DOI issue:
July to December, 1851
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16608#0152
140
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
Piscator, No. 2. " Not Yet—I only Come Here Last Wednesday ! "
DON'T OVER-RIDE A COCK-HORSE.
Pieces may have long runs without any fatigue to themselves—how-
ever tiring they may be to the audiences—but when we hear of a horse
having had a run for 83 consecutive nights, we begin 1o wonder the
poor creature has a leg to stand upon. We perceive that our old friend
Mazeppa is still upon his legs at Astley's, after having "urged on his
wild career" without interruption since the beginning of June last.
When the poor brute became sensible that the drama was henceforth
to be his peculiar walk, he never could have calculated on a run of such
duration. Since the introduction of railways and omnibuses, few horses
are brought up to the stage, and the stage of Astley's seems to be the
most arduous stage of an animal's existence.
Though the poor creature was sane enough when he commenced
delineating the arduous character of the " Wild Horse of the Desert," we
can readily believe that he has been driven wild at last by over-exertion ;
and the insanity that used to be once feigned, may have become at last
natural. Like the maniac in the song, he may now exclaim, with
terrible earnestness—" They've driven me mad ! " No horse can stand
such continual nagging as this one has been subject to.
The Trench President and the French Press.
Almost every day brings its triumph to Louis Napoleon over the
French press: He has a nest of singing-birds all in a cage. As the
Tyrian dye is a lost secret, so hopes the President to make his -world
forget the printers' black. In a few years, with the nephew of his uncle
at the Elysee, men v/ill have retrograded to scribes and parchment. In
the meantime, a monument is to be erected to the glory of the President.
And as Napoleon had statues of himself cast from the cannon he had
captured, so will Louis Napoleon have a colossal figure cast from the
types he has made waste metal. As the spoil of twenty battles was
molten for the glory of the Emperor, so will the lead of twenty news-
papers commemorate the reputation of the President
LONDON POLITENESS.
The Glasgow Examiner has been to London, and has returned to
Glasgow delighted with a sense of London politeness. He never heard
a rude word in our streets: he never saw "a drunken person in
London." All our cabmen are pinks of gentility—our cads would pass
for noblemen. In fact, all London society, like a cabinet-pudding, is
covered with sweet sauce : but then, the Cabinet itself, is a great cause
of this; for, says Examiner,
" In London the people are accustomed to see Her Majesty and Her Majesty's
Ministers and advisers moving about among them, and they learn to respect them-
selves, and to avoid all rudeness and insolence, but too common in the provinces."
Examiner has pounced upon the cause of our good-breeding. Our
good little Queen bows and smiles us into gentleness, and the Queen's
Ministers, " moving about among us " in all directions, have a benign
influence npon the crowd. Godwin has well said, speaking of the
universal operation of Shakspeabe, that even a Chinese Mandarin may
be in some sort humanised by the poe% even though he shall never
have heard of him. And, in like manner, many an English coalheaver
may be softened by the men of Downing Street, though he may not
know their names. The shilling passed by Lord John to a cabman
may carry with it a civilising touch—the penny vouchsafed by
Palmerston to a crossing-sweeper may fill the unconscious man with
thoughts of peace. A Sir George Grey may be cordial in a coster-
monger ; and the radiant benevolence of a Carlisle be reflected from
a shoeblack.
Brougham Himself Again.
Delighted are we with the evidences of Lord Brougham's renewed
health. He has been the soul of hospitality at Brougham Hail; and—
after a look in at the House of Lords—is off to winter at Cannes. He
will there enter upon a course of boar-hunting; not for any love of the
sport itself, but merely to exercise himself for the severer sport of hunt-
ing the reform of the Law : for the whole boar in the forest is nothing
to the whole hog in Chancery.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
Piscator, No. 2. " Not Yet—I only Come Here Last Wednesday ! "
DON'T OVER-RIDE A COCK-HORSE.
Pieces may have long runs without any fatigue to themselves—how-
ever tiring they may be to the audiences—but when we hear of a horse
having had a run for 83 consecutive nights, we begin 1o wonder the
poor creature has a leg to stand upon. We perceive that our old friend
Mazeppa is still upon his legs at Astley's, after having "urged on his
wild career" without interruption since the beginning of June last.
When the poor brute became sensible that the drama was henceforth
to be his peculiar walk, he never could have calculated on a run of such
duration. Since the introduction of railways and omnibuses, few horses
are brought up to the stage, and the stage of Astley's seems to be the
most arduous stage of an animal's existence.
Though the poor creature was sane enough when he commenced
delineating the arduous character of the " Wild Horse of the Desert," we
can readily believe that he has been driven wild at last by over-exertion ;
and the insanity that used to be once feigned, may have become at last
natural. Like the maniac in the song, he may now exclaim, with
terrible earnestness—" They've driven me mad ! " No horse can stand
such continual nagging as this one has been subject to.
The Trench President and the French Press.
Almost every day brings its triumph to Louis Napoleon over the
French press: He has a nest of singing-birds all in a cage. As the
Tyrian dye is a lost secret, so hopes the President to make his -world
forget the printers' black. In a few years, with the nephew of his uncle
at the Elysee, men v/ill have retrograded to scribes and parchment. In
the meantime, a monument is to be erected to the glory of the President.
And as Napoleon had statues of himself cast from the cannon he had
captured, so will Louis Napoleon have a colossal figure cast from the
types he has made waste metal. As the spoil of twenty battles was
molten for the glory of the Emperor, so will the lead of twenty news-
papers commemorate the reputation of the President
LONDON POLITENESS.
The Glasgow Examiner has been to London, and has returned to
Glasgow delighted with a sense of London politeness. He never heard
a rude word in our streets: he never saw "a drunken person in
London." All our cabmen are pinks of gentility—our cads would pass
for noblemen. In fact, all London society, like a cabinet-pudding, is
covered with sweet sauce : but then, the Cabinet itself, is a great cause
of this; for, says Examiner,
" In London the people are accustomed to see Her Majesty and Her Majesty's
Ministers and advisers moving about among them, and they learn to respect them-
selves, and to avoid all rudeness and insolence, but too common in the provinces."
Examiner has pounced upon the cause of our good-breeding. Our
good little Queen bows and smiles us into gentleness, and the Queen's
Ministers, " moving about among us " in all directions, have a benign
influence npon the crowd. Godwin has well said, speaking of the
universal operation of Shakspeabe, that even a Chinese Mandarin may
be in some sort humanised by the poe% even though he shall never
have heard of him. And, in like manner, many an English coalheaver
may be softened by the men of Downing Street, though he may not
know their names. The shilling passed by Lord John to a cabman
may carry with it a civilising touch—the penny vouchsafed by
Palmerston to a crossing-sweeper may fill the unconscious man with
thoughts of peace. A Sir George Grey may be cordial in a coster-
monger ; and the radiant benevolence of a Carlisle be reflected from
a shoeblack.
Brougham Himself Again.
Delighted are we with the evidences of Lord Brougham's renewed
health. He has been the soul of hospitality at Brougham Hail; and—
after a look in at the House of Lords—is off to winter at Cannes. He
will there enter upon a course of boar-hunting; not for any love of the
sport itself, but merely to exercise himself for the severer sport of hunt-
ing the reform of the Law : for the whole boar in the forest is nothing
to the whole hog in Chancery.