158

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

most placid, polite, and genteel of Snobs, who never
exceeded his allowance of two hundred a-year, and who
may be seen any evening at the Oxford and Cambridge
Club, simpering over the Quarterly Renew, in the blameless
■enjoyment of his half-pint of Port.

Newcastle 5>cf)olarj3f)tp.

The papers of the past week tell us that" the Examina-
tions for the Newcastle Scholarship" have terminated;
but they failed to supply us with the questions put upon
the interesting occasion. We are, however, enabled to
give a few ; for the agents of Punch—like the spies of
Nicholas—are everywhere ; albeit, it is hoped, with a
-different purpose.

Q. What is your opinion of the Maynooth Grant ?

A. My firm and inextinguishable opinion is, that to the
Maynooth Grant we owe the blight on potatoes.

Q. Define the Anti-Corn Law League.

A. The Anti-Corn Law League has Satan for its head,
-and a Republican for its tail.

Q. What will be the result of the admission of foreign
corn into England ?

A. Popery, of course : it will be grown in the wheat.
Corn coming from Catholic countries must necessarily
destroy the Established Church ; as foreign cattle have
brought measles upon tithe-pigs.

Q. What is your opinion of the Condition of England
question ?

A. My opinion of England—leaving out the question—is
this : That having grown out of her glorious institutions,
■she is fast approaching destruction. I look upon the
alarming increase of comets as nothing more than a prepa-
ration to burn the country out of the globe.

Q. What value do you attach to the splendid crucifix
■sent by the Pope to Mr. Newman ?

A. Not being a pawnbroker, I can't say.

A NEWGATE EXAMPLE.

"M_b. PCNCH,

"I am a very plain man ; even my wife allows
that ; and therefore I want to say a fi-w plain words. I
have to object to an expression used by the Times' gentle-
man that wrote the account of the hanging of Wix. He
says of him, ' He bowed to the spectators twice, a proceed-
ing which called forth a tremendous cheer from the
degraded crowd beneath' Now, sir, I did not cheer ; but
I was of the crowd. Am I therefore to think myself
degraded ?' Quite the contrary. I went to Newgate to
oe taught morals. I'd heard that Mr. Davis, the Newgate
ordinary, had preached that hanging did good by the way
of an example ; and not thinking myself a bit better than
my neighbours, I certainly did go to the Old Bailey, as (I
may say) I'd go to church, to be instructed. Indeed, I had
some thoughts of taking my wife and two little boys with
me ; for, if a moral example is really taught by the hang-
man, I do think that (if it could be done) there ought
to be accommodation made for all the schools in and near
London. For, if hanging does no good to the living, where-
fore hang ? If it does good, why am I to be called ' de-
graded ' for going to see it ? Just tell me that ; while I
remain

" Your obedient Servant,

" One of the Crowd."

" P. S. A good many people certainly did cheer ; but
some were quite silent—picking pockets."

WOOLMER v. TOBY.

THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND COMPLETION OF THE

NELSON COLUMN.

The number three has ever been considered to exercise some mysterious influence
over human destiny. The average life of man is threescore years (and ten): he passes
through the three stages, of growth, maturity, and decay ; he is influenced by
three things, pounds, shillings, and pence, and is ruled by three powers, the Sove-
reign, the Lords, and the Commons. It i3, therefore, in wonderful analogy with the
ordinary course of human nature, that the Nelson Column has at length been
marked by three epochs—First, its wondrous rise ; secondly, its miraculously slow
progress; and thirdly, its still more marvellous completion. It is now some very
long number of years ago that a man, in the vigour of maturity, attended by a

the rise.

boy of tender age, first placed on the area of Trafalgar Square the hod and the
troAveL the spade and the buckets of industry. How proudly and energetically did
that man advance to the commencement of the great national work, and how fresh
were the words of encouragement spoken to that stripling, who was entering for
the first time on a career of labour ! Determination flashed from the half-winking
eye of the then vigorous man, while hope, not untinctured with fear, earnestness,
which time had not yet hardened into habitual anxiety, played over the features
and gave activity to the gait of that juvenile labourer.

But we must leave the fresh and balmy atmosphere of hope for the denser air of
its merely partial fulfilment. We must leave the Nelson Column as it seemed to
promise in the first moment of its rise, and look upon the darker picture of its
tardy progress.

Years had rolled on since that day of high anticipations and ardent aspirations
we have already described, when two forms were seen seated vis a-vis across the first
stone of a broad-based column. The foaming porter-pot placed between the
figures bespoke rather festivity than labour, while a pipe in either mouth enve-
loped the couple ever and anon in the somniferous fumes of that weed that has
twined itself inseparably in the laurel that adorns the brow of Raleigh.

We beg leave to state most emphatically that the De-
fendant in this action is not the celebrated dog Toby, of1 '' " '
Pvjnch. Our Toby is no relative whatever of the unfor - j the progress.
tunate Toby who has been so severely tickled by the ver-1

diet in the recent railway triaL Punch's Toby is not a Stag, 1 The figures are those of a man and a boy ; but a man reckless from sheer laziness,
but an exceedingly lucky dog, who never was bitten by , and a boy with nothing of boyhood left but its brass and its lead—its impudence
the railway mania. j and its indolence.