Punch (66.1874)

April 18, 1874.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

167

A TEMPTING INDUCEMENT.

Cheerful Agent for Life Assurance Company. “ The Advantage of our Com-
pany IS, THAT YOU DO NOT FORFEIT YOUR POLICY EITHER BY BEING HANGED
OR BY COMMITTING SUICIDE ! PRAY TAKE A PROSPECTUS ! ”

SONG OF THE SIREN.

(Pisciformis.)

[A Morning: Contemporary publishes the subjoined interesting
announcement:—“ Brighton Aquarium.—The Mexican Axo-
lotls, which have been for some time exhibited in one of the
handsome vases in the entrance-hall of the Brighton Aquarium,
spawned about a month ago. As the parents showed every dis-
position to devour their eggs, the latter were removed to one of
the troughs of the salmon-hatching apparatus, where the young
Axolotls may now be seen, having just been hatched after a
period of twenty days in the egg.”]

I’m the Mexican Axolotl;

And you all that gaze on me
Know a thing beyond Aristotle,

Who the like of me ne’er did see.

By the many who come to Brighton,

When their minds they here recruit,

I’m imagined to be a Triton,

Like the Greater Water Newt.

I’m the Mexican Axolotl,

From my native clime I’ve come,

Not to be kept in a bottle,

But in Brighton’s Aquari-um.

To quietude oft though sticking
When little inclined to move,

Yon behold me alive and kicking
Whenever I frisky prove.

I’m a creature between the fishes
And reptiles a place which fills,

For it breathes by lungs when it wishes,

And it likewise breathes by gills.

So I’m equal to respiration
Both on land and in water too,

Being nearly in all creation
The only amphibian true.

The blood of me cold, not warm, is;

For ’tis that of a creeping thing.

Yet the Siren, called pisciformis
In Zoology, this can sing:—

That the Mexican people eat us.

They esteem us right dainty meals.

For the table they mostly treat us
By stewing as you do eels.

to reduce his taxes to something almost nominal by becoming a votary of
total abstinence.

JBlogg. Let us then, William, think once, twice, and even thrice, before we
demand any alteration of so advantageous an arrangement.

Smithers. Well, James, it is now time to depart. Allow me to defray the
expenses of our refreshment.

Blogg. Nay, Wllliam, it was our joint indulgence. Suppose for the enjoy-
ment of a pleasure which you would monopolise, we draw lots.

Smithers. Willingly.

[.As they proceed to make the requisite arrangements for that mode of settling
who is to “ stand,” the Scene closes.]

THE GIRLS’ SCHOOL IN THE KITCHEN.

“A Cambridgeshire Yicar,” writing to the Times, truly remarks that
“the art of cookery, under the auspices of Mr. Bucemaster, is now assuming
the place which it ought to hold among the accomplishments of English Ladies.”
It is, indeed, satisfactory to see the agitation for Women’s Rights accompanied
by a movement in the cultivation of their duties. Let the accomplishment of
cooking be as generally studied by girls as that of music is, and the results of
learning the one will probably prove in general a good deal more satisfactory
than we find those of instruction in the other. The majority of our wives and
daughters will be enabled to dress a dinner as well as they can dress themselves,
and perhaps better than they dress their hair; and there will no longer be
room for the unkind, if not altogether uncalled-for remark, that there are not
many bread-winners whose wives are able to make bread-sauce.

For our flesh they’ve learned to prize us,

Poor Sirens of savoury fame;

And if e’er you acclimatise us,

You, perhaps, will do the same.

You eat turtle ; why not fish-lizards ? _
Though your girls call us “ nasty things ! ”

Our descendants may line great gizzards
At the banquets of City Kings.

And suppose, from that fate to snatch them,
We had eaten up all our spawn.

You, to cook them, would have to catch them,
And you couldn’t when they were gone.

His own children, old Father Saturn
Stuffed into paternal chops :

And we should but have taken pattern
From the sire of the sons of Ops.

Our intent had Fate permitted,

In the germ we had nipped our brood.

And you then would have been outwitted,

If to rear them you thought for food.

May the bones, though hut gristle, throttle,
That Briton who ’d eat our fry!

So prays the Axolotl,-

For what the word means, Ax-my-eye!

SHAKSPEARTAN PENANCE.

CITY INTELLIGENCE.

It is rumoured on the Stock Exchange that, stimulated by the noble Grant
of Leicester Square, a Marylebone Vestryman declares that he too has a Green
in his eye. It is believed to be “ Paddington.”

The latest rumour from Richmond (not that we gua-
rantee it) affirms that the Vicar has determined to preach
a Reconciliation Sermon, “ with rough-cast about him,
to signify wall.”

Motto for the Inns of Court.—“ Brief life is here our portion.”

Great Chemical Feat (By Sir G. W.).—Getting
Gold out of Coffee.