Punch: Punch (15.1848)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

149

LIBERTY'S VISION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON'S ENTRY INTO PARIS.

Deep in her cell sick Liberty heard a hurry and a hum,
And she lifted up her aching head, and wondered who might come :
" Though little matters it to me," quoth she, as she turned round,
And felt, amazed, her lips were gagged, and hard her wrists were bound.

Then wearily her fettered hands she press'd across her brow:
" Have I been drunk, or dreaming? Am I mad or sober now ?
What memory is this I have of struggle, shot, and shout,
Of King Mob sea-like sweeping in, and King Louis slinking out ?

Could that be me, red flag in hand, astride a barricade ?

Wast't my voice, that club-clamour, that made the world afraid ?

Is this I, in a strait waistcoat, to a prLon-pallet shrunk—

Eh ? What ? How P Why P I really must have been extremely drunk.

I suppose some good souls caged me here to keep me out of harm—
Well—if ever I—" but here again broke in that strange alarm ;
And Liberty, to listen at the grate her ear inclined,
And the far-off whisper of a name came to her on the wind.

What was there in that name that made her, all her chain's length, start ?
What was there in that name that drove the blood back on her heart ?
That struck her, faint and shivering, with clasped hand and failing knee—
" Oh, not like him—oh, not like him may his Nephew prove to be !

Still I feel his scourge upon my back, his brand upon my brow ;
Thro' Russia's snows or Egypt's sands I do his will e'en now.
Once more before his slavish work I seem to hold a blind,
Again light up false beacons for that wrecker of mankind.

I have had grinding masters, but none that ground like him ;
Tyrants have baited me for sport, and whipped me for a whim—
Fools have held dominion o'er me—of slaves I've been the slave—
And lightly went I to the block, and as lightly left my grave.

But could Death have pass'd upon me for ever and a day,
Ne'er had I risen from the tomb where he my bones did lay,

Piling a-top, from spoil of war, a towering trophied mass,

Which, like his power, was based in clay, altho' its head was brass "

So speaking, Lady Liberty had dragged her to the grate,
And there she saw the Nephew ride by in solemn state ;
The crowd to gaze upon him, no martial music drew,
Unless 'twere the small trumpet that for himself he blew.

He comes !—" The same ! " cries Liberty—" The very same—'tis flat—
Eagle! jack-boots!! well-known grey coat!!! and better known

cocked hat! !! !
Alas ! alas ! But, as the form more narrowly 1 scan—
Hat, coat, and boots—I see them all—but where, then, is the Man ? "

Showering its tinsel crosses, the phantom moves along,
While to the shadow of a shade low lout the applauding throng ;
With hiss and bray, in Freedom's name those chariot-wheels they grace,
Where Freedom, erst a captive, walked with bowed and burning face.

Poor Liberty, lugged from her cell, must stand without demur,
To see, borne b , a hideous Guy, which men adore for her,
Crowned »irh her cap, and carried (scarce the gag her groan c«n smother)
By a litterateur at one end, and a soldier at the other.

And still as moves the cavalcade, the Future looketh down

With scorn on hi n that gripeth still at a ghostly iron crown,

And the brass bands that blow in front, and the brazen bands that follow,

All play one tune, whose burden still is "Hollow, holloa, hollow."

Yes : as the shrewd bagged eagle, that, when he should have flown
To the columns, iu the Prince's cause, sought the tripe-shop in his own,
To that fierce bird whose talons grasp'd the thunderbolt of war,
That swoop'd from northern snow-steppe to African Sahar ;

As the return from Elba to Boulogne's unlucky " do,"
As the sawdust strife of Astley's to the real Waterloo,
So is the Buonaparte of word to the Buonaparte of deed—
He that rides there, to him that sleeps within the Iuvalides!

KIDNAPPING IN LEICESTER SQUARE.

The days of the old Venetian j— CAfET | ransom-money that is exacted, in the form of a regular hotel bill.

Doges are nothing to these days of - | Every attention is shown to the kidnapped travellers; a Bill of Fare

new dodges, in which a man may be I is set before them, and choice wines are presented; but all this does

suddenly pounced upon and carried ' 1 not compensate for the terrific struggle in which they are involved

off against bis will, not perhaps to
a dungeon, but to some gloomy apart-
ment in a Leicester Square hoiei.
It is true he is not liable to be laid
hold of by the Sbirri, who once used
to excite such terror, nor by the
familiars of the Inquisition, but he
may be clutched by those horrible
iamiliars in the form of waiters, who
tout a tout prix for the rival hotels
in the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square, of which they are the repre-
sentatives. The rattling of a c<>b-wheel is the signal for a descent
upon the unwary traveller ; and no sooner do the landlords of the

two opposition houses catch the distant rumbling of a vehicle than
they summon their myrmidons as Macheath would have assembled
his band, singing—

" Hark ! I hear the sound of coaches,
Now the hour of attack approaches ;

To your posts, brave boys, be bold.
Let the cabmen bjat their horses,
To the ' fare'd rect your forces,

On them you must lay your hold."

The neighbourhood of Leicester Square is becoming a sort of miniature
Terracina, infested with rival Fra Diavoli, who affect a degree of
courtesy in the treatment of their captives, and politely demand the

when the booty they are expected to furnish is the object of a scramble
between the rival competitors for the spoil.

We have heard of some heart-rending incidents that have occurred,
h the separation not only of travellers from their carpet-bags, but of
wives from their husbands, ladies from their dressing-cases, children
from their parents, razors from their strops ; and we have known one
dreadful instance of a gentleman who was carried to one hotel while
his clean shirt-front, his only luggage and the only friend of his bosom,
was lying as a neglec'ed parcel in the hall of the rival establishment.
But perhaps the most lamentable case of all, is that of a distracted
father with nine children, who being attacked by the rival touters, was
compelled to effect the horrible compromise of handing over four of his
helpless innocents to one of his assailants, and surrendering himself
info the hands of the other, with his five remaining little ones.

Nothing more affecting than this has happened since the appalling
—but fortunately apocryphal—affair of the travellers in the Pyrenees,
who, followed by a flock of wolves, threw out, one by one, their babes,
to assuase the ravenous appetites of their pursuers. The wolves in the
ravine of Leicester Place are not so easily satisfied, but must have an
entire family to glut upon, and every traveller becomes a bone of con-
tention, under the snapping* and snarlings of the voracious tribe.
Would that the beadle were a Van Amburgh, to act as a brute-tamer
in this fearful locality! for, while it is infested by that most formidable
of animals feree naturae a touter, there can be no sense of security for
the voyager, who should avoid as he would a jungle, or a hup hole, the
precincts of Leicester Suuare.