Punch: Punch (21.1851)

116

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE PAPAL TIE, QUITE THE FASHION IN NAPLES.

The Pope and King Bomba are linked together by a tie of the closest
amity. How would Pius like Bomba if their mutual bond consisted of
the iron fetters which link together the political victims of that amiable
monarch in their dungeons, and which are never loosened, day or
night, on any account whatever ?

THE HOLYWELL STREET CRUSADE.

The spasmodic morality of a parish is pleasant to consider. How
long will a St. Molly-le-Strand, or St. Bacon-cum-Beans nod, absolutely
snore, over the most fetid, crying nuisance, as though the aforesaid
St. Molly or St. Bacon slept on roses, lulled by silver brooks. Here
has Holywell Street been a long-lived abomination; sinners there
have grown grey in their nastiness; nevertheless, the filth has been
respected by the authorities as though it were a vested interest, and
moral atrocity an allowed marketable commodity. In Holywell Street
Infamy took up its freedom, and was a protected citizen. And now,
housewives taken with an annual fir, of cleanliness, and resolved to
whitewash the house from top to bottom, are not more energetic in
their niceness, than are the parish authorities with Holywell Street,
suddenly discovered and denounced ! The housewife takes her bed-
stead to bits, and sulphurs it, and soaks it, and kills the very larvae of
the noisome abominations. In like manner Parish Authority now
resolves to take to bits the infested Holywell Street. Well, there may
be bedsteads that fire alone can purify; and there may be some streets
that—that—well, there may be some streets that may be very like some
bedsteads.

One Good Turn Deserves Another.

The America is said to have won the race at Cowes, thanks to her
" superior rigging." Now, as America was finely rigged by England
for being so far behind every other race at the Great Exhibition, so
England must not feel angry, after having been fairly beaten in a naval
race, if she is made to feel in her turn the smartness of America's
Rigging.

run fob the doctor.

There has been so much said and written on the Lock question, that
a medical student of our acquaintance calls the controversy a great
case of Lock jaw.

THE SONG OF THE SHOE-BLACK.

I was born—I was bred—in the midst of the dirt,
With nothing for stockings, and rags for a shirt.
I'd never a father, and as for my mother,
She never was sober from one day to t' other.

My "lullaby baby " was swearing and din ;
My earliest sweet-meat a mouthful of gin.
Directly 1 'm able to move on my feet,
To pick up a living, I'm turn'd on the street.

I'm hungry, and often in want of a meal;
So, of course, I must work, or beg, borrow, or steal.
But work there's no getting, for none will employ
A shoeless and parentless vagabond boy.

I meet with companions,—there's Pentonville Bob
Good-naturedly offers to give me a job.
Says he—"There's the pawnbroker's, over the way;
Take the coat from outside—there '11 be nothing to pay."

I do as he bids me ; he tells me, with joy,
He's glad to have found such a promising boy.
And as without money I buy things so well,
He thinks I shall make a good hand at a sell.

So he takes me at once to a kind-hearted gent,
With a beard rather black, and a nose very bent,
Who gives me a shilling, and calls me "good lad,"
And asks if there ain't any more to be had.

The game I continue,—with this thing and that;
To-day it's some boots, and to-morrow a hat:
Though less 1 keep getting for each thing that goes
To the gent with the beard and the bend in the nose.

The game it goes on, every day after day ;
But more gets the trouble, and less gets the pay:
That it comes, very soon, as a pleasant relief,
To be sent for three months as a juvenile thief.

When turn'd out of prison—the season is cold—
Of a School for the Ragged I somehow get told.
I think that I'll go there;—if nothing I gain.
At least I'm kept out of the wind and the rain.

At first when I go there I'm ready to laugh;
I turn off the gas, and the teachers I chaff;
But as nothing their temper appears to provoke,
I very soon find there's an end to the joke.

The lessons they teach me, I try and repeat,
But my want, as I tell them, is something to eat.
They ask if I '11 work ; I answer—" Of course ;
If I'm fed like a Christian, I '11 work like a horse."

So they give me a box, and of brushes a set,
And a bottle of Warren's superior jet,
And start me in life in the polishing trade,
By which, ever since, a good living I 've made.

And often my memory carries me back,
Comparing myself to the shoe that I black ;
I think how the dirt might have stuck to me still,
For want of a little hard work and good will.

So, honour to those who are on the alert

To raise up poor fellows like us from the dirt,

And cause all the rubbings through which we have past

To end, like this boot, in a polish at last.

There is nothing so black, but, if pains we bestow,
With something like sunshine will speedily glow;
And, though deep in the mud, if exertion we use,
We may walk, very soon, in respectable shoes.

The Neapolitan Flag.

The British fleet have arrived off Palermo. The Queen " saluted the
Neapolitan flag." This, of course, is mere routine courtesy. But the
Neapolitan flag! As the pestilent rag at present taints the air, how
ought the atrocious bit of bunting to be " saluted P" What would be
its rightful salutation? The clank of chains, and the yell of the
hangman. _

A Thought.—Imitation is the homage which Mediocrity pays to
Superiority.