Punch: Punch (21.1851)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

29

THE FEMALE STREET ORDERLIES.

know of none, among the numerous
acts of utility performed by ladies in
the present day, involving so much
self-sacrifice as the practice adopted
by our fashionably-dressed women, of
cleansing the public thoroughfares.
The lengtli to which the fair sex go
in the article of dress, is only to be
exceeded by the lengths to which they
go in rendering their dresses useful
to the whole community. Few who
have not watched the elegantly-habited
female pedestrian passing through thick
and thin, to assist in sweeping the
London streets, can form any idea of
what she carries in her train when she sets the example we have
alluded to. All that is required to render the ladies the efficient
and constant scavengers of the Metropolitan foot-pavements is to
organise them into a body of female orderlies, and though the City
Court of Sewers rejected Mr. Cochbane's proposition to cleanse the
streets by means of his troop, the objection being founded chiefly on
the class to which its members belong—we have little doubt that the
services of the ladies, should they be tendered, would be accepted with
eagerness. • .< • ,

Since the commencement of the shilling days has admitted to the
Crystal Palace a majority of those belonging to a class who are self-
interested enough to study economy and personal cleanliness, the
building gets only on Saturdays the benefit of that thorough sweeping

LITERARY SAMPLES.

We notice a great improvement in the shop-windows of some of our
literary contemporaries. One of them in Fleet Street, has displayed a
most miscellaneous stock of toys, haberdashery, and perfumery. It
consists of Anti-Macassars, bottles of Eau-de-Cologne, children's
" tiddity-iddity" boots and shoes, ladies' handkerchiefs, gentle-
men's braces, relieved here and there with bunches of peaches and
grapes made in the most tempting wax. The effect is very good, and
attracts many a passer-by to look in at the window, where after stopping
for half-an-hour over a chess-board, wondering how ever it is possible
for " White to win in three moves," he rushes into the shop in despair,
to buy the number that contains the solution.

We think the idea is sc excellent that it should be imitated by all the
newspapers and periodicals of the day. We throw out, at random, the
following suggestions, which any of our contemporaries are welcome to,
if they think them worth adopting. They may pull in a customer
or two, besides being looked upon by the public as fair average
samples of the usual contents of the paper:—

A Protectionist Newspaper should exhibit in its window a
Distressed Farmer. Care should be taken in selecting the very
leanest of that impoverished class; but to keep up a semblance of
appearances, the specimen selected should rather weigh under than
above Daniel Lamber.t. The top-boots, corduroys, broad-briu.-med
bat, should be of the most correct pattern, and, if possible, a jolly good
dinner should be continually smoking before him, with the customary
tankard of foaming ale, to enable him to enjoy his pipe after dinner. If
the tankard were sufficiently large, and no expense were spared in the
dinner, the readers of the newspaper would not fail to imbibe a proper
which the five shilling classesare prepared to administer at the sacri-1 notion of the terrible state the Distressed Farmer was reduced to, and

fice of their dresses, and at the cost of accumulating about themselves
all the dust and dirt that would otherwise remain on the floor of the
Exhibition. Unfortunately, the fine-lady scavengers are chiefly among
those who consider the payment of five shillings necessary to protect
them from the contact of the vulgar; and they do not, therefore,
attend in large numbers on the shilling days ; so that the only way to
secure their scavenging services would be to have a second five shilling
day, when, released from the fear of all association with what some of
them would call the scum of the earth, they might take away all the
dust and dirt of the ground on their legs and petticoats.

THE CANTING CHANDLER.
(A New Version of an Old Story.)

To the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Pardon, Sir Charles, if I relate a tale,
Which, certainly, is rather antiquated;
But statesmen like their wit a little stale:

Jokes that have been for some time celebrated
Always obtain the loudest cheers,
Both in the Commons and the Peers.
I take my narrative from good old Joe,
An author every Member ought to know.
A certain straight-haired Chandler, not at all
A credit to his trade, or his " connexion,"
Address'd his 'prentice thus, with nasal drawl:

"John," snuffled this pretender to "Election,"
" John, hast thou water-ed the rum ? "—" I have

Done," said the tyro, " as thou hast commanded."—
" Ah! very well," pursued the saintly knave,

" And likewise hast thou the brown sugar sanded ? "—
The hopeful youth responded "Yea."—
" And wetted the tobacco, eh ? "—
" That have I also done," the lad declares.
" Then," quoth the pious rogue, " come up to prayers!"
When jokers shall this story tell,
From this time forward they '11 do well
To add two points, required to make it good—
The canting Chandler's last demand
Was, " Hast thou chicoried the coffee ? " and
'Twas " Then come up to prayers—for Sir Chables Wood.'

Here We Go, Bound and Bound.

A letteb in the Times states that there is, after all, nothing new in
the idea of Colt's revolving pistol, there being one on the same prin-
ciple as old as the time of Chables the Fibst, in the British Museum.
If this is the case, the American revolver only comes round to the point
from which the other pistol started two hundred years ago; or, in
other words, Colt has found a mare's nest.

the tableau vivant would conjure up before his mind a truer picture of
the agricultural wants and necessities than any amount of Leaders upon
the same subject.

A Spobting Joubnal might have a small stable fitted up in a window
—where the "Favourite" of the approaching race mignt be on view
for so many hours a day; or better still, the stick, or stone, that broke
the poor Reporter's head, when he was busy reporting the " Grand Mill
for the Championship of England," could be laid out on a velvet cushion
for the admiration of all lovers of Fair Play, together with a copy of the
Doctor's bill, for mending the same broken head, in order to give the
public a notion of the liberality of the paper. "The Champion before
and after the Fight," might also form, once a year, a very attractive
object.

A Gabdening Papeb might show us a few of the "Enormous
Gooseberries" and Cabbages which we never see anywhere but in
print.

A Litebaby Review could show us an iEsthetical Contributor
writing an sesthetical article, in a purely sesthetical spirit; and a
Medical Joubnal could not do better than lay before the public the
various noisome ingredients of adulteration that, upon analysis, had
been found to assist in a pound of the Best Mocha.

The Pbovincial Papebs should have a stock of wonders perpetually
on view, which might be remitted to London as their attraction began
to fade in the eyes of country subscribers, in order to feast those of
Metropolitan readers. Thus we should have an opportunity of
witnessing for ourselves those wonderful phenomena widen are so often
read of in the country papers, but never, by any accident, met with in
our rambles through Nature. Each separate wonder should be
labelled, and the identical paragraph that eulogised its incredible
proportions or attributes should be conspicuously displayed underneath.
In this manner we should see exhibited "This Extbaobdinaby
Shower of Frogs," from the Tipperary Moderator, lying by the side of
" A Wonderful Take of Salmon " that had been sent up by the
Manx Cat. Country papers would compete with each other, in contri-
buting the most startling phenomenon; and, after a time, a paper like
the Morning Herald (or rather like what it used to be in its palmy days
of Gobemoucherie) would be able to collect a Museum which would
make Babnum leap over the Falls of Niagara (in his own exhibition)
from sheer despair.

But the great advantage of these shop-window exhibitions, after all,
would be to convince incredulous readers that the vegetable and
other wonders which they read of from week to week, did not sprout
out of a Penny-a-liner's prolific imagination, but had really grown and
flourished in some less fabulous soil. If we read of a " Sheep with ten
legs and two tails," we should all of us be too inclined to doubt it;
but where is the man who could refuse to swallow the sheep if he saw
it in a shop-window, and was enabled to count the legs and tails for
himself?

And what great phenomenon should Punch exhibit ? Why, nothing
but his weekly number. Admiring millions see it every week, and are
happy and content, knowing too well that it would be impossible for
Punch to show them any greater Wonder!