Punch: Punch (21.1851)

68

PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

FASHIONABLE -INTELLIGENCE.

Opera-Glasses have grown to such
a size, that a young Fop, fresh from
Fop's Alley, wishes us to state most
distinctly, that if he belonged to a
Debating Club (which Heaven forbid !)
he certainly should put up for discus-
sion the following subject:—

" Whether any amount of Beauty is sufficient
compensation for the immense fatigue of carry-
ing about with one all the evening such a
heavy load as an Opera-Glass? "

_ Poor young Fop, he is greatly to be
pitied ! We should advise him to put
an advertisement, like the following,
in the papers :—

WANTED, A STRONG IRISHMAN,
to carry a Gentleman's Opera-Glass.

LATEST FROM AMERICA—QUITE NEW, AND VERY CHASTE.

The Free and Enlightened Continuations.

Rack Ponche a la Romaine.

The Times correspondent at Rome
states that the French cavalry has been
lately reinforced there, and adds—■

" More horses are expected, and, the actual
accommodation not being sufficient for the in-
I creased number of troops, the Inquisition, 01
Santo Officio, has been taken possession of, and
that historical establishment converted into a
caserne"

This is as it should be. We are
glad to hear that the Roman Inquisi-
tion is turned into a cavalry barrack,
and hope that the rack of the Holy
Office will henceforth exist only in
connexion with the manger.

THE BOOK OF BISHOPS.

Punch believes it to be his mission to write The Book of Bishops, with
portraits of the most distinguished arithmeticians that at present adorn
the Bench. The Book of Bishops : a marrowy, dainty volume, contain-
ing a simple and withal popular story of the manifold doings of the
men of lawn in this wicked world, with their daily strugglings with
those sinewy giants of life L. S. D., that now and then will throw the
strongest in the dirt, the yellow dirt, that clings to, and yet begrimes not.

The Book of Bishops—printed upon bank-note paper in ruby type—
bound in purple velvet, with gold edges; gold, inch-thick, and to be
had at all Cathedrals. The Book of Bishops, uniformly printed with the
service of that Church, whose self-denying ordinances prelates of ten
thousand per annum so affectingly illustrate.

The hero of the past week—for every week has its episcopal move-
ments, even as it has its police reports of vulgar fraud and embezzle-
ment—is the Bishop of Rochester; who, when Dean, showed the
profoundest respect for the spirit of antiquity, in the matter of twenty
grammar boys ; as thus—

" By the Rochester statutes (says the Times), amongst other allowances, there are
allotted to the different classes of functionaries at that cathedral payments as follows :
—to the dean, £100; to six prebendaries, £20 each ; to six minor canons, £10 each ; to
the master of the grammar-school, £13 6s. 8d. ■ to the master of the choristers, £10; to
the second grammar master, £6 lis. lOd.; to twenty grammar boys, each, £1 13s. id, •
and to four students at Oxford and Cambridge, £6 13s. id. each."

Now the income of the Dean in 1840 is increased from his income of
1542, with a fine sense of the relative value of money at the two periods,
thus:—The Dean of Rochester (the present Bishop) in 1542 has
£150; but in the year of profit, 1840, his £150 expands into £1426!
But what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the goslings; inasmuch
as the scholars are not advanced a shilling from the sixteenth to the
nineteenth century! The Rev. Mr. Whiston stirs in the matter;
and the dignitaries of the Cathedral call him " atheist/' The man does
not believe in the righteousness of Church embezzlement, and he is a
benighted infidel. That a Dean and Chapter should annually eat up
twenty grammar boys, aid no blessing asked upon the yearly feast by
the Reverend Mr. Whiston, shows in the minister a want of that
Christianity that said, " Suffer little children to come unto me ! "

In a very few days Punch will issue his prospectus for The Book of
Bishops ; meanwhile the subject enlarges itself. " Matter," says Sterne,
" grows under our hand ; therefore let no man say, I will write a duode-
cimo." Nevertheless, Punch will endeavour to make hisBook of Bishops
no thicker than a Bishop's thumb—his golden thumb for all pockets.

THE ECLIPSE OUT OE ENGLAND.

vscu has received from
his own astronomers
—and that, too, with
the greatest despatch
—the fullest account
of the late eclipse of
the sun, as seen from
different points of
Europe. Some of
these reports, di-
vested of astronomi-
cal terms, are simply
as follow:—

Rome. — Very
dark, indeed: the
moon appeared some-
thing like a Fisher-
man's ring — our
readers are, no
doubt, familiar with
the trinket—on the
disc of the sun;,
wherever the ring
was visible, the light
of the sun was alto-
gether intercepted.

Naples.—The sun was edged with blood; and the moon itself, now
looked like a bomb-shell, and now—as the man-in-the-moon showed
himself—a portrait of King Ferdinand.

Madrid.—Here the moon appeared upon the sun elongated, thus, 0:
which cipher was interpreted as having some significant relation to
Spanish bonds.

Vienna.—Total darkness: clouds shaped like a huge double eagle
blotted out the sun: birds went to rest; and even the Ministry pulled
off their boots for bed, believing midnight come.

Paris.—The moon—as described by M. Arago—appeared like a
pitch plaster upon the face of the sun. Certain deputies, however,
declared it to be like a monstrous blot of censor's ink.