Punch (67.1874)

68 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Adodbt is, 1874.

{Advice to Undergraduates and others v>ho intend to spend the Lonq Vacation in Reading.)

“ BE READ TO.”

Put on. ’tother tack,

From ruin aback—

Though the sneerers may scoff, and think it stuff
Into bright Jack Tar we can turn street rough,
Aboard o’ the Arethusa !

With rough or smooth of British race
Some dirt is no deeper than the face,

And most dirt is good stuff out of place,

Till it reaches the A rethusa !

The Chichester boys the proof can show,

And the Arethusa's have but to go
The same road, d’ ye see,

To rise to A.B.—

“ No, no,” says the doubter, “ that can’t be”—

But Loud Shaftesbury he says “ Yes,” says he,

“ That’s the work of the Arethusa ! ”

Still a fighting frigate, at Williams’ * command,
She will muster a crew by their guns to stand,

And ’gainst t’other Nick’s forts by sea or land
Bear down in the Arethusa !

For Street-Arabs that rob and starve ashore,

She ’ll give old England trained tars galore,

Two hundred a year,

To hand, reef, and steer,

All from blackguards turned into guards true-blue,
Till with Chichester boys they ’ll rate the crew
Of the saucy Arethusa !

* The Secretary of the Society.

Saints of September.

The pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Edmund will start from
London for Pontigny on the First of September. The votaries of
St. Edmund are expected to be numerous, but their number will,
we fear, be exceeded by the devotees of St. Partridge.

THE “ARETHUSA.”

“ The Chichester has for several years been sending poor boys to be sea-
men in the Merchant Marine or Royal Navy. She has now been joined by a
consort, the frigate Arethusa. The managers of the Refuges for Homeless
and Destitute Children in Great Queen Street find that nothing is so popular
among the London Arabs as the idea of going to sea. The strongest lads are
sent down from Great Queen Street to the training-ship. It is only those
whose health is less fitted for a seafaring life who go to the farm in Surrey.
The Chichester was opened in 1867, and contains 214 boys. But English
seamen are still wanted in English ships, and there is no lack of destitute boys.
Lady Bubdett Coutts was therefore applied to for the establishment of a
second vessel, and she offered £5,000 to fit out the frigate lent by the Admiralty
—the Arethusa. The glorious ring of the name has not been dishonoured by
the vessel’s achievements. This is not the ‘ Saucy Arethusa ’ of metrical
legend, but it is the Arethusa launched in 1847, and fitted with a screw in
1862; which at the beginning of the Crimean war, and when she was still only
a sailing vessel, went boldly into the port of Odessa during the bombardment of
the forts by the Allied fleets, and in sight of the whole fleet, who cheered her
as she came out, sailed right up to the Russian batteries and broadsided them ;
then wore round and broadsided them on the other tack.”—Times, Tuesday,
August 4.

Come, young Street-Arabs, bright and bold,

Whose gutter-mud hides English mould,

While better fates kind friends unfold
Aboard o’ the Arethusa !

With a heart of oak, and no iron skin,

To Odessa’s batteries she sailed in,

Broadsides to exchange,

At short-musket range,

Then wore and gave it them, ’tother tack,

And as cool as she sailed in sailed back,

As became the Arethusa !

Now, thanks to our Angela Baroness Coutts,

At another guess kind of foe she shoots,

Means to give it to Old Nick like old boots,

Does this saucy Arethusa !

Alongside the Chichester now she lies,

And street Arabs to sailors transmogrifies,