Punch: Punch (76.1879)

January 25, 1879.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

33

SAFE AS A BANK.

[Hints for the Times.)

P

jtjt all your eggs
into one basket,
and loatch it.
If you hold Railway
Stock, no matter at
what inconvenience,
live on the line. To
enable you to do this,
become General Mana-
ger, or Superintendent,
or Country Station -
Master, or something.
Rather than not be on
the spot, take a signal-
box—anything. Once
installed, look per -
sonally after your
') own property. To do
this—

(1) Daily count the
whole of the roll-
ing stock, and see
that it is all
there ■

(2) Get'hold of the
Cashier in the
evening, pump the

average daily receipts out of him, and put them down on your
cuffs;

(3) Study several standard works on "Economic Averages,"

"Wear and Tear," "The Coal Question," "Labour and
Capital," "Metallurgy," and "Popular Recreation," and
then hnd out, by Algebra, your chance of a dividend within
six months; and

(4) Keep on good terms with your brother Shareholders, by

asking them to a blow-out occasionally, as a set-off to any
blows-up they may be treated to on the line.

Having done this, or as much of it as you can, you will at least
know "where you are" in a crisis, and not be at the mercy of a
mere half-yearly cooked Report.

If your property is in a Mine, live at the bottom, and never leave
it. Examine every shovelful of ore, or anything else that may
turn up. Do this in company with two analytical chemists and
a practical engineer, and take care that you never, all four of you,
go to sleep together at the same time. This is your only chance of
safety in a mining investment. When you have got 175 per cent,
on your money once or twice, it is better to sell out and end your
days in the elegant security of the Three per Cents.

If you have got anything in a South American Republic (guaran-
teed), go over at once, foment a revolution, and assist at an armed
attack on the Treasury; you will thus forfeit your capital, but if
prompt in your movements, and not shot, you may possibly secure
one dividend of three per cent.

Should you have been persuaded to try a Joint Stock Bank at
home, do not lose a moment, but marry your daughters, or your
sisters, or your nearest female relations, to influential members
of the direction. Then, while there is yet time, and they are off
their guard, sell your shares and withdraw your deposits. This
is the only safe way of investing in a Joint Stock Bank.

Finally, if at a loss, as things are, what to do with your money,
bury it in your garden, and sit over it with a loaded revolver.

You will thus be in a position to meet any sudden call without
panic.

Squenched'

The Lord Mayor has declined to give up Guildhall for the advo-
cates of Protection to proclaim England's deadly distresses, and to
preach their own exploded nostrum of tying one hand behind you
that you may work and fight the better. No application so fitting
for this short-sighted party as the Damper. For once the voice of
the City should say ditto to Whetham.

The Prince Chancellor in his Part.

j rr?E -,?rince of actors on the political stage of Europe is un-
doubtedly Prince Bismarck. He maybe said to he facile Princeps.
In sustaining so dignified a part, however, as that of the Chan-
cellor_in the Farce of the Federal Diet, we may be allowed to regret
that Bismarck should have taken to " gagging."

A FLOWER ON THE ROADWAY.

This is the time of year for practical suggestions connected with
locomotion, never more difficult than when alternations of frost and
thaw test to the quick the qualities of roads, and aggravate the risk
of accidents to horses.

We have all heard the proverb of "Locking the door when the
horse is stolen." Its seasonable version is " Roughing the shoe when
the horse is down."

But "roughing" is, after all, a rough way of giving Jack Frost
the go-by. Screw-pegging is the thing, not pegging away at your
screws, but pegging your screws with screws. Germany has shown
us the " dodge," and ought ere this to have taught us the practice—
if our English grooms were not so much too clever to learn, and
masters so much too careless to insist, and farriers so much too
knowing to alter the ways they are familiar with, and that bring
them in jobs besides.

Tet it does not seem so difficult when your horse is shod to insist
that holes for screw-pegs should be made in the shoes, to be kept
free from soil by a button-screw when the wearers do not need
"screw-pegging to keep them on their legs, and in seasons of
slippery streets to be filled up with the screw-peg that serves the
purpose of roughing with twice the effect, and lasts as long as the
shoe. Let every master of horses insist on this being done, and
grooms will be forced to see to it, and farriers to do it,—even at the
humiliation of taking a hint from the " poor ignorant furriner."

But besides the danger to horseflesh from slippery road-ways,
which is confined to the brief and interrupted reigns of Jack Frost,
there is another and worse danger, to which we are always sub-
ject, from ill-laid roads, which wear into hills and hollows, make
driving a misery to the driven, horse and man, and increase the pull
on rates as much as on horses.

Let any poor soul, whose needs take him on wheels along the
Embankment, bear witness to the jolting discomfort due to the
irregularities of the road-way. It couldn't be worse, if it had been
laid as many years as it has weeks.

For the cause and remedy of this we invoke the testimony of our
excellent old friend and counsellor, E. F. Flower—the Flower of
Stratford-on-Avon, the Flower of Hippophiles, who has done more
than any man to deliver our carriage-horses from the cruelty of the
gag-bearing-rein. He has been bombarding the dull ear of the town
with letters on the disgraceful state of our London road-ways, to
the truth of which all who have to drive over them can bear
witness :—

" The London streets," he writes to the Daily News, " are now repaired
with stones of nearly three inches gauge, on which is heaped a large quantity
of sand to fill up the interstices ; then a heavy coating of gravel is spread,
which is crushed down by the steam iron roller, which, makes the surface of
the road smooth for the moment, but as soon as the traffic begins to wear the
road, the sand works up, which is forced to be scraped off and removed in
carts; then the pressure of the heavily laden vans upon the larger stones
underneath, instead of crushing them, produces the holes and inequalities on
the surface."

"Macadamised" these sort of pavements are said to be. But
these layers down of three-inch-gauge road-metal take Macadam's
name in vain :—

"I knew Macadam well," writes Mr. Flower. "His roads were
invariably good, and even, and wore well. Sis gauge for the size of the
stones was never more than ttvo inches ; but surveyors soon became careless,
and allowed the contractors to increase the size of the stones ; of course they
reap the benefit in the less amount of tvages paid for breakage ; but the subse-
quent needless expense and discomfort falls upon the rate-payers and those
who use the roads."

The weight of stones recommended by Macadam; to all sons of
Adam the safest of all guides in the matter of mending their ways,
was 6 oz. Now, the bits of granite, laid down on our roads are
often three times as heavy.

Let Mr. Flower " keep pegging away" at the subject, till some-
thing is done, and Mr. Punch will promise to help him. Two
such peggers ought to peg to some purpose; but if Magna est
Veritas, major est inertia—and it takes a mighty deal to get a
horse's shoes screwed, or London road-metal broken" to the proper
size.

To owners of horses, and payers of rates, we recommend the
matter. They, if they please, can drive our pegs home.

payitto a great deal too dear for odr whistler.

If John Ruskix's resignation of the Slade • Professorship at
Oxford be in any way connected with the verdict in Whistler v.
Ruslcin, then Mr. Whistler may boast that he has done a good
deal more than a farthing damages to the cause of Art in England.