Punch: Punch (21.1851)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 35

THE TAX UPON ATTORN1ES.

The Chancellor of the Exche*
quer will not give up his tax upon
attornies. Like sportsmen, attornies
must still take out a license to bag
their game. This is very hard upon
the lawyers : because it is an admitted
fact pulsating in the heart of every man
who practically knows what law is,
that the tax comes out of the lawyer's
own pocket. It is a yearly offering
made by himself to the conscious
dignity of his profession; a matter of
personal enjoyment in no way con-
tributed to by his clients. In fact, the
parallel of sportsman and attorney is,
as we conceive, perfect. The sports-
man for his own delectation, takes out
his license to kill game: it would be
absurd in him to expect of irrational
hares and partridges to subscribe the
amount of such purchased permission.
No, being licensed to kill, the sports-
man kills; and having killed, he eats
what he has hit. The lawyer being
licensed to practise, practises; and
having practised, eats what he has
blue-bagged. In both instances, the
game never pays its own powder-and-
shot—never.

AWFUL OCCURRENCE AT AN EVENING

The Bishop of Bristol and
Gloucester,

Bishop Monk has so ordered his
renewal of leases that, says the Daily
News, "just in proportion as his family
will profit after his decease, so will the
Church lose." The Bishop, with such
an eye to excess, has earned an en-
larged title for his see. Henceforth,
instead of Bishop of Gloucester,

"My Goodness, Emily! They're beginning the Quadrille, and here's all my 'Back let all men read " Bishop of Double
Hair' coming down! ! Whatever shall I do?" I Gloucester."

THE FORTHCOMING ECLIPSE.

Everybody is in expectation of the Eclipse of the Sun which is
coming off, or, more properly, coming on, on the 28th instant. Stories
are in circulation of strange freaks performed on similar occasions by
the lower animals, who began to make a night of it under the influence of
delusion. Eor ourselves, we expect the following cognate phenomena :—

When the darkness begins, Eluff will put on a dress " front," and
stroll away towards the Casino. Finding that establishment shut, he
will think that "it must be infernally late," and will go to bed. Fluff's
boots will be visible in the open daylight, to the astonishment of the
first-floor, who patronise Mechanics' Institutes soon afterwards.

Plumjsy will wander forth in a "wide-awake," with a pipe, and being
met, as the obscuration clears off, by a respectable relative, will be cut
peremptorily.

Members of Parliament will go down to the " House," wondering
how the time has flown so fast. A few will stare when they find
nothing being done there: the majority, however, will find that so
natural, from experience, as probably to go in and lounge there, while
the darkness lasts.

A few Protectionists will attribute the eclipse to the repeal of the
Corn Laws, and will watch it angrily through smoked glass—as they
do most things.

Policemen, having lighted bulls'-eyes, will cast sheep's eyes in the

direction of favourite haunts.
Punch will make on the occasion various moral reflections ; thus
lhe moon's darkening the earth by hiding the sun—results from the

littleness of the two first, not from that of the latter luminary. Bear

tins m mind, Jooble, whose reputation gets between the reading public

and Milton.

An eclipse is favourable to the observing of spots on the sun—as
people look at defects in the ruined Tomkins, which they did not trouble
themselves with when Tomkins was affluent.

i lowers sometimes shut up during an eclipse. So geniuses languish

THE FIRE OF GENIUS.

|

Among the various inventions of the day, there is one that has
extremely puzzled us. We allude to a Pocket Stove, which is being
pretty extensively advertised. A man must be able to take it extremely
cool who can afford to have a fire in his pocket; and, indeed, he can
never draw out his handkerchief or his purse without running the risk
of burning his fingers. Perhaps a pocket stove may be intended to keep
off the light-fingered gentry, who, if they attempt to pick a pocket
furnished with a stove, would at once find themselves in hot coals,
instead of being thrown, by the more uncertain chances of detection,
into hot water. We should be glad to know which is the pocket m
which the stove is to be carried—whether in the waistcoat for the
purpose of warming the heart, or whether a stove should be carried m
all the pockets at once, with a view to the equal melting down of those
who are inclined—against their own inclination—to be corpulent.

With every respect for the inventor of such an article as a pocket
stove, we think the present is scarcely the time of year, or the sort ol
weather, in which the public will be disposed to take up the stove with
much warmth—or, rather, the warmth with which they would take it
up, if they touched it at all, would induce them to set it down again.
When winter comes round, we shall be happy to fill our pockets with
as many stoves as the Life Insurance Offices will allow us to carry-
about us, without increasing our premiums, on the ground of our lives
having become doubly and trebly hazardous.

" The Tyrant Customs.

When Shakespeare spoke of the " tyrant Custom," he could not have
foreshadowed our own system of Customs, which we are told by the
Board is anything but tyrannical. Of course we are bound to believe
so high an authority, and indeed we have no objection to go so far as

., ,. , - L. ..........^....... ._.„„, M^-------to echo the good opinion the Board has of itself, and to invest their

wnen the hgure of Blubb, the critic, passes across the sky. . Chairman, Sir Thomas Fre-mantle, with the mantle—or in other

■tiClipses are periodical, and Punch's periodical eclipses every periodical, words -the cloak—of justice.