Punch (14.1848)

52

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE GREAT CLOCK MOVEMENT.

Greenwich Clod; loq. " Comf, no 6toppinc—you must move on."

There has lately been an attempt to heal the melancholy differences
existing in the Clock family; and their respectable head at Greenwich
has been pointed out to them as a proper example for them all to be
guided by. We regret exceedingly that the Clocks of England cannot
he made to act all alike, but that, in the eagerness of some to advance
themselves, while others hang back, there should be a disagreement of
the most serious character amongst them. In fact, it has almost
become proverbial that scarcely two are of the same mind, and quot
horlogia tot tempora will soon be as well established a proverb as quot
homines tot sententice.

We wish the disputatious Clocks, who contradict each other so con-
tinually, would recollect and profit by the affecting lines of old Doctor
Watts-his-name, who tells children—and why not Clocks r—that
"their little hands were never made" for hostile purposes. We
really do not know what to propose with the view of establishing
harmony amongst the Clock fraternity. It is said that all the Clocks
in England are to be corrected until they conform to the rules observed
by that most respectable of all Clocks, who lives in his snug little box
at Greenwich; but this wholesale scheme of correction seems to us
very difficult of accomplishment. We presume that refractory Clocks
found keeping irregular hours, will, after this notice, be sent to the
House of Correction in their respective neighbourhoods. We are unabie
to guess the cause of this very distressing state of things among the
Clock tribes, which are enough to drive Old Time out of mind ; but if
we may hazard an opinion, we should be inclined to say that the wheels
within wheels, which complicate the arrangements of all the Clock
family, may have something to do with their unhappy divisions.

Contrary Winds.

The boy—or Professor, as he calls himself—who blows the organ at
St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook, has announced his intention of dis-
continuing that healthy weekly exercise, unless his salary is regularly
paid. To use the Professor's own emphatic words, he says " he's blowed
if he blows any longer for nuffin at all." There is a complete panic in
the loft in consequence. The organ has been sounded by the vestry,
who have been endeavouring to play upon it for their own purposes ;
but it is evident it will not be a tool, much less an instrument, in their
hands. It remains passive under every blow, and will certainly go
altogether, if there is no one qualified to stop it. The bellows luckily
are quiet.

false reports.

It is not true that Abd-el-Kader is engaged by Mr. Webster, at
the Haymarket, to enact the part of the Invisible Prince, a character he
sustained for so long a time on the stage of French politics.

M. Jullien, the present lessee of Drury Lane, who has gone away to
the North to give promenade concerts, is not the celebrated Julian the
Apostate spoken of in Roman History.

The Mr. Brooke now acting at the Olympic is not the Rajah of
Sarawak.

A Queer File.

We are continually seeing advertisements for complete sets of old
newspapers, and we believe large sums are frequently given for a perfect
file of an established paper. Now there is a better plan than this for
securing an old newspaper. A person has only to subscribe to a journal

for a twelvemonth, and the Post-Office will take very good care
that, before the papers reach him, they shall be as old, and as far
removed from their original date, as the most greedy antiquarian could
wish. There is only one drawback upon this excellent plan, and that
is, the papers sometimes never reach the subscriber at all. But this is
an accident that will occur, of course, in the worst-regulated Post-
Offices.

A TREASURE-TROVE EOR NEWSPAPERS.

Of all the wonders in Natural History that generally take the run
of the newspapers during the closing of Parliament, we wonder that
no provincial Herald, or uncivilised Chronicle, in the dangerous soli-
tudes of Ireland, has yet recorded the extraordinary virtues of the
Gutta Pcrcha Tree. This is an oversight, which has only to be pointed
out, we are sure, to be instantly followed up by a whole Bushy Forest
of similar miracles. We make the country press a present of the
following paragraph, on condition of their inserting in their paper the
' name of their generous donor. If we do a charity, we like, at least,
to have it acknowledged—or else, where is the use of doing it ?

Arbor Gutta Percha.—A Genuine Boot-Tree.

" An Astonishing Fact for Naturalists.—A gentleman who is
strongly imbued with the spirit of experiments—having devoted ten
years of his life to the trial whether it is not possible to pickle herrings
alive—has just succeeded in introducing into this country the Gutta
Percha Tree. He bought a double sole of this ' strange but true'
material, and planted it in his little garden, in front of his humble
abode in the New Road. What was his astonishment, a few weeks
afterwards, to see a Boot-Tree gradually rise out of the fertile soil,
and bud with a perfect pair of little children's shoes ! These blossomed
slowly, and at last bore a most lovely pair of ' strong gent's highlows,'
worth at least 5*. Qd. He naturally cultivated such a valuable branch
of Horticulture, and, after watering it daily with a few drops of
Warren's Blacking, and grafting it with a few slips of French leather,
he has achieved a triumph which promises fairly to shut up all the
shoemakers' shops, and turn all the cobblers of the kingdom into
gardeners.

" This Gutta Percha Tree is at present in full fruit, and presents
every specimen of boot, with the exception of the Hessian, which the
gentleman (we have his card, so there can be no doubt as to the truth
of his statement) says he finds it impossible to rear, probably on ac-
count of the difficulty of the tassel. We are at present wearing a pair
of Wellingtons gathered from this wonderful Tree, and if we had been
measured for them, thev could not fit more nicely. Another peculiarity
is, that this Tree bears boots ' of all sizes,5 frorn the infant in arms to
the father of a family. Every gentleman gifted with a numerous progeny
should grow his own Boot-Tree. A specimen has been forwarded to
Prince Albert."—The United Market-Gardeners' Independent Ham-
mersmith Register.