Punch (77.1879)

October 11, 1879.]

PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

^u^cty t)on fce* Quelle.

A SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD.

(Being a "Warning to Pleasure-Seekers at German Watering-Places.)

EXTRAORDINARY STATE OF LIQUOR.

A quite unprecedented case occurred a few days "ago at the
"Wakefield Borough Court. A local contemporary, the Free Press,
reports it as follows :—

"Insobriety.—Patrick Slaven, labourer, -was charged with drunken-
ness, in King Street, on the 22nd inst.—Police Constable Dobson proved the
case, stating that deceased was drunk at the place named, about seven
o'clock in the evening, when he made use of bad names to those who had
him in custody. Fined 2s. 6d. and costs."

Many a man, and, worse still, many a woman, has been picked up
dead drunk, as the phrase is—that is to say, drunk and incapable,
and subsequently fined for drunkenness; but never until the in-

stance recorded as above, was a fine ever known to be inflicted on a

?erson actually deceased, and onewho had remained drunk after death,
'his case, if accurately reported, cannot even be accounted for by
the supposition that the defendant, having been taken up dead, had
really departed this life, but afterwards come back again ; because
when apprehended he used;bad language, which he could not
possibly have done, if he had been so very dead as those dead men
who proverbially tell no tales.

France in a Fair Wat.—The French Republican Government
appears to be well enough off. It could afford to allow Legitimist
demonstrations to be made on Goose Day.