Punch (68.1875)

January 2, 1875.]

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHAPIVAPI.

3

PUNCH’S GIFTS FOR THE NEW YEAR.

O Prince Yon Bismarck.—
A copy of the Polite Letter
Writer, translated into
German, French, English,
and Russian.

To Count Arnim.—Free
quarters for two months in
the Berlin Stadt’s-festung
at the expense of the Ger-
man Government.

To the Right Hon. W.
E. Gladstone.—The edi-
torship of a sensational
magazine.

To the Right Hon.
Benjamin Disraeli. — A
volume of “ Songs Without
Words,” to he studied for
Lord Mayors’ Dinners.

To Metropolitan Mana-
gers.—Narrower Pieces and
longer Petticoats.

To the Lord Chamber-
lain.—More power to his
elbow.

To Dr. Colenso. — A
Pulpit.

To Mr. Spurgeon.—A box of the best cigars, and the thanks of
all intelligent men.

To Proeessor Darwin.—A genealogical tree, discovered in the
Zoological Gardens.

To Admiral Rous.—A seat in a Captain’s gig, with a screw
behind him.

To Lord Mayor Stone.—A bottle of Chloral, to he opened
between Dover and Calais, on his official progress to the opening of
the Grand Opera at Paris.

To Begging-Letter Impostors.—The Dog.

To Wife Beaters.—-The Cat.

To the Sun.—Another flying visit from Venus.

To the Moon.—Many happy returns of the day.

To Englishmen.—The secret of the North-West Passage.

To Irishmen.—Home Rule that isn’t Rome Rule.

To Scotchmen.—A volume of Punch, with the case of surgical
instruments necessary for enjoying it.

To Germans.—The power to forget.

To Frenchmen.—The wisdom to forgive.

And lastly to Mr. Punch.—The Sovereignty of the Whole World.

OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS.

The Commencement of a New Peal in Horseflesh with Chalvey

the Gipsy.

Mr. Chalvey (at the gate with the Cob in question) is, I believe,
professionally a Gipsy. He is meteoric in his movements, appear-
ing suddenly in our neighbourhood for a few hours, and disappearing
as suddenly.

Nobody can tell you precisely whence he comes, or whither he goes.
He may be known to the Police, and probably is so, and favourably,
too, if I may judge from the few occasions when I’ve seen Mr. Chal-
vey in the company of one of the native force. Mr. Chalvey and
myself have been on nodding terms for some time past. We have
never spoken ; but he has invariably touched his fur cap on seeing
me, and I have returned his salutation, not only out of politeness, hut
from a sort of fetish feeling, that 1 ’d better keep on civil terms
with Chalvey the Gipsy, or Chalvey the Gipsy will be, somehow
or other, one too many for me. In spite of my affable smile and
cheery nod to Chalvey in the village, I should not like to meet
Chalvey alone in a dark lane at night, with nobody within two
miles of us. I certainly couldn’t fight Chalvey, with any chance
of success; and as certainly he could fight me: or probably, to
save trouble, he would knock me down with a life-preserver, which
he would, I dare say, have about him, handy. Now here, as Cazell
has been saying, there would be an advantage in being a Freemason
—I mean, if Chalvey and myself were both Masons. Only,
by the way, on a dark night how could we see each other’s
signs F

Happy Thought.—Squeeze each other’s hands.

True ; but before we got to this, I should be on the ground,
stunned by a life-preserver.

However, not yet being a Mason, and Chalvey being here on
quite another business, this discussion can he deferred.

He, Chalvey, is a very much sunburnt man, with a sunburnt fur
cap, dried up entirely in some places, and bald in others. He has
two jet black shining ringlets framing his walnut brown face, and
aU round his mouth and over his chin is a deep Prussian blue colour,
the result of shaving a powerful heard. Chalvey evidently prides
himself on his scrupulous neatness in shaving, and I notice that
Murgle keeps his hand up before his own stubbly chin with a sense
of inferiority in this respect. It suddenly occurs to me that now at
last (it has often bothered me) I know whom Murgle resembles ; he
is uncommonly like Chalvey the Gipsy, who might be his elder or
younger brother, according as Murgle chose to come out shaved or
unsbaved. Horse-dealing does make one suspicious. And when
you’ve been a seller yourself, you become, from experience, more
suspicious than ever. It strikes me that Murgle and Chalvey are
conspiring. I fancy that they are both Gipsies ; which is worse, I
imagine, than being Freemasons, as they have signs and a language
of their own, impossible for me to understand.

Happy Thought.—On guard.

Cazell critical. Murgle dubious as to which side he’s to take.
Chalvey steady, but indifferent, apparently, to results. Myself
watchful all round. Chalvey opens the ceremonies with a respect-
ful touch of his cap. This from a Gipsy, a being free as the air,
owning no sovereign (this by the way, pecuniarily speaking, is highly
probable), with a tribe at his beck and call, ought to be reassuring.
But it isn’t. The fact is, I have a sort of notion that if Gipsy
Chalvey were to give a peculiar whistle, heads of Gipsies—the
heads of the tribe—would pop up in every direction; probably with
a chorus. That’s my idea of Gipsies. My Aunt, who has returned
home suddenly, and has been, unknown to me till now, surveying
the scene from her bed-room window, has her notion of Gipsies in
connection with chickens, and infant heirs to vast estates. She
calls to me, and “ wonders how on earth I can have anything to do
with that suspicious-looking man,” meaning Chalvey.

“For goodness sake,” she says, “ do get rid of him as quickly as
possible, or we shan’t have a chicken left in the place.”

I assure her (entirely against my own conviction) that Gipsies are
the most harmless people, and beg her not to be frightened. She
refuses to retire from the window, being determined to watch
Chalvey’s movements closely, and be ready to send for the police at
the slightest intimation of treachery on his part. She tells me in
an undertone that, walking from the station to our cottage, she has
noticed several suspicious looking characters about.

At this time of year when the days have drawn in, my Aunt always
sees suspicious looking people about in the lanes. I return to
Chalvey, who comes to business at once.

SHAKY BRAINS AND SOUND ONES.

With reference to the arrest of Mrs. Girling, the Superioress oi
the New Forest “Shakers,” on a certificate of insanity, Mr.
Auberon Herbert writes a letter to the Times, avowedly—

—“ to call attention to the act, and to invite any who feel the danger of it
to correspond with me on the subject, in order that we may consider the ad-
visability of calling the Doctor to account for granting the certificate, and, if
necessary, of raising such a sum as may be required for doing this effectually.”

In the opinion of Mr. Auberon Herbert, the Shakers are no
more insane than the majority of orthodox believers

“ Superstitious, poor people, they were without doubt, from the crown of
the head to the sole of the foot; hut it was only in another degree the same
harmless superstition with which most of my friends are afflicted when they
believe themselves to he personal favourites of Providence, from the school-boy
who prays for a good innings in his cricket match to the Archbishop who
prays for an alteration of weather.”

The school-hoy who seriously prays for a good innings is perhaps a
rather uncommon specimen of a religious boy. If his praying occa-
sioned him to be careless in his batting, no doubt it would be advis-
able that his friends should look after him. Suppose an Archbishop,
in consequence of having prayed for fine weather, were therefore
to persist against advice in going out in the rain without a Macin-
tosh or an umbrella, there would be reason to contemplate the
probable necessity of putting that prelate under restraint. Craziness
needs confinement whenever it manifests himself in alarming overt
acts. If there are any lunatics in these dominions who ought by
all means to be shut up, they are those who will comply with Mr.
Auberon Herbert’s invitation to correspond with him on the sub-
ject, and consider the advisability of calling the certifying Doctor
to account for granting his certificate.

Celestial Cold Shoulder.—A Correspondent suggests, as ex-
planation of the late severe weather, that Yenus has been flirting
with the Sun, and creating a coolness between him and the Earth.