Punch (10.1846)

1^6 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

FANCY DRESS BALL.

86th there are plenty of good soldiers—as good and hetter soldiers
than he is ; but," he adds—

" There are in every regiment a set of infernal villains, who break out when war is
declared, and commit every atrocity. Now, soldiers, from the moment war is declared, I
cast mercy away for all delinquents. Before God, in whose presence we all are, I here
tell you that I will not spare one of these men whom I catch destroying discipline and
the honour and glory of our arms; I will pursue them unrelentingly, and will destroy
their lives without mercy: they shall show, by their bloody hacks, that they cannot
escape."

Now Mars himself, after six lessons from Mercury, would scarcely
be a greater dab at gory periods, saniem eructans, than the eloquent
Sir Charles. He continues .—

" / am ready to march into the heart of Central Asia at your head ; but I 7ri.i1 inarch
at the head of glorious ', honourable, good, and moral men. 1 will not march at the
head of a mob."

"I am ready," said Alexander the Great; "to conquer the
world ; to slay any number of thousands,—to beat down cities,—to
carry fire and slaughter all over the earth,—but if any petty; ped-
dling, sneak-up scoundrel of a private soldier, putting aside his con-
science, should be found with a prigged turkey or a stolen goose, why
—as sure as my name is Alexander—that atrocious villain shall have
his head sliced from his shoulders as it were a turnip." Thus on a
certain occasion spoke Alexander, whereupon the just gods—
though Plutarch says nothing of the matter—" laughed consum-
edly." But we must leave Alexander the Great for Ciiari.es the
Terrible. With a tremendous burst of indignation against the small
robbers that infest even the most moral of armies, he cries :—

" Where you see one of these ruffians disgracing the cloth, seize him by the neck, and
bring him to your officer at once."

When the varlets are taken, then they shall see what they shall see :

" I have eot two, and there are four more; I know them, and here tell them I will
have them yet, and when I get them they shall hang on the nearest tree 1 come to, and
if no tree is in sight I will shoot them on the spot—ay, if need be, even with my own hand."

The high rank of the executioner would, no doubt, mightily sweeten

— ~~~ -——~^=-=^=----the fate of the executed.

This address, however, should be well considered by those persons
AFTER-THOUGHT. " about to enlist. They should thereupon commune with themselves;

i they should make an inward inquiry, whether they are fit to become
Ah, God ! the petty fools of rhyme. units of a "glorious, honourable, good, and mora! army." (The mora-

That shriek and sweat in pigmy war- litv of recruiting-serjeants is, by the way, proverbial.) They must

Before the stony face of Time, j searcn their souls ; and finding the slightest flaw—the smallest speck

"Sir!—Please Mr!—Sir! You've forgot the Door-Key!"

—in their divine parts, they must immediately believe themselves un-
worthy of pipeclay ; and instead of becoming good, moral, and reli-
gious consumers of bullets and gunpowder, they must be content to
dig the soil, or to work at any handicraft. In future, the recruiting-
serjeants ought to wear ribands of unmixed virgin-white ; significant
that none but the very purest will be thought worthy of the man-
purchasing shilling.

And look'd at by the silent stars

That hate each other for a sons.

And do their little best to bite,
That pinch their brothers in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite ,—

And strain to make an inch of room

For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom

On them and theirs, and all things here

When one small touch of Charity THE BATTLE OF THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Could lift them nearer Godlike State,
Than if the crowded Orb should cry Considerable consternation was excited at the Nelson Column on

Thursday the 28th of February, by an attempted invasion of St. James's
Park. A desperate gang of barbarians, carrying wooden benches, had
collected in large numbers for the purpose of entering the Park,_plant-
ing their forms along the road, and remaining as squatters while the
carriages were passing with the company to and from Her Majesty's
Drawing-room. Fortunately, a strong body of police happened to be
, in attendance at the Column, and resisted the efforts of the invaders.
At one time K 25 had his flank turned by an approach of the foe, with
their benches, full charge ; but by the bravery of Private Jones, of
the 3rd Foot Guards, who happened to be on duty, the invaders were
repulsed, after having been severely routed with the butt-end of the
! musket. We regret to say that the local Guards entrusted with the
Sir Charles Napier, of the Indian army, is, it is allowed, ^ charge of the fortress beneath the Column were seized, at the very
bra ve as his sword." But his courage cannot, we think, exceed his ! 0UtSet of the engagement, with a panic, which kept them

Like those that cried Diana great

And / too talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,

The noblest answer unto such

Is kindly silence when they brawl.

Alcibiades.

THE SCHOOLMASTER IN REGIMENTALS

eloquence. His address to the troops in garrison, as printed in the
Kurrachee Advertiser of December 31, is quite a companion-speech to the
oration of Napoleon, in which his troops were requested to particularly
remember that " forty centuries were looking down upon them from the
Pyramids ; " one of those very fine things that the world has consented
to receive as fine, without troubling itself to analyse their meaning.
Wherefore the French troops should be inspired by the ghost of the
legendary Cheops, and the ghosts succeeding him, is a part of the vast
ignorance we shall carry to the grave. But to return to the Indian
Napier—to consider the affectionate terms in which he addresses his
children of the sabre, lance, and bayonet. He shows himself quite a
schoolmaster of glory, and when in wrath wields the laurel bough as
though it were the birch. He starts with a declaration that in " the

skulking behind the base of the structure from the begin-
ning to the end of the battle. Nothing could exceed the
gallantry of Private Jones, who executed his different
manoeuvres with a mixture of good humour and firmness
that was truly laudable. K 25 seemed to carry out the orders
of his superiors in sorrow rather than in anger, and the
man of the world seemed to be struggling with the police-
man under the cape which covered his bosom. The enemy
ultimately retired across the road with their benches, and
having sat down upon them for a short time, firing a few
verbal squibs at the soldiery, made a precipitate retreat
towards Storey's Gate. Here another unsuccessful attempt was made
to force the Park lines, which having entirely failed, they repaired to
their respective fastnesses.