Punch or The London charivari (3.1842)

32

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Bports. In due season, with the grace of fortune, you will be able to
limit hares, those pestilent and dangerous creatures having been
especially provided to exercise the muscles and the intellects of man.
Should you obtain that position in the world, which it is my fervent
prayer you will arrive at, you may also be permitted to join in a royal
hunt, a pastime of the highest dignity, utility, and humanity. For
instance, you will chase a stag, for the express and only purpose of
terrifying it; and having put it to an hour or two of serviceable agony,
you will have it caught and conducted back to the pasture, to be left
for future enjoyment. As, however, these must be the sports of jour
manhood, you are quite right now to begin with linnets and sparrows.
You, my dear son, will one day have to quit the paternal roof for the
great world. By reflecting on what the parent linnets and sparrows
suffer, deprived of their young, you will have some wholesome idea
of the anxiety of your loving parents under a similar affliction.

You ask me to send you some corking-pins that you may spin cock-
chafers upon thfc-m. Your mother sends them, with her blessing and
her best love. I trust, however, you will turn this amusement to
your profit. As, under the blessing of heaven, I may probably article
you to Mr. Abednego, the attorney and money-lender of Jewish per-
suasion, I would counsel you to take particular notice of the conduct
of the cock-thafer, when buzzing and spinning with the pin through
its bowels—to know exactly how long it will live, and how much pin
it will bear. This knowledge —for wisdom comes to us from so many
channels—will be of great use to vou as an attorney, when making
out yoviT hills of costs.

THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.
The recent warm weather has been very favourable to the crops, and
has raised hopes in the owners of large fiat tracts of bald heads, which had
for some time been entirely unproductive. Several parties have brought
a very fair show of produce into the market; but it has been princi-
pally in the beard,—for the moustachio erops have failed in almost every
instance.

A very small grower endeavoured to force a premature crop by secur-
ing a quantity of common whisker-seed, and overlaying the whole with a
rich manure of dirt and bear's grease, but the result was far from satis,
factory.

The long-eared and short-bearded commodity was very plentiful, and
the growers of very lanky crops made an effort to give them a favourable
turn, by keeping several irons in the fire ; but they did not succeed in
bringing matters permanently round as they seem to have expected.

SOCIETY FOE THE RELIEF OF DISTRESSED
FOREIGNERS.

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE.

COMMISSIONERS OP THE BOARDS OF FOREIGN ASSURANCE.

Whilst the journals are unceasingly occupied in promulgatin.-
reports of the distress and famine prevalent in all the manufacturing
districts, we think it rather hard that so much sympathy and so many
contributions should be lavished on our own countrymen, about
whom we can feel no possible interest, whilst hundreds of poor
foreigners, driven to our shores solely with the industrious intention
The British and North American royal mail steamer Britannia , of nmking what they can of us, are nearly starving in the streets,
arrived on Saturday last at Liverpool, bringing with her a considerable The rapidly approaching termination of the season, and the dead
amount in specie, but very few jokes, and those of an inferior cha- faiiure 0f the German Opera—in spite of the night appropriated to
racter. tjie benefit of a Maison d'Asile, under the patronage of Count D'Orsay

Our special correspondent writes, that the papers of the South are ; (who could llot jiave entertained any prospect of ever being obliged
in a state of facete insolvency, and do not furnish so much as a single j to g0 iuto it)__have been the means of throwing crowds of these
pun ; whilst the " Down East" journals are equally barren of ori- , inoffensive aliens into acute poverty. They may be seen daily,taking
ginal jokes, those which appear in them being copied from " Punch, a chameleon meal of air, in the neighbourhood of the Opera and the
or the London Charivari." To so alarming an extent has our foreign West End—their padded coats, tight pantaloons, so hermetically
manufacture of merriment been preferred to native articles, that strapped down over their light jean boots, and once glossy hat—day
Mr. Fillemore has proposed a heavy tariff upon foreign fun. The bv day evincing more palpable tokens of supervening seediness, but
President, who has none of his own, is said to have " vetoed" the nevertheless brushed and beaten to the last extreme of nap.
measure. jn common with the majority of great philanthropists, we lire

The state of Rhode Island is exceedingly unpleasant, being in open : muci1 more ready to proffer suggestions than subscriptions in aid ni
rebellion. Several insurgents actually took the field ; but as it was theil. lelief; and as the unfortunate subjects of our care are little
not their field which they took, they were speedily turned out of it by used to nard labour, we venture to recommend a few gentle-
the proper owner. manly occupations, by which some small sums may be realist. .1,

Lord Ashburton has, it is said, succeeded in drawing a quarter of witnout spoiling their hands or injuring their delicate orgauiza-
an inch more of the boundary line on the official map of the disputed tion by vi0ient mechanical exertion. Many of them, under the
territory. . immediate patronage of their more fortunate compatriots, might

obtain employment in the manner above portrayed by our artist ;
MONEY TRANSACTIONS and should this appear repugnant to their refined feelings, the parties

Monetary exchanges have been much sought after by persons pofisess- thus occupied might be called the Itinerant Society for the Diffusion
Log gold of an early coinage. Errand boys and apprentices have been of Entertaining Knowledge, which would give an air of great re-
actively employed in " running for change." ! spectability to these proceedings.