits
merely the semblance of a furfuraceous and desquamatory state of
integument. So good an imitation, however, is it of that sort of thiDg,

As it one drew dora t'other for Nemesis !
In short, none but donkeys—for that is their phrase-
WTould think of insuring their premises.

Now I've come to the season when grey hairs weigh reason, as to require the eye of a medical man to distinguish it from a morbid

product. It is, however, on the contrary, a mere external application,
for which there is no necessity and for whose use there is some diffi-
culty in accounting. Vanity, one would think, could not possibly be
the motive of a self-defacement which simulates dandriff. One can
conceive why a girl wants her face to look lite a peach, but what can
iuduee her to give it a similitude to a mealy potato ? Surely flour upon
a fair face is matter out of place. It should whiten no man's lips.

This Manchester school's a rare talker,
But practice to set against preachiug's no treason,

And by that test my answer is " Walker ! "
Though insurers be ninnies, who squauaev their guineas,

Still the un-insured house is a rare house ;
And e'en Manchester's self, in niue streets out of ten is

Insured, mill and mansion, and warehouse.
Then I '11 do not as Manchester says, as she does ;

And with fire all about— that, my premise is—
Hold no cash bo Well spent, as the money that goes, " Oxe Small Head can carry all T know."

And shall go, in insuring my premises. > Writer on Halfpenny Card