DOI issue:
July to December, 1851
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16608#0155
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. H3
A RIVAL TO ROSE TAMISIER.
trNcn has bad his attention
called to certain miracles
performed in this country by
a young lady, which are
quite as remarkable as those
of Mademoiselle Tami-
sier, and a good deal more
credible. He feels certain
that, after hearing them, the
reader will no longer trouble
himself about Rose, but will
exclaim with Horace,
" Mitte sectari, Rosa quo locorum
Sera moretur,"
and withdraw his attention
from her at odcc
The young lady's name is
Ellen B-. Prom her
childhood there has been
something peculiar about her
appearance; a strange lustre
of eye, and a peculiar tint
and form of mouth, which
marked her as one destined
by fortune to make some im-
pression in the world. While
a child, it was observed that
people loved to take her in
their arms. Nay, when only
nine, she cast a glance at a
young gentleman, a friend
of the family, the effect of which was to make him abandon his hoop,
and quite withdraw for a time from his usual sports. And whereas
the only thing miraculous about the youth, previously, was the
promptitude with which he converted pieces of copper into lollipops,
Ellen turned his lollipops into gall; into gall, we say, advisedly, for he
rejected them contemptuously, and, soon after, burst out crying. How
did she achieve this last result ? Simply by taking her parasol (she
has been known to do wonders with that instrument), and walking
away from the door, homewards !
But it was when Miss Ellen B- returned from school, aged
seventeen years and six months, that the exercise of her miraculous
powers became most noticeable.
Statues have been said to wink on various occasions ; but what was
the effect of Ellen on a block—head in H-Street ? She caused,
by simply coming into the room, the mouth of this odd figure to
partially open, and its eyes to roll—producing a degree of expression
in the face of which no one believed it capable ! And the wooden
figure in question afterwards would "imitate," or nod—in what was
conceived to be intended for a knowing manner—at the mere mention
of her name!
Rose Tamisier awoke a youth, we are told, through the medium of
her guardian angel. But it is a well-known fact that our Ellen—by
her mere influence, unseen, and absent—kept awake all night a youth
from Oxford, who had met her at an evening party. The same youth,
when he returned home, on that very evening assured his sister most
firmly that he had seen an angel. This is a fact to which dozens of his
friends are willing to depose; indeed, his reiterated assurances of it had
become rather a bore. When asked what sort of a figure it was, he
replied—" A gentle, stately figure, with dark hair, and deep blue eyes."
There can be no doubt that it was to the influence of Ellen B-that
we must attribute his belief in that apparition.
Ellen had Visions ; and these were very variously represented—and
misrepresented by some people,—ladies, generally, we believe. Some
were wont to assert that she saw visions of herself, with her head
encircled by a halo in use among the English aristocracy on state occa-
sions, and called a coronet: that she loved to see herself in the state of
vision, encircled with a small kind of golden crown, bearing five pearls.
Others add that she fancied herself borne along in a sumptuous chariot.
But it is vehemently asserted by others that all her visions were of
objects of real beauty and purity.
Numberless were the phenomena which this young female produced.
Her name appeared on the bark of trees,—how put there, nobody
knew. Tears, visions, bleeding hearts, were the ordinary results of her
miraculous doings. H the Tamisier did wonders with cabbages,
Ellen sometimes prevented people from dining at all.
Such was—or rather is—our countrywoman, Ellen B-, a rival
of Rose Tamisier herself, and assuredly the cause of much rivalry in
others.
A PRETTY KETTLE OF TEA!
" Punch, Elysian Farm, Sept., 1851.
" In my celebrated work, called ' Cottage Economy,' of which
fifty million copies were sold in this country, and twice that number
in America, 1 made some very sensible observations on the subject of
that ruinous and detestable stuff, tea. I proved to demonstration
' that it contains nothing nutritious; that it, besides being good for
nothing, has badness in it, because it is well known to produce want of
sleep in many cases, and in all cases to shake and weaken the nerves.'
But, notwithstanding the great amount of information that I possessed
on every subject, I little knew how much badness the body and soul
destroying tea-trash contains, although my wonderful sagacity gave me
an inward persuasion that the quantity of the Poison must be immense.
And so, indeed, it turns out. Read the Lancet, and make your wife
and your daughters read it too, if they can be induced to read anything
but foolish novels and unmeaning poetry. There they will see with
what a delicate beverage they wash down their dainty slices, or
rather, shavings, of bread-and-butter. Prussian blue, indigo, turmeric
powder, China clay, Chinese yellow, soap-stone, catechu—these are some
of the less loathsome of the filthy drugs, and virulent and deadly
Poisons, with which your tea, nasty and pernicious as it is in itself, is
adulterated. Black lead, vegetable red, and carbonate of lime or chalk,
are enumerated in the list of abominations; and the Times, in com-
menting on the Lancefs disclosures, says that, in a particular sort of
this tea-rubbish 'there were found little lumps' resembling what
ladies, who fritter away their time in keeping silk-worms, would
recognise as the sweepings of those insects' cages. Other nice messes
consist of what is called 'lie tea;' which is a hodge-podge of tea-dust
and sand, made up with rice-water; a very fit mixture, with a very
suitable name, too, this ' Lie Tea,' to enliven a party of scandal-
mongering old crones of an evening.
" As to what is called green tea, the greenness is a mere dye, com-
municated by Poison. The stuff, moreover, sold as tea, is, in many
cases, no such thing, but a parcel of leaves of the beeeh, elm, horse-
chestnut, plane, oak, willow, poplar, hawthorn, and sloe, which, how-
ever, I should say, are rather more wholesome than the thing which
they are meant to counterfeit. Mixtures, indeed, called ' La Veno
Beno' (whatever that means), and 'The Chinese Botanical Powder,'
composed of sumach-leaves, wheat, flour, and catechu, are sold under
the name of 'tea-improvers,' and may improve the tea for aught I
know. The commonest piece of tea-dealers' rascality, however, is that
of mingling with the ' genuine' Chinese weed re-dried tea-leaves, and
these are ' faced,' to give them ' a bloom,' with black lead, as grates
are 'faced ;' or they are ' faced' with rose pink, or vegetable red and
chalk, exactly as a ' "bloom,' when wanting, is imparted by ' facing,' to
the faded cheeks of a scraggy, wrinkled, superannuated beldam of the
aristocracy. To be sure, if it were not for the black lead, and so forth,
these tea-leaves would be preferable to any other, for the badness has,
at least, been pretty well stewed out of them. It is right that the
reader, and especially the lady reader, should know that they are prin-
cipally bought up of charwomen, whose perquisites they become, when
those old cormorants are employed in a ' genteel establishment' to
clean up the furniture, and scrub the floor, owing to the piggish indo-
lence and sluggish laziness of the lounging mistress of the family and
her lolloping daughters.
" A play-writer of the name of Shakspeare, I think, in a Scotch
farce, called Macbeth, represents three old witches as compounding a
diabolical mess, of which the ingredients are too nasty to be specified ;
but I will venture to say that the cauldron of those hags contains
nothing half so horrid as the contents of the teapot, which certain others
are accustomed to croak and mumble over. I would not have been so
cruel as to force such a potion down the throat of Castlereag-h
himself.
"And this is your 'draught that cheers but not inebriates,'is it ?
This is the drench in which your teetotallers would have us steep our
senses, eh ? and over which your Missionary meetings and your serious
families sit and soak? Por my part, I consider serious drinking to be
a less injurious habit than such guzzling as this. Bad as spirituous
liquors are, they are not so bad as Prussian blue and black lead, which
are worse than any spirits that inhabit the Shades in a quarter entirely
remote from the abode of
" Wm. Cobbett."
The Crystal Palace for Ever!
We read that certain pawnbrokers have of late received bushels of
watches from people pledging them for mpney to visit the Exhibition.
That watches should be disposed of for such a purpose is a significant
proof that the Crystal Palace is not intended for a season, but—for
all time.
Mere Child's Play.—The Performances of the Bateman Infants
under the management of Barntjm.
PItjmotjr in Vienna.—We learn that " the Humorist is to suffer
three months' imprisonment."—Hence, in Vienna, humour is no ioke.
A RIVAL TO ROSE TAMISIER.
trNcn has bad his attention
called to certain miracles
performed in this country by
a young lady, which are
quite as remarkable as those
of Mademoiselle Tami-
sier, and a good deal more
credible. He feels certain
that, after hearing them, the
reader will no longer trouble
himself about Rose, but will
exclaim with Horace,
" Mitte sectari, Rosa quo locorum
Sera moretur,"
and withdraw his attention
from her at odcc
The young lady's name is
Ellen B-. Prom her
childhood there has been
something peculiar about her
appearance; a strange lustre
of eye, and a peculiar tint
and form of mouth, which
marked her as one destined
by fortune to make some im-
pression in the world. While
a child, it was observed that
people loved to take her in
their arms. Nay, when only
nine, she cast a glance at a
young gentleman, a friend
of the family, the effect of which was to make him abandon his hoop,
and quite withdraw for a time from his usual sports. And whereas
the only thing miraculous about the youth, previously, was the
promptitude with which he converted pieces of copper into lollipops,
Ellen turned his lollipops into gall; into gall, we say, advisedly, for he
rejected them contemptuously, and, soon after, burst out crying. How
did she achieve this last result ? Simply by taking her parasol (she
has been known to do wonders with that instrument), and walking
away from the door, homewards !
But it was when Miss Ellen B- returned from school, aged
seventeen years and six months, that the exercise of her miraculous
powers became most noticeable.
Statues have been said to wink on various occasions ; but what was
the effect of Ellen on a block—head in H-Street ? She caused,
by simply coming into the room, the mouth of this odd figure to
partially open, and its eyes to roll—producing a degree of expression
in the face of which no one believed it capable ! And the wooden
figure in question afterwards would "imitate," or nod—in what was
conceived to be intended for a knowing manner—at the mere mention
of her name!
Rose Tamisier awoke a youth, we are told, through the medium of
her guardian angel. But it is a well-known fact that our Ellen—by
her mere influence, unseen, and absent—kept awake all night a youth
from Oxford, who had met her at an evening party. The same youth,
when he returned home, on that very evening assured his sister most
firmly that he had seen an angel. This is a fact to which dozens of his
friends are willing to depose; indeed, his reiterated assurances of it had
become rather a bore. When asked what sort of a figure it was, he
replied—" A gentle, stately figure, with dark hair, and deep blue eyes."
There can be no doubt that it was to the influence of Ellen B-that
we must attribute his belief in that apparition.
Ellen had Visions ; and these were very variously represented—and
misrepresented by some people,—ladies, generally, we believe. Some
were wont to assert that she saw visions of herself, with her head
encircled by a halo in use among the English aristocracy on state occa-
sions, and called a coronet: that she loved to see herself in the state of
vision, encircled with a small kind of golden crown, bearing five pearls.
Others add that she fancied herself borne along in a sumptuous chariot.
But it is vehemently asserted by others that all her visions were of
objects of real beauty and purity.
Numberless were the phenomena which this young female produced.
Her name appeared on the bark of trees,—how put there, nobody
knew. Tears, visions, bleeding hearts, were the ordinary results of her
miraculous doings. H the Tamisier did wonders with cabbages,
Ellen sometimes prevented people from dining at all.
Such was—or rather is—our countrywoman, Ellen B-, a rival
of Rose Tamisier herself, and assuredly the cause of much rivalry in
others.
A PRETTY KETTLE OF TEA!
" Punch, Elysian Farm, Sept., 1851.
" In my celebrated work, called ' Cottage Economy,' of which
fifty million copies were sold in this country, and twice that number
in America, 1 made some very sensible observations on the subject of
that ruinous and detestable stuff, tea. I proved to demonstration
' that it contains nothing nutritious; that it, besides being good for
nothing, has badness in it, because it is well known to produce want of
sleep in many cases, and in all cases to shake and weaken the nerves.'
But, notwithstanding the great amount of information that I possessed
on every subject, I little knew how much badness the body and soul
destroying tea-trash contains, although my wonderful sagacity gave me
an inward persuasion that the quantity of the Poison must be immense.
And so, indeed, it turns out. Read the Lancet, and make your wife
and your daughters read it too, if they can be induced to read anything
but foolish novels and unmeaning poetry. There they will see with
what a delicate beverage they wash down their dainty slices, or
rather, shavings, of bread-and-butter. Prussian blue, indigo, turmeric
powder, China clay, Chinese yellow, soap-stone, catechu—these are some
of the less loathsome of the filthy drugs, and virulent and deadly
Poisons, with which your tea, nasty and pernicious as it is in itself, is
adulterated. Black lead, vegetable red, and carbonate of lime or chalk,
are enumerated in the list of abominations; and the Times, in com-
menting on the Lancefs disclosures, says that, in a particular sort of
this tea-rubbish 'there were found little lumps' resembling what
ladies, who fritter away their time in keeping silk-worms, would
recognise as the sweepings of those insects' cages. Other nice messes
consist of what is called 'lie tea;' which is a hodge-podge of tea-dust
and sand, made up with rice-water; a very fit mixture, with a very
suitable name, too, this ' Lie Tea,' to enliven a party of scandal-
mongering old crones of an evening.
" As to what is called green tea, the greenness is a mere dye, com-
municated by Poison. The stuff, moreover, sold as tea, is, in many
cases, no such thing, but a parcel of leaves of the beeeh, elm, horse-
chestnut, plane, oak, willow, poplar, hawthorn, and sloe, which, how-
ever, I should say, are rather more wholesome than the thing which
they are meant to counterfeit. Mixtures, indeed, called ' La Veno
Beno' (whatever that means), and 'The Chinese Botanical Powder,'
composed of sumach-leaves, wheat, flour, and catechu, are sold under
the name of 'tea-improvers,' and may improve the tea for aught I
know. The commonest piece of tea-dealers' rascality, however, is that
of mingling with the ' genuine' Chinese weed re-dried tea-leaves, and
these are ' faced,' to give them ' a bloom,' with black lead, as grates
are 'faced ;' or they are ' faced' with rose pink, or vegetable red and
chalk, exactly as a ' "bloom,' when wanting, is imparted by ' facing,' to
the faded cheeks of a scraggy, wrinkled, superannuated beldam of the
aristocracy. To be sure, if it were not for the black lead, and so forth,
these tea-leaves would be preferable to any other, for the badness has,
at least, been pretty well stewed out of them. It is right that the
reader, and especially the lady reader, should know that they are prin-
cipally bought up of charwomen, whose perquisites they become, when
those old cormorants are employed in a ' genteel establishment' to
clean up the furniture, and scrub the floor, owing to the piggish indo-
lence and sluggish laziness of the lounging mistress of the family and
her lolloping daughters.
" A play-writer of the name of Shakspeare, I think, in a Scotch
farce, called Macbeth, represents three old witches as compounding a
diabolical mess, of which the ingredients are too nasty to be specified ;
but I will venture to say that the cauldron of those hags contains
nothing half so horrid as the contents of the teapot, which certain others
are accustomed to croak and mumble over. I would not have been so
cruel as to force such a potion down the throat of Castlereag-h
himself.
"And this is your 'draught that cheers but not inebriates,'is it ?
This is the drench in which your teetotallers would have us steep our
senses, eh ? and over which your Missionary meetings and your serious
families sit and soak? Por my part, I consider serious drinking to be
a less injurious habit than such guzzling as this. Bad as spirituous
liquors are, they are not so bad as Prussian blue and black lead, which
are worse than any spirits that inhabit the Shades in a quarter entirely
remote from the abode of
" Wm. Cobbett."
The Crystal Palace for Ever!
We read that certain pawnbrokers have of late received bushels of
watches from people pledging them for mpney to visit the Exhibition.
That watches should be disposed of for such a purpose is a significant
proof that the Crystal Palace is not intended for a season, but—for
all time.
Mere Child's Play.—The Performances of the Bateman Infants
under the management of Barntjm.
PItjmotjr in Vienna.—We learn that " the Humorist is to suffer
three months' imprisonment."—Hence, in Vienna, humour is no ioke.