Punch: Punch (69.1875)

228

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 4, 1875.

MONEY'S WORTH FOR THE MONEY.

"Egyptian Government sold to English Government Suez Canal shares for £1,000,000 sterling. Minister is authorised to draw on Rothschild at
sight."—Friday's Teh gram.

S our Indian door-key we mean to hold fast,

Bbitannia's will she has now found a way for ;
On our shop-keeping instincts contempt let them cast,
But who '11 take what we've forked out four millions to pay for ?

Such a sum if it suit John Bull's int'rest to pay,
It is clear it suits Egypt's 'cute Chief to receive.

Now Khedive upon Rothschild may draw any day,
"Welmust take care that nobody draws on Khedive.

THE COMPENSATIONS 01 LIFE.

Recently, in his travels, Mr. Punch met with a gentleman who
declared that he was an ancient Druid (not in Mb. Caedwell's
sense of the word), and that he had helped to build Stonehenge._ He
looked dilapidated, but not quite so old as that perplexing edifice.
He did not object in the least, when Mr. Punch—who, when wan-
dering, finds small generosities often to have their reward—pro-
posed a glass of ale. If he was an ancient Druid, and had therefore
lived before ale was invented, how delighted he must have been
to know that to 6ome brilliant genius had occurred the happy mar-
riage of malt and hops!

This Druid talked most wisely, as might be expected of so ancient
a philosopher. He propounded several theories, one of which was
the Theory of Universal Compensation. Others may follow, if
Mr. Punch finds the Druid's philosophy appreciated. He maintained,
being an Optimist, that whatever happens has its compensation—
and that you are always better off than you were before. He
descended from the lofty pinnacle of Druidic antiquity, and deigned
to give from modern time examples of this great Theory of Compen-
sation. Thus they ran:—

1. Tou acknowledge yourself a descendant of Adam and Eve.
You cannot, therefore, have any original sin, and may do just as
you like.

2. You are " something in the City." It is very sad, but it means
a good many thousands a year.

3. You are a great poet. Terrible thought 1 But then nobody
reads your books.

4. You are the Belle of the Season, and are modestly afraid lest
you grow conceited. The Beaux of the Season prefer the dinner-bell.

5. You are the only man who can act Hamlet. Console yourself
by the thought that this is the belief of every man who ever, acted
or even aspired to act.

6. You envy Me. Diseaeli his pride of place. Would you like to
have to scratch a Russian to find the Tartar underneath, or to be
plagued by the Heathen Chinee ?

7. You envy Mb. Gladstone his retirement and renown. Go cut
down an oak in the forenoon, my dear boy, and disestablish the
Pope in the afternoon, and translate a book of the Iliad after
dinner.

8. You meet an elderly wiseacre, who will talk about the Herze-
govina, which has been invented to depreciate Turks. Tell him it
is where they grow Angostura bitters.

9. You go to a pic-nic, which happens, by the fatuity of mankind,
to be without its central idea—a corkscrew. You are compensated:
by showing how deftly you can knock off the necks of bottles with a
carviDg-knife.

10. You find somebody warmly attentive to your wife. Ah, but
your wife is the wisest little woman in the world, and is sure to do
Mb. Aliqttis a great deal of good.

11. Your banker is insolvent. How excellent an opportunity of
deferring sine die the payment of your '* outstanding liabilities ! "

12. Your Great-Aunt's second cousin twice removed is dead. Of
course you can't give any dinners just at present.

13. One English Iron-clad runs into another. If it so easily sunk
a friend, what would it do to an enemy ?

14. That same English Iron-clad did its best to commit suicide.
There was one man on board with brains—a fact to be remembered
in the British Navy.

15. It never rains but it pours—and it always pours. Ducks are
happy.

16. You lose your copy of Punch in the Post. Think of the
moral and mental elevation which reading it will produce on the
Post-Office Clerk or village Postmistress who has stolen it.

Motto foe Heb Majesty's Ships.—" One down, t' other come on!"