Punch (18.1850)

OUR FEMALE SUPERNUMERARIES. IN A SERIES OE "VIEWS.

THE COMMERCIAL VIEW.—The muslin home-market is in a state
-1- of extrepie depression. The supply greatly exceeds the demand, and
the article is a mere drug. Hands can scarcely command a purchaser,
and the inquiries for hearts are very few. Sempstresses are quoted at
lamentably reduced figures, and domestic servants, at no time parti-
cularly brisk, are now duller than ever. The colonial trade in this
description of goods, however, is still lively, they being especially in
request in Australia, whither some shipments of them have been
already consigned; and it is to be hoped that every facility will be given
to their continued exportation.

The Cynical View.—Wherever there is mischief, women are sure
to be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old
saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of females.
The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and baggage, and start
them away.

The Alarmist View.—If the surplus female population with which
we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with women.
What used to be our better half will soon become our worse nine-tenths;
a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend with, and which
will reduce our free and glorious constitution to that most degrading
of all despotisms, a petticoat government.

The Domestic View.—The daughters of England are too numerous,
and if their Mother cannot otherwise get them off her hands, she must
send them abroad into the world.

The Scholastic View.—The country is fast losing its masculine
character, and becoming daily more feminine. Measures must be taken
for restoring the balance of gender, or there will soon be no such pro-
perty as propria quce maribus in Great Britain, and not a stiver shall we
have to bless ourselves with of <bs in prceserdi.

The Naturalist's View.—On the Cockney Sportsman's game-list
there is a litile bird called commonly the chaffinch; by Hampshire
youth, the chink ; and by Linn^ius, Fringilla ceslebs. Linnaeus was a
Swede, and called the chaffinch ccelebs, because in Sweden and other
northern countries, in winter, the females migrate, and leave the males
bachelors. It is to be wished that our own redundant females were far
enough north to take wing, like the hen-chaffinch.

Our own View.—It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls
should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only not
dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and solid
meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless, they would fly as
fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches—if only they had the means of flying.
It remains with the Government and the country to find them wings.

A Glorious Resolve.

An important resolution has just been come to by the Corporation of
Rochester, whose members, we are told by the public press, have
" determined to wear appropriate costume on all future public occa-
sions." There must be some very determined characters among the
Corporation of Rochester, for it requires no little determination in
these days to resume t he masquerade dresses of a Mayor and Alderman,
after it has once been agreed to abandon them. It is rare, indeed, that
we find persons desirous of hugging their chains, even though they be
of on Aldermanic character.

The Dignity of CoaL

The New York Enquirer says of the " Negro Emperor," that " his
colour is the most thorough coal-black." Can this personage be iden-
tical with our ancient friend, King Coal ? If so, we hope His Majesty
will keep up his famous concerts with renewed spirit, and that the
merry old soul, with his fiddlers and trumpeters, will be merrier than
ever, now that he has been promoted to be Emperor. Coal will make
as good an Emperor, no doubt, as anybody, in the face of his com-
plexion : and, notwithstanding the cold weather, we rejoice at this rise
of Coal.

Vol. 18.