Punch: Punch (17.1849)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

201

Unprotected Female {running about all over the room). Oh, t here's this,
and this, and. this, and that in the corner, and yon under there, and these.

[Her luggage is gradually collected into a single pile.
Searcher. Anything to declare ?

Unprotected Female {evasively). There's my keys. Eh ? no—those are
the keys at home—here's my luggage keys.

Searcher {struggling with several Gordian knots). I wish to goodness,
Ma'am, you ladies would learn to make knots that'll untie.

Unprotected Female. Ah ! There's a band-box burst, and all the pates
smashed into my muff! Do mind how you handle that bonnet, Sir.
Please let me fold those things up again. Don't squeeze them in that
way. Oh, gracious ! Mind where you 're going.

[Searcher rumples, tumbles, tosses, discomposes, and generally upsets
the trunks of the Unprotected Female.

Searcher {in loud voice). Twenty-lour pairs fine French stockings
unworn, six dresses partly made up, being manufactured silk fabrics,
twelve pairs French kid gloves, eight pairs French leather boots, sixteen
caps unworn.

Unprotected Female. But they 're all for my own wearing !
Searcher. Quantity's unreasonable ; but you can complain, and then
you '11 be examined into.

Unprotected Female {aside). Oh, that lace !

Searcher {having made out his list of articles liable to duty). Now,
ma'am, if you '11 walk into that room.

Unprotected Female {in agony of apprehension). Oh, what for? Who
with? {Aside.) It's that lace in my—that's all I've got, Sir.

Searcher {sternly). This way, ma'am. [Pointing to side room.

Unprotected Female {aside). Oh, I'll never—that's all, I assure
you, Sir.

Searcher. Come, ma'am; I can't be wasting time here all day with you.
Unprotected Female. But you 're surely not going to do it yourself, Sir ?
Searcher. ISlo ; there's a clerk there who '11 take your money.
Unprotected Female. Take my money, too !
Searcher. Yes; the dooty on these articles.

Unprotected Female. Oh, thank goodness—if that's all. How much
will it be, Sir, please ?
Searcher. Four fourteen, ma'am-

Unprotected Female. Why, I could have bought 'em half as cheap again
in Oxford Street.

Searcher. In course, ma'am. That's what all the ladies finds out.
Now, ma'am—

Unprotected Female. Well, if ever I buy any French articles again!
{Aside.) But they are not going to look for the lace.

[Exit much relieved into side room. Scene closes.

EVERY ENGLISHMAN'S PEW HIS CASTLE.

The liberty of the church-going subject has been shamefully violated
in the Parish Church of Cheltenham. The scandal cries aloud in the
newspapers. A Christian gentleman, with two or three friends, were
in a large pew—the pew only half filled. Unpewed sinners stood at the
door—there were no seats to be had. The Churchwarden suggested
to the pew Christian that he might make room fortius fellow-back-
sliders. Whereupon, the miserable sinner "firmly held" the door
inside, resolving to have the luxury of superfluous space, though fellow-
sinners were jammed and jaded. The Churchwarden—a man of action
—orders the beadle " to break, open the door ;" the beadle is an obedient
servant, and—the door is broken open. We see " Book safes " adver-
tised for security—under any violence soever—of books and documents:
we would advise for the protection of such pew-loving Samaritans as
our friend of Cheltenham, a " Church safe,"—where he might remain,
a choice dish, set apart for a banquet of grace. It is gossiped about
gossiping Cheltenham, that the aforesaid Christian has taken counsel's
opinion, "whetherhis pew is not as inviolate as his house, and whether
he may not, by arms or otherwise, resist any attempt to enter it." We
are not in possession of the opinion given, but the gentleman has been
heard to express his intention not to attend Church next Sunday
without pistols.

If folks Kill cultivate the exclusive gentility of pews—carrying caste
to Church with them, as they would carry it to the theatre—we think
they ought, by the terms of lease, to be permitted to protect them like
gardens and orchards, and to exhibit this notice to the unseated—
" Man-traps and spring-guns set in this pew."

Freeze Cartoon*.

The papers tell us that the decorations, by Me. Sang, in the New
Coal Exchange are very cold. Now the subject treated are coals—and
if anything required a warmth of colouring, it should be coals. We
cannot imagine "cool tints" and blazing Walls'-Ends mixing well
together. Bat Mb. Sang's genius has achieved this difficult associa-
tion. We are assured, in fact, that his brush has such a wonderful
power of subduing everything, that if he had to paint the Fire of
London, he would execute it with the greatest SAHG-froid.

THE CIVIC SUCCESSION.

The annual change has
just occurred in the
Sovereignty of the
City, and the late Mo-
narch of the Mansion
House retires upon his
Sir James DuKE-dom
from the Mayor's nest
he has so worthily oc-
cupied. There is some-
thing pleasing in the
contemplation of the
extremely pacific pro-
cess by which the civic
crown passes from
brow to brow, and the
chain of office circu
lates from neck to neck
without any connect-
ing link between the
one and the other.
Every year in the City
there occurs a kind of
revolution of 1688,
which is effected by
the abdication of one

THE MAN IN BRASS ! W^' ^ ^ aCCeS"

sion or another; the
" nii robur, et ses triplex new Lord Mavor, or

Circa pectus erat." King 0f tjje City, re-

Hoe. Car. Lib. i. iii, 9. presenting a sort of

Prince of Orange, and

we see nothing more than this representative of Orange coming into new
quarters. The whole thing is, in fact, a complete substitution of one
reigning family for another, though the Civic Constitution remains the
same, and the dinners, which form the glory of the Civic reign, proceed
as usual, though there is an actual change of dynasty.

The public who witness the splendid parade attending the inaugura-
tion of a new Lord Mayoralty, can form no idea of the smallness of the
actual amount of change that takes place when one Civic Sovereign is
succeeded by another. We would venture a wager that a carpet-bag
and dressing-case would include all the personal movables of the out-
going potentate, and that a portmanteau will most probably comprise
the entire of the "effects" that go in with the new wearer of the
cockney diadem. The alteration resolves itself after all into a simple
question of luggage ; and as it was said at Louis the Eighteenth's
restoration, " nothing is changed except that there is a Frenchman the
more in France " so it may be said on a new Mayoralty, "nothing is
changed, except that there may be a pair of boots or slippers more (or
less) at the Mansion House."

MURDER-WORSHIP

a sonnet by our own poet-laureate.

Another blossom on the Tyburn tree:
And yet another on its fruitful bough!
The murd'rers pay their bloody reck'ning now,
And thousands throng admiringly to see.
And who shall blame the unschool'd mob, whilst we,
The scholars, Law's grim Tragedy allow,
Nor interest in its actors disavow!
We chronicle the foul minutiae
Of their dark deeds of crime ;—nay ! stop not here,
But sift their very prison-life, and draw
The veil from off their hidden histories:
We crowd to see their waxen effigies;
We make their portraits household gods, and rear
Them shrines, where Murder-worship is allowed by Law.

the haxr presumptive to the french throne,

We see some young lady advertises a golden ointment, which shall
produce, within a week, "whiskers, moustaches, or imperials." We
advise Louis Napoleon to lay this flattering ointment to his soul, as
he is evidently trying very hard to cultivate an Imperial.

Going a Step Further.—The Court of Chancery is reforming the
"Petty-Bag" Office. It is to be wished that if would extend th«
process to those of its offices in which more serious bagging is practised

Vol. 17. 1—2