DOI issue:
January to June, 1851
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16607#0073
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 65
PUNCH'S SERMONS TO TRADESMEN.
TO THE COAL-MERCHANT.
" Five-sixths of the London public is supplied by a class of middlemen who are
called in the trade ' Brass- plate Coal-Merchants' These consist, principally of mer-
chants' clerks, gentlemen's servants, and others, who have no wharfs; but merely give
their orders to some true coal-merchant, who sends in the coals from his wharf. The
brass-plate coal-merchant, of course, receives a commission for his agency, which is
just so much loss to the consumer."—Babbage's Economy of "Manufactures.
Another instance of wide-spread delusion—another cleaving wrong,
originating in the brass of London. The merchant, whose whole
capital is in his name cut in a brass door-plate—the man of nominal
coal, but really the man of smoke, supplies five-sixths of the parlour,
and dining-room, and bed-room stoves and kitchen-ranges of London,
from a wharf not his own—fed by ships of which he possesses no
plank—and laden from mines in which he has not a single pinch of coal-
dust. He is a merchant—only a coal-merchant—in right and by virtue
of a piece of brass not wider than his congenial forehead. And he is
paid for his lack of merchandise, and prospers, and is comforted in his
ignorance by the benighted believers in any bit of brass, if written with
a proper flourish, and set in a proper place, to strike the dazzled eyes of
idolators.
My friends—{Punch particularly addresses himself to the true and
simple coal-merchant—to the man, it may be, with a touch of coal-dust
upon his coat, and whose shirt-frill may be redolent of coal-tar. In a
word, to the coal-merchant, in his honest nigritude and legitimate
odour of business.) My friends, in this London world, according to
the text, if rightly considered and taken to heart—mines are nothing,
ships are nothing, wharfs are nothing; no, the name of the man
makes the trade of the merchant; and the merchant's capital is brass !
It is painful, my friends, to consider this duplicity of man. To look
in upon his heart, and see its vital strings worked into carbonic
£ s. d. Terrible, indeed, is it to look a little more than skin-deep into
the brow of Stubbs, broker's clerk, and read, as in his own brass-plate
-"Mr. Asphalt Stubbs, Coal-Merchant."
And, to pursue our text, what shall we say of the insidious, doubling
gentleman's servant, with his brass-plate — "Mb. Jenkins, Coal-
Merchant," on his private six inches of a door, and his wife lurking
in the back-parlour to take orders ? Terrible is it to contemplate such
deceit: to behold now the powdered head of that carbonic gentleman's
servant, and now to see on it the shadowy likeness of a fan-tail!
But, my friends, let us turn from the consideration of this human
hypocrisy, brazen on a door-plate,—from the merely nominal falsehood
this duplicity; evils, that like the frozen snake, fail not to hiss and
declare themselves on the hearth-stone. Ealse coal-merchants make
false weights. It is upon record— and the scandal, like coal-smoke in
a fog, pervades the town while we discourse—that out of forty sacks of
coals, brass-plate coals be it remembered, twenty-six sacks have been
found wanting. And that, whereas a true sack of coals should weigh
two hundred and twenty-four pounds, some of these sacks have lacked
seventy-two pounds, or almost one-third! One-third weight gone—a
burnt-offering, or money-offering, to the idol brass-plate '
And for the coai-merchants—brassy or otherwise—who will sell false
weight, let them, on conviction, be doomed for a certain time to wear
a san benito, made from their own coal-sacks, and to drag at their legs
their own nominal iron cwt.
For consider, O coal-merchants, what it is to give short weight to the
winter poor! Think how, with your avaricious fingers, you pinch poor
children, old men and women, at their speck of fire. Think of the
reward that shall bless your own hearths. Think-
Think, 0 fraudful coal-merchants, of the disaster that befel a certain
eagle—JEsop's eagle. For it is written of that bird, that, once upon a
time, seeing a piece of flesh ready to be sacrificed upon an altar, the
bird made a swoop, and carried it off in her claws. Rejoicingly, the
eagle made for her nest. And, behold, there was a coal—a burning
coal—that stuck to the flesh; and this coal consumed her nest, and
with it her young ones and herself!
0 unjust coal-merchants, may not some live coal from your own
light sacks,, as strangely fall upon your own domestic substance ? May
it not be with you, as with the eagle, that sacrilegious plunder—(and it
is sacrilege to cheat the poor and wretched)—may some day bring
destruction upon your own homesteads P
THE LANCET'S DETECTIVE FORCE.
ur contemporary the Lancet has
conferred a great boon on
the public by establishing
a new order of constab-
ulary, which may be called
the Scientific Detective Po-
lice. The function of these
Detectives is to investigate
and expose the fraudulent
adulteration of articles of
food practised by a set of
scoundrels under the names
of grocers and other trades-
men. In his researches into
this rascality, the Lancet's
policeman is assisted by a
microscope, which, in throw-
ing light on the fraud in
-^c/Mt*u«^. question, exerts a power far
superior to that of the com-
twmklmg m the midday sun to ponder the many evils that are born of mon M1> By the help of this instrument, an immense quantity
of villanous stuff has been discovered in coffee, arrowroot, and other
substances sold for nutriment, and, some of them, " particularly recom-
mended to invalids." The Lancet seconds the exertions of its intelligent
officer by spiritedly publishing the addresses of the rogues at whose
swindling establishments the samples of rubbish were purchased. If
any of the knaves thus pilloried in the Lancet, abetted by a disreputable
attorney and a dishonest barrister, endeavour to avenge themselves
through the technicalities of the law, Puncn hopes they will meet with
twelve true men in the jury-box who will scout both them and
My frier,ds,-it may be that with simple folk you have sat about a thek } { accomplices out J0f COurt.
wmter-fire, and it may be that a fragment of coal, has on the sudden fi y
bounced upon the hearth. And some one may have taken up that bit -
of coal, and whilst it tinkled—tinkled with departing heat—may, j
with ancient superstition, have sought to divine its shape and ominous, MAZZINI IS COMING,
purpose.
" It is a purse," cries one. an Italian song to a scotch tune.
" It is a coffin" says another; and some declare for the purse, and Mazzini is coming, oh dear, oh dear !
others for the coffin. . Mazzini is coming, oh dear, oh dear !
Now, my friends, let us suppose the dishonest coal-merchant-the; He >s raisin a lo°n as we ^ we hear
unjust man of wicked weight-to be of the company.. Let us suppose ^ a °us k Ital >s n nea;.
that the burnt coal is placed m the hollow of his felonious hand. rhnw>— Ma77t-ntt ;« mm™r Urn
But let Punch put a short-thrust question. Is there such a man
amidst this congregation? If there be, Punch declares to him that if, i Italians, if you'll but unite, unite,
indeed, the burnt coal be a purse, as it came from fire, so should it And shoulder to shoulder stick tight, tight, tight,
scorch a conscience, with a sense of wicked gains—and if, indeed, it be You '11 establish your freedom all right, right, right,
a coffin, so should it bring a thought of another sort of plate—very Which will give Mr. Punch great delight, delight,
different from the brass of doors, and telling of a removal to another, Chorus.—Mazzini is corning, &c.
and a very different sort of dwelling-place.
Nevertheless, my friends, it takes a dupe, a victim, to make a suc-
cessful rogue. Knaves are fed by simpletons, even as foxes grow sleeK;
on geese. I doubt not that many of you—coal-merchants of this pit—
have felt saddened by the idleness, or careless simplicity of your
customers, who will not weigh your merchandise at the cellar door;
who would not, by balance, assure themselves that every sack shot a
full two hundred and twenty-four pounds of coal into the cellar; but
who, doggedly, would take coal-heaver's truth on trust.
Let all such men, when they dreamily gaze into their glowing coals,
see therein not clouds, and mountains, and cities of faery—but let them
behold the likeness of their own foolish faces and over it a flaming
fool's-cap.
Gentility and Dubbing.
One of the questions in Notes and Queries is, " Can the Queen make
a Gentleman ? " That depends on the raw material for the manufacture.
A Snob by nature is beyond the power of the Sovereign.
a regular bumpkin
Is the appellation we should give to anybody who has the bump of
conscientiousness so big as to induce him to send the Chancellor of
the Exchequer conscience-money on account of the Income-tax.
Vol. 20.
3
PUNCH'S SERMONS TO TRADESMEN.
TO THE COAL-MERCHANT.
" Five-sixths of the London public is supplied by a class of middlemen who are
called in the trade ' Brass- plate Coal-Merchants' These consist, principally of mer-
chants' clerks, gentlemen's servants, and others, who have no wharfs; but merely give
their orders to some true coal-merchant, who sends in the coals from his wharf. The
brass-plate coal-merchant, of course, receives a commission for his agency, which is
just so much loss to the consumer."—Babbage's Economy of "Manufactures.
Another instance of wide-spread delusion—another cleaving wrong,
originating in the brass of London. The merchant, whose whole
capital is in his name cut in a brass door-plate—the man of nominal
coal, but really the man of smoke, supplies five-sixths of the parlour,
and dining-room, and bed-room stoves and kitchen-ranges of London,
from a wharf not his own—fed by ships of which he possesses no
plank—and laden from mines in which he has not a single pinch of coal-
dust. He is a merchant—only a coal-merchant—in right and by virtue
of a piece of brass not wider than his congenial forehead. And he is
paid for his lack of merchandise, and prospers, and is comforted in his
ignorance by the benighted believers in any bit of brass, if written with
a proper flourish, and set in a proper place, to strike the dazzled eyes of
idolators.
My friends—{Punch particularly addresses himself to the true and
simple coal-merchant—to the man, it may be, with a touch of coal-dust
upon his coat, and whose shirt-frill may be redolent of coal-tar. In a
word, to the coal-merchant, in his honest nigritude and legitimate
odour of business.) My friends, in this London world, according to
the text, if rightly considered and taken to heart—mines are nothing,
ships are nothing, wharfs are nothing; no, the name of the man
makes the trade of the merchant; and the merchant's capital is brass !
It is painful, my friends, to consider this duplicity of man. To look
in upon his heart, and see its vital strings worked into carbonic
£ s. d. Terrible, indeed, is it to look a little more than skin-deep into
the brow of Stubbs, broker's clerk, and read, as in his own brass-plate
-"Mr. Asphalt Stubbs, Coal-Merchant."
And, to pursue our text, what shall we say of the insidious, doubling
gentleman's servant, with his brass-plate — "Mb. Jenkins, Coal-
Merchant," on his private six inches of a door, and his wife lurking
in the back-parlour to take orders ? Terrible is it to contemplate such
deceit: to behold now the powdered head of that carbonic gentleman's
servant, and now to see on it the shadowy likeness of a fan-tail!
But, my friends, let us turn from the consideration of this human
hypocrisy, brazen on a door-plate,—from the merely nominal falsehood
this duplicity; evils, that like the frozen snake, fail not to hiss and
declare themselves on the hearth-stone. Ealse coal-merchants make
false weights. It is upon record— and the scandal, like coal-smoke in
a fog, pervades the town while we discourse—that out of forty sacks of
coals, brass-plate coals be it remembered, twenty-six sacks have been
found wanting. And that, whereas a true sack of coals should weigh
two hundred and twenty-four pounds, some of these sacks have lacked
seventy-two pounds, or almost one-third! One-third weight gone—a
burnt-offering, or money-offering, to the idol brass-plate '
And for the coai-merchants—brassy or otherwise—who will sell false
weight, let them, on conviction, be doomed for a certain time to wear
a san benito, made from their own coal-sacks, and to drag at their legs
their own nominal iron cwt.
For consider, O coal-merchants, what it is to give short weight to the
winter poor! Think how, with your avaricious fingers, you pinch poor
children, old men and women, at their speck of fire. Think of the
reward that shall bless your own hearths. Think-
Think, 0 fraudful coal-merchants, of the disaster that befel a certain
eagle—JEsop's eagle. For it is written of that bird, that, once upon a
time, seeing a piece of flesh ready to be sacrificed upon an altar, the
bird made a swoop, and carried it off in her claws. Rejoicingly, the
eagle made for her nest. And, behold, there was a coal—a burning
coal—that stuck to the flesh; and this coal consumed her nest, and
with it her young ones and herself!
0 unjust coal-merchants, may not some live coal from your own
light sacks,, as strangely fall upon your own domestic substance ? May
it not be with you, as with the eagle, that sacrilegious plunder—(and it
is sacrilege to cheat the poor and wretched)—may some day bring
destruction upon your own homesteads P
THE LANCET'S DETECTIVE FORCE.
ur contemporary the Lancet has
conferred a great boon on
the public by establishing
a new order of constab-
ulary, which may be called
the Scientific Detective Po-
lice. The function of these
Detectives is to investigate
and expose the fraudulent
adulteration of articles of
food practised by a set of
scoundrels under the names
of grocers and other trades-
men. In his researches into
this rascality, the Lancet's
policeman is assisted by a
microscope, which, in throw-
ing light on the fraud in
-^c/Mt*u«^. question, exerts a power far
superior to that of the com-
twmklmg m the midday sun to ponder the many evils that are born of mon M1> By the help of this instrument, an immense quantity
of villanous stuff has been discovered in coffee, arrowroot, and other
substances sold for nutriment, and, some of them, " particularly recom-
mended to invalids." The Lancet seconds the exertions of its intelligent
officer by spiritedly publishing the addresses of the rogues at whose
swindling establishments the samples of rubbish were purchased. If
any of the knaves thus pilloried in the Lancet, abetted by a disreputable
attorney and a dishonest barrister, endeavour to avenge themselves
through the technicalities of the law, Puncn hopes they will meet with
twelve true men in the jury-box who will scout both them and
My frier,ds,-it may be that with simple folk you have sat about a thek } { accomplices out J0f COurt.
wmter-fire, and it may be that a fragment of coal, has on the sudden fi y
bounced upon the hearth. And some one may have taken up that bit -
of coal, and whilst it tinkled—tinkled with departing heat—may, j
with ancient superstition, have sought to divine its shape and ominous, MAZZINI IS COMING,
purpose.
" It is a purse," cries one. an Italian song to a scotch tune.
" It is a coffin" says another; and some declare for the purse, and Mazzini is coming, oh dear, oh dear !
others for the coffin. . Mazzini is coming, oh dear, oh dear !
Now, my friends, let us suppose the dishonest coal-merchant-the; He >s raisin a lo°n as we ^ we hear
unjust man of wicked weight-to be of the company.. Let us suppose ^ a °us k Ital >s n nea;.
that the burnt coal is placed m the hollow of his felonious hand. rhnw>— Ma77t-ntt ;« mm™r Urn
But let Punch put a short-thrust question. Is there such a man
amidst this congregation? If there be, Punch declares to him that if, i Italians, if you'll but unite, unite,
indeed, the burnt coal be a purse, as it came from fire, so should it And shoulder to shoulder stick tight, tight, tight,
scorch a conscience, with a sense of wicked gains—and if, indeed, it be You '11 establish your freedom all right, right, right,
a coffin, so should it bring a thought of another sort of plate—very Which will give Mr. Punch great delight, delight,
different from the brass of doors, and telling of a removal to another, Chorus.—Mazzini is corning, &c.
and a very different sort of dwelling-place.
Nevertheless, my friends, it takes a dupe, a victim, to make a suc-
cessful rogue. Knaves are fed by simpletons, even as foxes grow sleeK;
on geese. I doubt not that many of you—coal-merchants of this pit—
have felt saddened by the idleness, or careless simplicity of your
customers, who will not weigh your merchandise at the cellar door;
who would not, by balance, assure themselves that every sack shot a
full two hundred and twenty-four pounds of coal into the cellar; but
who, doggedly, would take coal-heaver's truth on trust.
Let all such men, when they dreamily gaze into their glowing coals,
see therein not clouds, and mountains, and cities of faery—but let them
behold the likeness of their own foolish faces and over it a flaming
fool's-cap.
Gentility and Dubbing.
One of the questions in Notes and Queries is, " Can the Queen make
a Gentleman ? " That depends on the raw material for the manufacture.
A Snob by nature is beyond the power of the Sovereign.
a regular bumpkin
Is the appellation we should give to anybody who has the bump of
conscientiousness so big as to induce him to send the Chancellor of
the Exchequer conscience-money on account of the Income-tax.
Vol. 20.
3