Punch (7.1844)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

53

CAPTAIN WARNERS DISCOVERY.

insane and selfish policy which, for a long time, crippled currants, and
kept figs at a feverish price ; which prevented the Brazilians from a
friendly interchange of their nuts for our manufactures ; which debarred
the merry sons of Naples from sending us their maccaroni, and taking
We have received the following report of the proceedings the other day : our Birmingham cutlery in return; this insane and selfish policy no
.t Brighton from Lord Brougham. We are obliged to his Lordship lor j lo prevails, and we may hope that Sir Robert Peel will, ere long,
his prompt attention, but had rather that his style of addressing us had • ug a cheap ]oaf gince he hag ventured on the experiment of giving
been a little less familiar. We have an objection to liberties being taken us a cheap pjne_apple. We trust that the cry of " pine-apples for the
*ith us, but we must, we suppose, allow much for that love of freedom | people „ win henceforth be the watchword of free-trade ; and it is very
which has always been one of the salient points of Lord Brougham s possib]e that «melons for the million" will hereafter find an echo in the
character. : policy of future governments.

" Brighton, July 20, 1844. T

" Dear Punch,—I believe you know my opinion of the invisible shell. j _______

I thought it a piece of humbug, and, hating all humbug—perhaps on the
principle of two of a trade never agreeing—I came down, determined to

blow up Captain Warner, if he did not blow up a vessel, according to the \ TO M.P.'s ON THE USE OF A GUN.

pledge he had given to the public run n

" Having reached Brighton, 1 took up my station on the battery, and J^^fA Honourable Gentlemen, the-

amused myself by lying at full length on the wall, making my white hat a
support for my telescope, and reporting to the people round me the
result of my observations. Two was the hour fixed for the experiment.
Two came, but no blowing up. Humbugs are never punctual. They
never keep their appointments, though, by-the-by, if I could get a good
appointment now, I think I should keep it.

"I, of course, got rather impatient, and spoke my mind pretty freely.
They told me it took time to bring the ship up to her moorings. Pooh !
All humbug, my dear Punch. As if they could not have hoisted her gaff,
put her mizen in the wind, and let her luff on the larboard tack till she

business of Legislation
having been concluded,
will shortly be off to
the Moors. Puiwh
has sometimes had oc-
casion to give them
advice as to their con-
duct in the Senate, and
he now begs to offer
them a few friendly hints with regard to their behaviour in the field.

got athwart the bows of the steamer. 1 said as much to the by-standers, I ln the first place, he would express the hope that honourable gentlemen
who agreed with me, with the exception of a meddling fellow of a naval w»" not, in the latter situation, hang fire quite so much as they are in the
officer", who was of course in Warner's pay, and put there to puff up the habit of doing in the former. He trusts, also, that they will now be on
invention. I offered to go myself and bring her up, if they would allow their legs from morning till night to somewhat more purpose than they
me. I also offered to go and remain in the vessel, while Warner tried to have so been from night to morning ; that the grouse they will bag will
blow it up—so certain was I that the whole affair was a hoax ; but even : *>e proportionate to the time they have killed, and that they will make *
this they would not agree to. At last, tired out by importunities, without j great many more hits in the Season than they have succeeded in making
which the people would have seen nothing at all—for it was only my stick- . during the Session.

ing to the thing as I did that got Warner to make the attempt—a noise I He begs to call their particular attention to their priming and loading,
was heard, the vessel went away, and the thing ended in smoke, as 1 matters which, judging from their senatorial proceedings, he fears they
always said it would. The ship turned right over, so that daylight was may incautiously overlook. Their speeches on various subjects have
visible by the aperture in her timbers, and I saw through it of course showed many of them to be very indifferently primed : should this be the
immediately. case Wjth their guns, the latter will go off like their orations, that is to

" The ship sunk, true enough ; but, my dear Punch, I'll just tell you how i sa)'< n°t at all.
the thing was done. It was either done by a rope, or else by something that < He would recommend them to direct their guns in a way just the
floated up to the ship which pulled a trigger— that would be easy enough of \ reverse to that in which they direct their remarks; namely, towards the

course—or an electric battery, or an air-gun, or a quantity of gunpowder
made to act by Ryan's process from the bottom of the sea, or a submarine
shell—or something or other. At all events it's a mere trick, and being a
trick, anybody could do it. 1 could, at all events, if the proper materials
were supplied to me. if you mean, my dear Punch, to assume a sort of

grouse, or object in view ; not against each other. For honourable
gentlemen are to remember, that, though words break no bones, the
same is not predicable of No. 4; and that, should they, by accident,
shoot other honourable gentlemen through the head, however opinions
may differ as to the amount of mischief which in some cases will be done,

scientific air upon the subject, put in the following paragraph, which I such mischief will be irremediable by apology,
should have put into the Penny Cycloptedia, if the work had not been com-1 Lastly, he would suggest to them that the Moors are the place for
pleted :—' There is no doubt that all submarine salts acting in coalition shooting, not for talking about it; but perhaps this admonition is unneces-
with a pure phosphate, and coagulating chemically with the sublimate of, sary ; for fowling is one thing, and law-making another ; and honourable
marine potash, will create combustion in uitrous'bodies. It is a fact in ! gentlemen, he has reason to believe, are never more in earnest this when
physics that sulphurous acids held in solution by glutinous compounds t^e.v are m sport.

will create igneous action in aquiferous bodies, and therefore the pure I ~- "— ----

carbonate of any given quantity of bituminous or ligneous solids, will of

themselves create such a result as that which Captain Warner produced : THE SCALES OF JUSTICE_COTTINGHAM WEIGHT.

on Saturday by his alleged discovery. It will, therefore, be seen that we

gain no new fact—that there is, in reality, nothing done-and that the 1 William Wilson, a Merton omnibus driver, is charged at Union
whole is rather a semi-optical delusion than a great truth in science.' I Hall, before Mr. Cottingham, with a gross assault on a lady named
" There, my dear Punch, print that, and you will gain the credit of Murrell. He is fined M. and costs !—Immediately paid.

Henry Shepherd of a Carshalton omnibus, on the same day and
before the same magistrate, is charged with furious driving; and is
—committed for a month to hard labour.

Next comes, before the same magistrate, John Linton, a butcher
of the Waterloo Road, who enters a man's house, and commences a
criminal assault on a modest married woman, "using the most dis-

knowing something about everything. That's the way I got my reputa-
tion for all kinds of useful knowledge.

" Ever, my dear Punch,

" Your devoted friend,

" Brougham.'

We need hardly add that we do not quite agree with our noble and

1J KS Aic^ti lioiuir auu uiai nc iJUL uunc txtlict; WILLI UUI IlUUie aiJU , ■ . ~ it* ■ .

learned correspondent's criticism and conclusion on the discovery of gating language." Mr. Cottingham expressed his surprise that the

Captain Warner.

PUNCH'S POLITICAL LEADER.

The public has lately been startled by an extraordinary glut of pine-
apples, and it has been found impossible to turn either to the right or to
the left without being, as it were, stared out of countenance by this salu-
brious luxury. Everybody is asking what can be the meaning of such a
sudden influx of this hitherto almost unattainable delicacy. Pines are
now thrust under our very noses, and ticketed at the most tempting
figures, so that every man may sport his pine-apple on Sunday, for dessert,
as reasonably as he could luxuriate in his threepenny pottle of hautboys.
Superficial observers see nothing in all this but a fall in the luscious fruit
we have alluded to. We, however, take a deeper view of the subject, and
look upon these pine-apples as the legitimate fruits of the tariff. The

woman's husband did not "criminally indict the man ;" and then, as
a wind-up to such astonishment, inflicts a bl. fine upon the offender ;
which, of course, is—Immediately paid.

Thus, you may strike a woman (as it was proved Wilson did) a
severe blow on the bosom, and the charge for the same is 3i.
An assault with a criminal intent is bl.

But, furious driving is incarceration and hard labour for a month !
Oh, brutes, with money ! assault a woman as much as you like—but
don't over-drive!

DREAD OF CLAIRVOYANCE.
Tub Bor Alexis was at the British and Foreign Institute last week
The object of his visit was to try whether it was possible "to see through
Mr. Buckingham or not. Mr. Buckingham, however, with great presence
of mind, would not submit to the experiment.