Punch (18.1850)

ME. BRIGGS PUTS HIS HORSE IN HARNESS, AND DRIVES A FEW FRIENDS QUIETLY DOWN

TO THE DERBY.

INTERESTING ORIGIN OF " THE EUN OF THE FAIR."

Every one knows that " The Fun of the Fair " is a little instrument
made of wood, which, being rubbed up and down a person's coat, some
hundred times in the course of the day, is admirably adapted for tearing
it. This " Pun of the Fair " is said to have been the invention of an
advertising tailor, who, finding business rather slack, and that gentlemen's
coats, notwithstanding the bad cloth, and the poor workmanship, and
every other advantage which the cheap, starving system could possibly
give them, did not go off half quick enough, hit upon the ingenious idea
of the above instrument for tearing them off. His ingenuity was
quickly rewarded, for he amassed a considerable fortune in a very short
space of time, and died " universally respected." His agents used to
sell the " Fun of the Fair " with oue hand, and distribute his handbills
with the other. The game has been kept alive ever since, for it has
been found by the cheap tailors such a profitable combination of pleasure
and business, that Moses has been heard to say that " If Greenwich
Fair only came once a week, he should be able in time to sell coats for
nothing."

PRESENTS FOR THE PASHA.

A small domestic menagerie—a sort of Happy Family on an
extended scale—has been sent out by the Indus to Alexandria, as a
present for the Pasha. The collection comprised four swans and five
dogs, a.barn-door capon, and a prize ox, whose history, consisting of a
cock and bull story, has been given by some of the newspapers. Water
being the proper element of the swans, we suppose they will be
attached, with ropes round their necks, to the stern of the ship, for
they will never get on at all if they do not get on swimmingly.

Among the canine specimens are a couple of bulldogs, with counte-
nances so ugly, that they are said to have terrified all beholders, many of
whom quitted the bark at the first growl of the unsightly animals.
We hope the Pasha will not think it necessary to send over here a collec-
tion of brutes in exchange ; for our Zoological Gardens are getting rather
overstocked, and the presents forwarded consist generally of such
Bavage monsters, that we almost feel ourselves turning into sandwiches
while they look at us.

PROTECTION FOR MR. MERRYMAN.

To our laborious punsters of the humbler class, whose overtaxed in-
vention finds production daily more and more difficult, even the Traitor
of Tamworth must feel in his secret heart that some protection must
be afforded, if they are to compete with the foreign joker—for such a
joker is every facetious gentleman whose jokes are alien from his sub-
ject and employment. The industrious Clown in Mr. Batty's Ring is
not to be abandoned to rivalry with advocates in the Bankruptcy Court.
The Times of May 21 published no less than three jokes of the most
killing nature which had been made at that tribunal the day before. By
this time, perhaps, they may be considered to have become rather
stale; therefore we are not afraid of injuring Mr. Merryman
additionally by transcribing them. Mr. Cooke, who appeared on
behalf of poor Mr. Delafield, observed, that

" The bankrupt's solicitor complained that the other solicitor had called him a Mr-
Pike. {A laugh.)

" Me. Laweanoe. Then it was not war to the knife, but war to the pike ? (Laughter.)
" Me. Cooke feared the poor client was the gudgeon. {Great Laughter.) "

As long as a profligate Whig Cabinet and an unprincipled House of
Commons permit the system of free admission to Courts of Justice,
and especially to the Bankruptcy Court, to continue, it is utterly im-
possible that the British Circus should maintain a competition with
those lively institutions.

A Joke's a Joke for a' That.

It is all very well to say a joke's a joke, but the public would find
a joke to be no joke, if, like ourselves, they received at least one
hundred copies of the same joke by every delivery from the post-
office. We have lately been inundated with the old jokes about
Greece and Grease to such a fearful extent, that we have serious
thoughts of applying for an Act of Parliament to place jokes
about Greece among the deleterious substances that it is unlawful
to transmit through the post-office. The chief objection to the measure
would be, that the Bill must set out the joke itself, and Parliament
would never consent to read a second and third time that with which
wc have been already nauseated.