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Punch — 10.1846

DOI Heft:
January to June, 1846
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16542#0147
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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 139

those verbal transmogrifications in which the antiquarians delight ;
and the valet was so called because he got value—vulgarly called
vally—for his services. These definitions may be rather vague, but
they are at all events quite as near the mark as those we find in autho-
rities of higher pretension. The feudal system reached its maturity
at the time of the Norman Conquest, when the whole kingdom
became a fief, or perhaps we should rather say a fife, that was played
upon to a pretty tune by the Conqueror.

Field Marshal. A very high military dignity, conferred on
commanders of armies distinguished for their valour or ability. Prince
Albert is a Field Marshal, and so is the Duke of "Wellington.
His Royal Highness has not commanded an army, but he has shown
his military talent by the invention of a hat, and his courage by
having not shrunk from avowing himself as the author of it. There
are only six British Field Marshals, three of whom are foreign sove-
reigns—namely, the Kings of Holland, Hanover, and Belgium. The
only English representative of the highest military achievement be-
sides the Duke of Wellington, is His Royal Highness of Cam-
bridge, who has led thousands to the full charge, on many occasions,
when calling on the company of which he has been at the head to
charge—their glasses at the public dinner table.

Forest Laws. " These laws are so old, that we do not know the
beginning of them," says Coke ; but we are happy to say that we have
pretty well seen the end of them. By the old Forest Laws, the deer
was held dearer than man ; for it was more penal to kill the former
than the latter. If the Forest Laws were now in force, they might
afford some protection to the numerous old bucks who, in the capacity
of railway directors' stags, have got themselves entangled in sundry
very disagreeable branches.

PUNCH'S REVIEW.

Railway Correspondence of a Stag, being a series of Letters addressed to
an Allottee in numerous Railroads during the years 1845 and 1846.
London . 4to, pp. 9086.

I his extremely voluminous correspond-
ence—if that, indeed, can be called a
correspondence, which was nearly all
on one side—is a portion of the great
result of the railway bubble mania
of 1845, when every shop-boy dealt in
scrip, and paupers were undertaking
to provide millions for the construction
of lines from every corner of the
earth to every habitable hole on the
face of it. The reader must not expect
in this series of letters to find all the
point which Horace threw into his
epistles , he must not look for all the
elegance of a Chesterfield, all the chaste correctness of a Mrs.
Chapone, nor all the sensibility of a Madame de Sevigne ; but a
fair sprinkling of these qualities combined, a sort of pot pourri of
every epistolary style may be fairly promised to any one who will
examine the correspondence of our Stag in a spirit of candour and
tolerance.

It has been feelingly said by some anonymous sophist, whose name
we have been unable to catch, that mere correspondence could never
lead to familiarity ; but this position we are prepared to deny, after
having perused the growing freedom towards our Stag, which gradu-
ally arose out of a succession of letters from the same quarter having
been addressed to him. Let us take the first letter from the Falmouth
and Fulham Junction Railway, with branches to Turnham Green and
Tadcaster, with ultimate extension to Shepherd's Bush and Shrewsbury.
What can be more stiff, formal, and even unfriendly than the tone of
the letter of allotment, written in the moment of pride, pomp, and dig-
nity, when the bubble, blown out to its fullest extent, reflected the
brilliant but evanescent glories of a thousand prismatic premiums ?
What can be more cold and haughty than the following passage,
which, in its stiff classicality, brings back the days of Plautus, or
reminds us of the almost insulting preciseness of Pliny, when address-
ing to his friend the memorable words—" I have sent the book, accord-
ing to your command. I should have sent it if you had not commanded
me." But no less rude and unattractive is the observation in the letter
of the J. T. T. S. and S. Railway Committee to our Stag, on his first
being favoured with a communication from that very remarkable
company. " The deposit must be paid on or before Saturday next, or
the allotment will be absolutely void, and the shares disposed of to
other applicants." What! not a single day's grace ? No 1 not an
hour. The haughty provisional directors of the J. T. T., &c, &c, must
have the deposits instantly paid, as the condition of their graciously

allotting some ten out of a hundred shares applied for by those
nimium fortunati, the Stags, whose requests have been partially
attended to.

But soon a less rigid tone is adopted towards the cervine applicant.
The bubble has in the mean time burst, the deposit is not paid, and
the Stag, who is not particularly anxious to connect Shrewsbury with
Shepherd's Bush, or facilitate the communication between Tadcaster
and Turnham Green, gives himself no more trouble about the scheme,
for the success of which he had been formerly solicitous. This brings
us to a new phase in the correspondence, for the panic has begun to
take the starch out of the provisional committee-men, who had formerly
been as full of that material as the potato itself, and there is every
symptom of the bursting of the bubble being likely debeUare superbos
to a degree that is really wonderful. Our Stag's correspondence now
contains a letter jogging his memory upon his having omitted to pay
his deposit, and kindly intimating that the time has been extended for
his doing so. Here we get a little of the admonitory style of Chapone,
which is followed in the next epistle by a fine specimen of politeness,
reminding us of some of the most polite and courteous passages of
Chesterfield. The stag is now "requested " to pay the deposit to a
banker, within a certain period, and confidence is usually expressed in
his feeling himself bound in honour to complete his part of the implied
contract between himself and the provisional committee-men. It is now,
for the first time, that our Stag, touched no doubt by this appeal to his
better attributes, at length sends a written reply, in which honour
and conciseness are conspicuous. As it is the first letter of the series
from the Stag's own pen, we give it entire.

" Gentlemen,

" I wish you may get it. " Yours," &c.

There is evidently a struggle between benevolence and beneficence
on the part of the writer. He wishes the provisional committee may
get the deposit, but he does nothing to put them in possession of it.

Pursuing the correspondence on this subject, we find the amiable
wish of the Stag by no means taken in the same spirit that dictated it.
The reply to his cornmunication shows a relapse on the part of the
company into the original state of stiffness in which they were when
they first addressed the Stag when allotting him some shares as a
special act of favour. To the early hauteur, however, is now added a
decided menace, with which, however, an almost latent humour is
interwoven ; for, after a threat of proceedings, he is comically required
to furnish the name of his solicitor, with a view to the commencement
of a suit in equity. There is something provokingly piquant in a
provisional committee of a bubble railway talking about equity in
connection with their project. Law might have been hinted at without
exciting any very violent notion of fun ; but a railway committee
talking about equity, creates an incongruity of the most ludicrous
character.

We must now close these entertaining letters, which we do with the
following analysis of their general contents, gathered from some five
hundred epistles written by the secretaries of about three hundred
different railways. Confidence in the Stag's honour seemed to have
existed in the proportion of about one per cent.; appeals to his
generosity were very nearly four-tenths of the whole ; threats
constituted one-sixth ; and the rest of the letters may be classed under
the head of miscellaneous, in which bullying, however, seems to pre-
ponderate. It might be interesting to carry still further the investi-
gation into this remarkable phase of our history. We might ascertain
how many of the stag-population responded to the claims on their
honour ; how many were assailable through their fears ; and how many
found in their sleeves a receptacle for that laughter in which they
could not openly indulge themselves. We fear the number of the
latter would far exceed that of all the other classes together.

PREPARATIONS AT THE ADMIRALTY.

Lord Ellenborough, in his capacity of First Lord of the Admi-
ralty, has sent round a general order to all the metropolitan rag and
bottle shops, desiring them to keep up their complement of marine
stores to the very highest point that circumstances will admit of.

His Lordship has also caused instructions to be forwarded to all the
principal London bakers to keep a quantity of captain's biscuits always
in readiness.

Relieving Guard.

Forty peasants have recently ascended the highest Pyramid This
act of fortitude must have been for the charitable purpose of relieving
the " forty sentries " who, according to Napoleon, have been looking
down for ages from the top of the Pyramids.

The Smoke Nuisance.—If the House of Commons were compelled,
like other buildings, to consume its own smoke, we should not have a
single act of Parliament.
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Doyle, Richard
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um 1846
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1841 - 1851

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Punch, 10.1846, January to June, 1846, S. 139

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