DOI issue:
January to June, 1845
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16521#0122
12b
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
A CONTRIBUTION BY COBDEN.
T&ath are included in the list of small article* to be freed from duty by Six K, Pbil'i
proposed measure.
Three hundred articles and odd
Peel's tariff will release from duty ;
And Commerce lifts her drooping head
To contemplate the offer'd booty.
And as she runs her eyes along
The list of things emancipated,
Ire gets the better of her tongue,
And thus the Premier's scheme is rated :—
" Fool !" exclaims Commerce, full of scorn,
"4 Teeth ' are in your financial fiction ;
Grant me instead free trade in corn,
And deal no more in contradiction.
" Reverse your plan," the Goddess said,
And smiling stood in all her beauty ;
" Give me untaxed my daily bread,
And tax my Teeth with double duty."
^Pundj's jptnanctal Sbcfjfmr.
The great art of taxation is to get as much as you can, and to levy
duties on those articles which are likely to be the most productive. Now
the stamp on receipts is all well enough, but a stamp on bills would be
much better, for it has been ascertained that receipts are rare in propor-
tion to bills, for there are at the lowest computation at least one thousand
of the latter to one of the former. If it were compulsory on every trades-
man to send in his bill upon a stamp, a much larger revenue would be
collected than can be obtained under the present system. Let any one
look through his own private papers, and he will find the preponderance
of bills over receipts to be very considerable, and when it is remembered
how very large a class are never in the habit of seeing a receipt at all, it
seems a piece of gross partiality to let the burden fall on the paying part
of the public, while the dishonest man who never settles an account, and
never therefore gives occasion for a receipt, contributes nothing to the
public income.
Society in general would also benefit by the proposed change, for trades-
men would not be so pertinacious in sending in their accounts where there
is no chance of getting the money—if a proper reduction in the shape of
a stamp were to be put upon the very obnoxious practice.
APOLOGY FOR OUR PORTRAIT.
THE D'ORSAY GALLERY.
D'Orsay—the good-natured and accomplished D'Orsay—has
insisted upon pencilling us. The Count, contemplating a new gal-
lery of distinguished heads (to be known to posterity as the D'Orsay
Gallery), of course resolved that our head should head the list. He
could do no otherwise. Taking an aquiline gaze around him—and
then passing in mental review the many heads of the day famous for
their goose-quills—he felt it to be his duty no less as a man than as
au artist to make the head of Punch the golden number—Number
One!
Our readers will immediately conceive the trepidation that arose
within us. We, of course, with all our hands and feet, resolutely
determined not to yield to the flattery of the partial Count. " No,
no," said we, the blushes burning like red sealing-wax in our face,—
44 we cannot consent; our modesty will not permit us ; a profound
sense of our own humility,—our—" and then for the first time it
struck us, and we timidly urged the objection, that the public had
twenty different portraits of us already ; and so we expressed a
doubt whether the handsome supply had not, at the very least,
equalled the interesting demand. 44 We would not have our head a
drug in the market," said we. 44 Impossible !" said the Count.
And then the Count in his own bland manner—a manner that is
quite copyright—proceeded to argue with our humility. It was
impossible not to be convinced. He proved to us that the world
would be only too delighted to have a new portrait of us at least
every calendar month. Our face—he told us—varied so 1 We were
to consider—urged the Count—how our working intellect was conti-
nually improving our countenance ; how it was giving to it an expres-
sion, now melancholy—now jocose—now profoundly contemplative,
and now pleasantly lackadaisical. As our head altered with every
book that came from it, it was but fair, it was but commonly honest,
to the world—which meant our readers—that a new head should
accompany a new volume.
And then the Count—with characteristic perception—remarked
that our whiskers had wonderfully developed themselves since they
were last published in a bookseller's window. 44 Now, the whiskers
of a man of genius"—said the Count—"are public property. It is a
sort of moral embezzlement in an author to keep them to himself.
It is ungrateful to an admiring world—it is cruel to posterity."
We were touched. We sank in our chair, and calling up the
author-look into our face, we bade the Count to do his worst. Of
course—as he always does—he did his best.
It is not for us to write upon our own head. No ; we feel it to be
a very delicate subject—indeed, altogether a very ticklish matter.
Were it otherwise, we might venture to direct the attention of the
beholder to the air of quiet sublimity that pervades our cheek-bone.
We might impress upon the superficial observer our eyebrow slightly
arched, as though suddenly required to bear the weight of a new
thought. We might speak of our mouth, in which there is so just a
combination of suavity aDd power. And then we might, with honest
pride, dilate upon our whiskers, wherein—and here, SAMPSON-like,
we will confess the secret to that Dalilah the public—wherein
consists our real strength of face : all this we might do—but we
will not.
We will merely, and without a word, present Our Own Pom -
{Of course to be continued).
^f)£ &mttjuari£s at HoggcrljcaDs.
We regret to hear that this rare old Association is likely to come to ai
untimely end. If such should be the case, there will be uo recognised
body in existence to decipher unintelligible hieroglyphics, scrutinise old
bottles, furnish keys to classical conundrums, and find solutions for the
sundry bits of rag, tobacco-pipe, or brickbats, which the Antiquarian
Society has always been ready to sit upon.
However we may regret the dissolution of the Society on literary and
scientific grounds, we are still more grieved at the cause of the Antiqua-
ries being about to separate. It is a lamentable fact, that the members
cannot agree ; and, at the last meeting, there was every reason to appre-
hend that blows would have been exchanged by some of the infuriated
Fellows. The conduct of the President, in never coming near the place,
was strongly animadverted upon, and the Council was most severely
censured for going to sleep over the affairs of the Society—the Society
forgetting that it must be its own fault if it sends people to sleep over its
proceedings. We trust that if the Antiquaries cannot any longer hold
together, they will at least die with decency, and not disgrace the scientific
world with squabbles of the most frightful character.
DEFICIENCY OF THE SPANISH.
The Spanish Minister of Finance has been dismissed for embezzling s
large sum of the public money. Dismissed \ and by his own colleaguee I
Why we have always been told there was 44 Honour among Thieves ! "
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
A CONTRIBUTION BY COBDEN.
T&ath are included in the list of small article* to be freed from duty by Six K, Pbil'i
proposed measure.
Three hundred articles and odd
Peel's tariff will release from duty ;
And Commerce lifts her drooping head
To contemplate the offer'd booty.
And as she runs her eyes along
The list of things emancipated,
Ire gets the better of her tongue,
And thus the Premier's scheme is rated :—
" Fool !" exclaims Commerce, full of scorn,
"4 Teeth ' are in your financial fiction ;
Grant me instead free trade in corn,
And deal no more in contradiction.
" Reverse your plan," the Goddess said,
And smiling stood in all her beauty ;
" Give me untaxed my daily bread,
And tax my Teeth with double duty."
^Pundj's jptnanctal Sbcfjfmr.
The great art of taxation is to get as much as you can, and to levy
duties on those articles which are likely to be the most productive. Now
the stamp on receipts is all well enough, but a stamp on bills would be
much better, for it has been ascertained that receipts are rare in propor-
tion to bills, for there are at the lowest computation at least one thousand
of the latter to one of the former. If it were compulsory on every trades-
man to send in his bill upon a stamp, a much larger revenue would be
collected than can be obtained under the present system. Let any one
look through his own private papers, and he will find the preponderance
of bills over receipts to be very considerable, and when it is remembered
how very large a class are never in the habit of seeing a receipt at all, it
seems a piece of gross partiality to let the burden fall on the paying part
of the public, while the dishonest man who never settles an account, and
never therefore gives occasion for a receipt, contributes nothing to the
public income.
Society in general would also benefit by the proposed change, for trades-
men would not be so pertinacious in sending in their accounts where there
is no chance of getting the money—if a proper reduction in the shape of
a stamp were to be put upon the very obnoxious practice.
APOLOGY FOR OUR PORTRAIT.
THE D'ORSAY GALLERY.
D'Orsay—the good-natured and accomplished D'Orsay—has
insisted upon pencilling us. The Count, contemplating a new gal-
lery of distinguished heads (to be known to posterity as the D'Orsay
Gallery), of course resolved that our head should head the list. He
could do no otherwise. Taking an aquiline gaze around him—and
then passing in mental review the many heads of the day famous for
their goose-quills—he felt it to be his duty no less as a man than as
au artist to make the head of Punch the golden number—Number
One!
Our readers will immediately conceive the trepidation that arose
within us. We, of course, with all our hands and feet, resolutely
determined not to yield to the flattery of the partial Count. " No,
no," said we, the blushes burning like red sealing-wax in our face,—
44 we cannot consent; our modesty will not permit us ; a profound
sense of our own humility,—our—" and then for the first time it
struck us, and we timidly urged the objection, that the public had
twenty different portraits of us already ; and so we expressed a
doubt whether the handsome supply had not, at the very least,
equalled the interesting demand. 44 We would not have our head a
drug in the market," said we. 44 Impossible !" said the Count.
And then the Count in his own bland manner—a manner that is
quite copyright—proceeded to argue with our humility. It was
impossible not to be convinced. He proved to us that the world
would be only too delighted to have a new portrait of us at least
every calendar month. Our face—he told us—varied so 1 We were
to consider—urged the Count—how our working intellect was conti-
nually improving our countenance ; how it was giving to it an expres-
sion, now melancholy—now jocose—now profoundly contemplative,
and now pleasantly lackadaisical. As our head altered with every
book that came from it, it was but fair, it was but commonly honest,
to the world—which meant our readers—that a new head should
accompany a new volume.
And then the Count—with characteristic perception—remarked
that our whiskers had wonderfully developed themselves since they
were last published in a bookseller's window. 44 Now, the whiskers
of a man of genius"—said the Count—"are public property. It is a
sort of moral embezzlement in an author to keep them to himself.
It is ungrateful to an admiring world—it is cruel to posterity."
We were touched. We sank in our chair, and calling up the
author-look into our face, we bade the Count to do his worst. Of
course—as he always does—he did his best.
It is not for us to write upon our own head. No ; we feel it to be
a very delicate subject—indeed, altogether a very ticklish matter.
Were it otherwise, we might venture to direct the attention of the
beholder to the air of quiet sublimity that pervades our cheek-bone.
We might impress upon the superficial observer our eyebrow slightly
arched, as though suddenly required to bear the weight of a new
thought. We might speak of our mouth, in which there is so just a
combination of suavity aDd power. And then we might, with honest
pride, dilate upon our whiskers, wherein—and here, SAMPSON-like,
we will confess the secret to that Dalilah the public—wherein
consists our real strength of face : all this we might do—but we
will not.
We will merely, and without a word, present Our Own Pom -
{Of course to be continued).
^f)£ &mttjuari£s at HoggcrljcaDs.
We regret to hear that this rare old Association is likely to come to ai
untimely end. If such should be the case, there will be uo recognised
body in existence to decipher unintelligible hieroglyphics, scrutinise old
bottles, furnish keys to classical conundrums, and find solutions for the
sundry bits of rag, tobacco-pipe, or brickbats, which the Antiquarian
Society has always been ready to sit upon.
However we may regret the dissolution of the Society on literary and
scientific grounds, we are still more grieved at the cause of the Antiqua-
ries being about to separate. It is a lamentable fact, that the members
cannot agree ; and, at the last meeting, there was every reason to appre-
hend that blows would have been exchanged by some of the infuriated
Fellows. The conduct of the President, in never coming near the place,
was strongly animadverted upon, and the Council was most severely
censured for going to sleep over the affairs of the Society—the Society
forgetting that it must be its own fault if it sends people to sleep over its
proceedings. We trust that if the Antiquaries cannot any longer hold
together, they will at least die with decency, and not disgrace the scientific
world with squabbles of the most frightful character.
DEFICIENCY OF THE SPANISH.
The Spanish Minister of Finance has been dismissed for embezzling s
large sum of the public money. Dismissed \ and by his own colleaguee I
Why we have always been told there was 44 Honour among Thieves ! "