Punch (73.1877)

August 11, 1877.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

57

THE GREAT BEETLE PANIC.

{By Telegraph.)

Prattleeury, 1015 a.m.

he Sergeant of the
County Police has
this moment gal-
lopped into the
Marketplace, with
the news that a
Colorado Beetle
has been found, by
a retired Excise-
man, in a potato-
field belonging to
the Corporation in
the outskirts of
the town.

An extraordi-
nary meeting of
theCorporation has
been summoned by
the Town-Crier.

A fly with the
Chief Constable has
just driven off at a
rapid pace to fetch
the Exciseman and
the Beetle.

The greatest
coleopterous ex-
citement prevails.

10 45.

The Exciseman has arrived, but without the Beetle, the insect
having defied all attempts to capture it. The Exciseman's grand-
son (a youth of nine), remains in the field to watch its movements.

The Corporation are now sitting with closed doors.

The Magistrates are holding a Special Petty Sessions.

1110.

The meetings are over.

The Mayor has telegraphed to the Lord Lieutenant (on a tour in
Norway), the Borough Member (in bed after an exhausting sitting in
the House), the Privy Council, the Chamber of Agriculture, and the
Entomological Society.

The Mayor and Corporation, with the Town Clerk, the Magis-
trates, the Urban Sanitary Authority, and the leading Bankers and
Solicitors, have all gone, with the Exciseman, in three waggonettes
to the field.

120.

There is a rumour that Members of the Privy Council are coming
down by special train.
The Volunteers are en route to the field.

The Fire Brigade start immediately to saturate the potato crop
with a mixture composed of Petroleum, Carbolic Acid, and Dyna-
mite.

The entire Police Force have formed a cordon round the field to
prevent the escape of the Beetle. Special Constables have been
sworn in to assist them.

All the schools have been granted a half-holiday to search for the
insect.

12-30 p.m.

Business is entirely suspended.

The entire population are flocking to the field.

The public-houses on the way are crammed.

10. p.m.

People are pouring in from all the neighbouring towns and
villages.

Every conveyance in Prattlebury has been taken up by Re-
porters, Authors, Artists from the illustrated papers, Agriculturists,
Naturalists, Entomologists, and Coleopterists.

The Chamber of Agriculture have this moment started in a draa-
from the " Green Dragon."
_ The few persons who are compelled to remain in the town are
either studying Entomology, or searching for Colorado in the Atlas.

1-35.

Ihe Entomological Society, with their most powerful microscope,
have at last succeeded in forcing their way through the crowd, who
cheered them vociferously.

The insect has been caught!

The capture was cleverly effected (at T50), by Edward Snorting,
a youth who has, for the last eighteen months, been receiving his
education at the new Board School.

The Mayor and Corporation, the Magistrates, the Chamber of

Agriculture, the Entomological Society, the Privy Council Inspectors,
the Borough Member (who arrived by the express from London
five minutes before the capture), the Chief Constable, the Reporters,
Authors, Artists, and Naturalists, and several school-boys, have all
carefully examined the insect, and are unanimously of opinion that
it is not the Colorado Beetle, but a Lady-bird.

The Mayor has addressed a few words to Snorting, and presented
him with five shillings.

The people are returning to the town.

The public-houses are fuller than ever.

40.

Prattlebury is gradually resuming its usual tranquillity.

The Exciseman, unable to face the ridicule of his fellow-towns-
men, has disappeared with his grandson.

The Lady-bird has been set at liberty in the Mayor's garden by
the Mayoress.

KEEPING HIS HAND IN.

{From an Obstructive's Journal.)

8 a.m.—Sit down in the doorway of Westminster Hall leisurely,
and arrange my boots, tripping up a few Irish Members as they go
out. Hail all the cabs on the stand at once, causing considerable
confusion ; pick out a crawler and home.

10.—Have dining-room furniture put into hall, sit with my back
to door and breakfast. Burn all my correspondence without opening
it. Read Times upside down on stairs, lock area-gate, and throw
key into ventilator, telling all tradesmen to call again at 1, 3, 5, 7,
and 9.

12.—Stop all the clocks, cut off the water, have a couple of feather-
beds put up the kitchen chimney, cork the filter, stuff the hall mat
into the letter-box, fill the gas-meter with blacking, counterorder
dinner, and out.

2. p.m.—Hire railway furniture removal van, call at dentists and
have all my teeth stopped, then drive up narrow streets, pulling up
at corners to ask the way to Temple Bar. Find it, and turn over
across roadway. Get out, lunch on block system, lounge down to
Lowther Arcade and practise lawn-tennis.

4.—Buy five tons of coals, look in at afternoon theatre, and refuse
to leave it, create disturbance with my umbrella, stop perform-
ance, get turned out after constitutional resistance, make for
Metropolitan Railway and study Block System in action.

6.—Pay threepenny fare with Irish bank-note in crush, drop
change on stairs, have gate locked till it is all picked up, get into
empty carriage, sit by door and thrust legs on opposite seat at every
crowded platform, then get out, hail wrong omnibuses for fun, and
go to Westminster by water, assisting Captain with shouts of

Stop 'er! " when he calls " Back 'er! " and vice versa.

8.—Enter House, take a better man's seat, insist on my right to it,
and move amendments on every section of the Bill under discussion
in Committee. Then move to report progress : alternate with motions
that the Chairman do leave the chair, and so keep at it, hammer and
tongs, with help of a knot of kindred spirits, till eight the next
morning.

Money and Muskets.

The Turks fight well; but how is war to be carried on without
its sinews ? A telegram from Philadelphia says :—

"A company which was making arins for Turkey has suspended operations
on a contract, because remittances from the East failed. As many as 150,000
rifles were already made, leaving 150,000 to be manufactured as per agree-
ment."

No rifles for a Government that can't pay its shot.

Suburban Grammar.

The following remarkable notice was observed the other day,
posted on Hammersmith Bridge :—

"No Persons are allowed to remain on the Bridge, and are requested to
pass on."

If no persons are requested to pass on, and yet are not allowed to
remain on Hammersmith Bridge, are there Policemen in attendance
to collar them and walk them over without speaking ?

Tortoise v. Hare again.

Tarrter has won Doggett's Coat and Badge. Another illustra-
tion of the truth of Napoleon's favourite saw—" Tout vienta qui
suit attendre." It is only natural, however, that, Tarrter should
show exceptional staying power.