DOI Heft:
July to December, 1847
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16545#0091
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
79
A SPORTING NATION.
We are decidedly a
sporting nation, for
when we cannot
^ enjoy the sport we
wear the costume
appropriate thereto,
as the boy stood over
- 1 lie cook's-shop win-
dow to inhale the
steam whemhe could not afford to pay for 1 he dinner. Every tailor in
the Strand has in his window, or at his door, a quantity of " Gent's
Shooting-coats," from Ss. Qd., and nearly every attorney's clerk in
London wears one of those shooting-coats, though he never handled
a gun in his life, or ever was further from London than Greenwich.
To see the number of fishing-jackets exposed for sale near Chancery
Lane, one would imagine that there was a trout stream in the vicinity
of the Judges' Chambers, or that there was capital angling at the
back of the masters' offices. The demand for shooting-coats in the
Temple must be extensive indeed, if we are to judge by the supply;
and we sometimes think that the barristers are under the delusion
that the famous hare which gives its name to Hare Court may be
still lurking about the legal precincts. We should be glad to know
where some of the game is to be found, whose abundance is made
manifest by the tremendous sale of sporting costume that appears to
take place in the Temple, Chancery Lane, and parts adjacent. Enter
whatever chambers you may, you will ten to one find the learned occu-
pant in a shooting, fishing, or hunting-jacket. We recommend the
establishment of a meet in Pump Court; or perhaps some spirited
Queen's Counsel will either start a pack of Paper Buildings' hounds, or
get up a few Fig-tree beagles. A'Ib. Briefless will, we are sure,
officiate as whipper-in, if properly solicited.
MUSICAL NOVELTY.
The spread of music in the metropolitan thoroughfares has become
so general, that a company is, we believe, on the point of formation,
with the view of affording a regular supply of harmony to all the
streets, squares, and crescents, in London and the suburbs.
The company is to start with a capital of one thousand organs ; so
that the organisation will be at once tolerably complete; and there
will be a reserve fund of five hundred guitars, which will be available
for special purposes. The shares may be paid for cither in money or
instruments—not legal instrun ents, such as bills, which suggest only
promissory notes—but instrun en1s of a metallic currency, such as
Irombones, French horns, trumpets, and cymbals, which are in fact
symbolical of harmonv. Any peison may pay his deposit either in gold,
silver, or brass, and ihe contributor of two cornets a piston will stand in
the same position as a subscriber of one sovereign.
The source from which the shareholders will derive Iheir profit will be
a rate levied on all householders, in the style of the paving, lighting, or
police rate; and in consideration of this payment every inhabitant will
have a supply of music regularly laid on, before his door, either once,
twice, or thrice a week, according to the wealth and respectability of
the neighbourhood. A numerous s'aff of itinerant musicians will be
employed, and will be taken on duty to their respective districts by a
regular superintendent, from a sort of central barrack in the neighbour-
hood. Every square of consequence will be entitled to a troubadour,
on alternate evenings with the nearest crescent, and by an arrangement
with the Company, on payment of an increased rate, two troubadours,
or double service, may be laid on during the height of the season.
By private agreement a troubadour can be introduced on to the
premises, for a lim'ted period, once in each week ; but, for this, the
charge will, of course, be proportionate. In the more humble neigh-
bourhoods it is proposed that a lower class of Professors shall do the
musical duty; and for this purpose the staff of itinerant organists must
be exceedingly large, as the demand is very extensive in the less
wealthy localities.
Arrangements have already been made to adapt "Marble Halls" to
one hundred instruments, so that the inmates of two, three, or even
four-pair backs or fronts, may have an opportunity of at once dreaming
that they "dwell in marble halls," and are loved "all the same," not-
withstanding the dinginess of their apartments, and the diminutiveness
of their incomes. Should the scheme succeed, as far as we are justified
in announcing it at present, a vocal concert will be added for laying on
a continued series of popular songs throughout the entire metropolis.
The Poet of Cremorne will be placed at the head of the lyrical depart-
ment, vice Bunn extinguished.
THE FATALITY OF FAGGING.
Tt is all very well to talk of our bloodless revolutions; but the truth
is.that 1 hoy arc not bloodless. We never think about reforming any of our
glorious institutions till they have killed somebody, and never actually
reform them till they have killed several people. We are just beginning
to abuse our Smithfield and our sewerage, and when they shall have
occasioned a sufficiency of deaths, we shall perhaps rectify the one and
remove the other. It is rumoured that a boy has nearly lost his life in
consequence cf having Von over-fagged at Winchester College; and
should a large number of young gentlemen in a short time be actually
lagged to dealh, the system of fagging at public schools may be
abolished. But first, we must have an abundance of inouests. Masters
who deny the possibility of pulting down fagging, will discover it by
the help of coroners' juries.
Fagging, in ihe meantime, as well as Smithfield and the sinks, has its
apologists. The alleged recurrence at Winchester College has brought
Dr. Moheely, Head Master of the School, into the lists; that is to
say, into the columns of the Times, to break a pen with "ILumanitas
et Veritas." The Doctor, however, has not only broken a pen, but
various rules of logic—the her.d of Aristotle, if not that of Priscian.
One of his arguments in defence of fagging is thus stated :—
" Where a large number of boy?, from 10 to 18 years old, are assembled together, there
is, independently of all institutions, a great danger that strength will often overrule ax.d
tyrannise over weakness."
The wrong, then, according to Dp. Moberly, that cannot be pre-
vented, should be legalised. Let us give his argument a corollary :—
" Where a large number of people, from years of discretion upwards, coexist, there is,
independently of all institutions, great danger that ruffianism ai.d dishonesty will c< m-
mit outrages and crimes."
Murder and theft, are inevitable; therefore allow assault, battery,
and swindling. " What can't be cured," sajs the proverb, "must be
endured." Dr. Mobeely goes beyond the adage; his maxim is, that
wliat can't be checked should, to a cerlain extent, be encouraged.
With ihese remarks we dismiss, for the present, the subject of
fagging ; a practice of which, we hope, we have arrived at the fag-end
a site to make angels weep.
Trafalgar Square, which could boast, some five years ago, of having
"the finest site in Europe," is so ashamed now of haying its site
disfigured, and being a public eyesore, that it intends to petition Parlia-
ment to put it out of its misery at once, and to make it a blind alley.
79
A SPORTING NATION.
We are decidedly a
sporting nation, for
when we cannot
^ enjoy the sport we
wear the costume
appropriate thereto,
as the boy stood over
- 1 lie cook's-shop win-
dow to inhale the
steam whemhe could not afford to pay for 1 he dinner. Every tailor in
the Strand has in his window, or at his door, a quantity of " Gent's
Shooting-coats," from Ss. Qd., and nearly every attorney's clerk in
London wears one of those shooting-coats, though he never handled
a gun in his life, or ever was further from London than Greenwich.
To see the number of fishing-jackets exposed for sale near Chancery
Lane, one would imagine that there was a trout stream in the vicinity
of the Judges' Chambers, or that there was capital angling at the
back of the masters' offices. The demand for shooting-coats in the
Temple must be extensive indeed, if we are to judge by the supply;
and we sometimes think that the barristers are under the delusion
that the famous hare which gives its name to Hare Court may be
still lurking about the legal precincts. We should be glad to know
where some of the game is to be found, whose abundance is made
manifest by the tremendous sale of sporting costume that appears to
take place in the Temple, Chancery Lane, and parts adjacent. Enter
whatever chambers you may, you will ten to one find the learned occu-
pant in a shooting, fishing, or hunting-jacket. We recommend the
establishment of a meet in Pump Court; or perhaps some spirited
Queen's Counsel will either start a pack of Paper Buildings' hounds, or
get up a few Fig-tree beagles. A'Ib. Briefless will, we are sure,
officiate as whipper-in, if properly solicited.
MUSICAL NOVELTY.
The spread of music in the metropolitan thoroughfares has become
so general, that a company is, we believe, on the point of formation,
with the view of affording a regular supply of harmony to all the
streets, squares, and crescents, in London and the suburbs.
The company is to start with a capital of one thousand organs ; so
that the organisation will be at once tolerably complete; and there
will be a reserve fund of five hundred guitars, which will be available
for special purposes. The shares may be paid for cither in money or
instruments—not legal instrun ents, such as bills, which suggest only
promissory notes—but instrun en1s of a metallic currency, such as
Irombones, French horns, trumpets, and cymbals, which are in fact
symbolical of harmonv. Any peison may pay his deposit either in gold,
silver, or brass, and ihe contributor of two cornets a piston will stand in
the same position as a subscriber of one sovereign.
The source from which the shareholders will derive Iheir profit will be
a rate levied on all householders, in the style of the paving, lighting, or
police rate; and in consideration of this payment every inhabitant will
have a supply of music regularly laid on, before his door, either once,
twice, or thrice a week, according to the wealth and respectability of
the neighbourhood. A numerous s'aff of itinerant musicians will be
employed, and will be taken on duty to their respective districts by a
regular superintendent, from a sort of central barrack in the neighbour-
hood. Every square of consequence will be entitled to a troubadour,
on alternate evenings with the nearest crescent, and by an arrangement
with the Company, on payment of an increased rate, two troubadours,
or double service, may be laid on during the height of the season.
By private agreement a troubadour can be introduced on to the
premises, for a lim'ted period, once in each week ; but, for this, the
charge will, of course, be proportionate. In the more humble neigh-
bourhoods it is proposed that a lower class of Professors shall do the
musical duty; and for this purpose the staff of itinerant organists must
be exceedingly large, as the demand is very extensive in the less
wealthy localities.
Arrangements have already been made to adapt "Marble Halls" to
one hundred instruments, so that the inmates of two, three, or even
four-pair backs or fronts, may have an opportunity of at once dreaming
that they "dwell in marble halls," and are loved "all the same," not-
withstanding the dinginess of their apartments, and the diminutiveness
of their incomes. Should the scheme succeed, as far as we are justified
in announcing it at present, a vocal concert will be added for laying on
a continued series of popular songs throughout the entire metropolis.
The Poet of Cremorne will be placed at the head of the lyrical depart-
ment, vice Bunn extinguished.
THE FATALITY OF FAGGING.
Tt is all very well to talk of our bloodless revolutions; but the truth
is.that 1 hoy arc not bloodless. We never think about reforming any of our
glorious institutions till they have killed somebody, and never actually
reform them till they have killed several people. We are just beginning
to abuse our Smithfield and our sewerage, and when they shall have
occasioned a sufficiency of deaths, we shall perhaps rectify the one and
remove the other. It is rumoured that a boy has nearly lost his life in
consequence cf having Von over-fagged at Winchester College; and
should a large number of young gentlemen in a short time be actually
lagged to dealh, the system of fagging at public schools may be
abolished. But first, we must have an abundance of inouests. Masters
who deny the possibility of pulting down fagging, will discover it by
the help of coroners' juries.
Fagging, in ihe meantime, as well as Smithfield and the sinks, has its
apologists. The alleged recurrence at Winchester College has brought
Dr. Moheely, Head Master of the School, into the lists; that is to
say, into the columns of the Times, to break a pen with "ILumanitas
et Veritas." The Doctor, however, has not only broken a pen, but
various rules of logic—the her.d of Aristotle, if not that of Priscian.
One of his arguments in defence of fagging is thus stated :—
" Where a large number of boy?, from 10 to 18 years old, are assembled together, there
is, independently of all institutions, a great danger that strength will often overrule ax.d
tyrannise over weakness."
The wrong, then, according to Dp. Moberly, that cannot be pre-
vented, should be legalised. Let us give his argument a corollary :—
" Where a large number of people, from years of discretion upwards, coexist, there is,
independently of all institutions, great danger that ruffianism ai.d dishonesty will c< m-
mit outrages and crimes."
Murder and theft, are inevitable; therefore allow assault, battery,
and swindling. " What can't be cured," sajs the proverb, "must be
endured." Dr. Mobeely goes beyond the adage; his maxim is, that
wliat can't be checked should, to a cerlain extent, be encouraged.
With ihese remarks we dismiss, for the present, the subject of
fagging ; a practice of which, we hope, we have arrived at the fag-end
a site to make angels weep.
Trafalgar Square, which could boast, some five years ago, of having
"the finest site in Europe," is so ashamed now of haying its site
disfigured, and being a public eyesore, that it intends to petition Parlia-
ment to put it out of its misery at once, and to make it a blind alley.