DOI Heft:
January to June, 1844
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16519#0259
262
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
THE "INDUSTRIOUS FLEAS" TO PUNCH. A HOME-SECRETARY OF " LETTERS."
[ We beg leave—on the part of Sir James Graham—to inform the
rom two of the " Industrious Fleas" Punch has public, and all parties who, since the Secretary's appointment to office,
received a very touching note—a note, as he
conceives, of 'very just complaint. It is as
follows :—
" Mr. Punch.—Many of the public who
have visited us, have been loud in their talk
touching a certain dwarf known as Tom
Thumb, who, on the score of his exceeding
littleness, has been very much petted by Her
Majesty and the Royal Family ; giving great
delight to them by his imitations of the
Emperor Napoleon. The force of contrast
was, of course, the great charm of such
mimicry ; that anything so ridiculously small
should imitate such royal greatness, was the
fan of the thing, and nothing more.
" Now, Mr.. Punch, is the Queen ignorant of the fact that she has
among her subjects, industrious Fleas ? Is she not aware that, for
years past,—a fact constantly published to the out-door world by
pictorial placards,—two of us have imitated not only Napoleon, but
Napoleon's charger ? And if diminutiveness is to be a passport to
the palace, surely myself and friend have a more legitimate right to
the entrte even than Tom Thumb. Besides, we have other claims.
" We were both of us for some time, as they say in the Court Circular,
•about the person' of the Emperor at St. Helena ; whence, after
many adventures, we were brought to England in the blankets of
Sir Hudson Lowe, and were ultimately disposed of for sixpence
each, on account of our size and intelligence, to our present pro-
prietor.
"As we have heard that Her Majesty is a constant and improving
reader of Punch, we have written to you that our complaint may
meet the royal eye ; and to state that, being infinitely smaller things
than Tom Thumb, we, the Industrious Fleas, shall be happy as
Napoleon and his Horse to have a night with the Royal Family.
" Awaiting their commands,
" We loyally remain,
"The Napoleon Fi.ea and His Charger."
APPROACHING EXHIBITION AT WESTMINSTER HALL.
Extensive preparations are being made for the opening of the Exhibi-
tion of Statuary, &c, at Westminster Hall, and several cart-loads of
masonry have been conveyed thither to the immense astonishment of the
legal functionaries, who imagined that the tremendous packages done up
in brown Holland were articles to be " put in," as the legal phrase goes, as
proofs of something or other in some of the causes being tried at the Sittings.
We caught a glimpse of the helmet of Britannia protruding from a very
large brown pinafore, and we fancied we recognised the nose of Jane
Shore peeping from beneath a sheet,—which, by-the-bye, it may be
intended she should wear during the exhibition, in order to keep her in
strict accordance with history. Henry the Eighth was done up in
brown paper, and arrived most ignobly by the Parcels Delivery ; while, to
add to the awful desecration, there was a row between the company's cad
and the door-keeper of the Hall about the payment of the carriage.
Rufus was conveyed in a hamper with no top to it, while William the
Conqueror came in a complete suit of haybands.
Russia's Tribute to KTelson,
Nicholas has left £'500 towards the completion of the Nelson column.
We understand that a petition has been presented from the Greenwich
Pensioners, praying that the money shall be returned ; or if not, that
it shall be appropriately distributed among the convicts of Woolwich,
giving the highest share to the most notorious footpads, burglars, and
child-stealers.
Claude Duval Rivalled.
There is a story of that gallant highwayman, Claude Duval, that,
having stopped a gentleman and his wife upon the road, and robbed them
of everything, he afterwards in the most charming and fascinating way,
treated them to a tune on his fiddle, on which, says history, he was an
expert performer ! The Emperor op Russia, ere he offered a subscrip-
tion to the Polish Ball, had doubtless heard of this story. Having
stripped his victims of possessions, home, and country,—he had still no
objection to stand a little music.
tiave failed to receive post-letters directed to them, that such letters are
at this moment, in the Home-Office. If they have been delayed until
now, it is because of the pressing avocations of the Right Hon. Secretary
Sir James will, however, cause all the letters to be posted directly he
shall have read them.
N. B.—A few good hands wanted who can open letters with secrecy and
despatch. Persons who have studied Foucue's plan will be preferred
Apply at the Home-Office.
ENGLAND AND HER BEADLES,
the beadle of the british museum.
As in the English army there are Lieutenant-Majors and full Major&i
so in the English beadlery are there Lieutenant-Beadles and full Beadles,
of which latter class the Beadle of the British Museum is a prize specimen.
We have contemplated Beadledom under its different aspects, but we
hardly know in what light we ought to regard the official who presides
over the court yard—we had almost said the destinies of this greatest
national collection. The powers of this beadle appear to embrace the
right of search, and a species of inquisitorial vigilance, forcibly bringing
to mind the terrors of the Spanish Inquisition in the very centre of Great
Russell-street. He is empowered to seize sticks and umbrellas, with a
rapacious hand, from persons going in, and to search pockets, reticules, or
muffs, of persons going out, lest any of them should be attempting to carry
off the Elgin marbles, the celebrated Siamese stopper, the fossil flea,
or any other of the precious relics which enrich this glorious piece of
Inigo-Jonesian architecture. What Inigo Jones did for doors, Wren did
for windows, and Barry has subsequently done for chimney-pots. But
we are forgetting the Beadle : on the whole he exercises his greaS
power with firmness (towards boys), tempered by discretion (towards
grown-up people). He makes it, we believe, his boast, that during all the
exciting period of the Easter Monday of '42, he did not allow one um-
brella to escape his eye, nor one boy in a pinafore to obtain admission.
john bull ringed by russia.
From the quantity of jewellery given away by Nicholas on his late
visit, it is evident that he thinks the surest way to lead John Bull by the
nose, is to put a diamond ring in it.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
THE "INDUSTRIOUS FLEAS" TO PUNCH. A HOME-SECRETARY OF " LETTERS."
[ We beg leave—on the part of Sir James Graham—to inform the
rom two of the " Industrious Fleas" Punch has public, and all parties who, since the Secretary's appointment to office,
received a very touching note—a note, as he
conceives, of 'very just complaint. It is as
follows :—
" Mr. Punch.—Many of the public who
have visited us, have been loud in their talk
touching a certain dwarf known as Tom
Thumb, who, on the score of his exceeding
littleness, has been very much petted by Her
Majesty and the Royal Family ; giving great
delight to them by his imitations of the
Emperor Napoleon. The force of contrast
was, of course, the great charm of such
mimicry ; that anything so ridiculously small
should imitate such royal greatness, was the
fan of the thing, and nothing more.
" Now, Mr.. Punch, is the Queen ignorant of the fact that she has
among her subjects, industrious Fleas ? Is she not aware that, for
years past,—a fact constantly published to the out-door world by
pictorial placards,—two of us have imitated not only Napoleon, but
Napoleon's charger ? And if diminutiveness is to be a passport to
the palace, surely myself and friend have a more legitimate right to
the entrte even than Tom Thumb. Besides, we have other claims.
" We were both of us for some time, as they say in the Court Circular,
•about the person' of the Emperor at St. Helena ; whence, after
many adventures, we were brought to England in the blankets of
Sir Hudson Lowe, and were ultimately disposed of for sixpence
each, on account of our size and intelligence, to our present pro-
prietor.
"As we have heard that Her Majesty is a constant and improving
reader of Punch, we have written to you that our complaint may
meet the royal eye ; and to state that, being infinitely smaller things
than Tom Thumb, we, the Industrious Fleas, shall be happy as
Napoleon and his Horse to have a night with the Royal Family.
" Awaiting their commands,
" We loyally remain,
"The Napoleon Fi.ea and His Charger."
APPROACHING EXHIBITION AT WESTMINSTER HALL.
Extensive preparations are being made for the opening of the Exhibi-
tion of Statuary, &c, at Westminster Hall, and several cart-loads of
masonry have been conveyed thither to the immense astonishment of the
legal functionaries, who imagined that the tremendous packages done up
in brown Holland were articles to be " put in," as the legal phrase goes, as
proofs of something or other in some of the causes being tried at the Sittings.
We caught a glimpse of the helmet of Britannia protruding from a very
large brown pinafore, and we fancied we recognised the nose of Jane
Shore peeping from beneath a sheet,—which, by-the-bye, it may be
intended she should wear during the exhibition, in order to keep her in
strict accordance with history. Henry the Eighth was done up in
brown paper, and arrived most ignobly by the Parcels Delivery ; while, to
add to the awful desecration, there was a row between the company's cad
and the door-keeper of the Hall about the payment of the carriage.
Rufus was conveyed in a hamper with no top to it, while William the
Conqueror came in a complete suit of haybands.
Russia's Tribute to KTelson,
Nicholas has left £'500 towards the completion of the Nelson column.
We understand that a petition has been presented from the Greenwich
Pensioners, praying that the money shall be returned ; or if not, that
it shall be appropriately distributed among the convicts of Woolwich,
giving the highest share to the most notorious footpads, burglars, and
child-stealers.
Claude Duval Rivalled.
There is a story of that gallant highwayman, Claude Duval, that,
having stopped a gentleman and his wife upon the road, and robbed them
of everything, he afterwards in the most charming and fascinating way,
treated them to a tune on his fiddle, on which, says history, he was an
expert performer ! The Emperor op Russia, ere he offered a subscrip-
tion to the Polish Ball, had doubtless heard of this story. Having
stripped his victims of possessions, home, and country,—he had still no
objection to stand a little music.
tiave failed to receive post-letters directed to them, that such letters are
at this moment, in the Home-Office. If they have been delayed until
now, it is because of the pressing avocations of the Right Hon. Secretary
Sir James will, however, cause all the letters to be posted directly he
shall have read them.
N. B.—A few good hands wanted who can open letters with secrecy and
despatch. Persons who have studied Foucue's plan will be preferred
Apply at the Home-Office.
ENGLAND AND HER BEADLES,
the beadle of the british museum.
As in the English army there are Lieutenant-Majors and full Major&i
so in the English beadlery are there Lieutenant-Beadles and full Beadles,
of which latter class the Beadle of the British Museum is a prize specimen.
We have contemplated Beadledom under its different aspects, but we
hardly know in what light we ought to regard the official who presides
over the court yard—we had almost said the destinies of this greatest
national collection. The powers of this beadle appear to embrace the
right of search, and a species of inquisitorial vigilance, forcibly bringing
to mind the terrors of the Spanish Inquisition in the very centre of Great
Russell-street. He is empowered to seize sticks and umbrellas, with a
rapacious hand, from persons going in, and to search pockets, reticules, or
muffs, of persons going out, lest any of them should be attempting to carry
off the Elgin marbles, the celebrated Siamese stopper, the fossil flea,
or any other of the precious relics which enrich this glorious piece of
Inigo-Jonesian architecture. What Inigo Jones did for doors, Wren did
for windows, and Barry has subsequently done for chimney-pots. But
we are forgetting the Beadle : on the whole he exercises his greaS
power with firmness (towards boys), tempered by discretion (towards
grown-up people). He makes it, we believe, his boast, that during all the
exciting period of the Easter Monday of '42, he did not allow one um-
brella to escape his eye, nor one boy in a pinafore to obtain admission.
john bull ringed by russia.
From the quantity of jewellery given away by Nicholas on his late
visit, it is evident that he thinks the surest way to lead John Bull by the
nose, is to put a diamond ring in it.