DOI issue:
July to December, 1853
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16612#0052
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIYARi
THE CAMP.
Juvenile (apropos of Highlander in sentry box). “ On ! my wig, Ciiari.ky. What
A JOLLY JaCK-IN-THE-GrEEN HE’D MAKE ! ”
THE DISCOUNTERS DIRGE.
A Fragmentary Lament found in the Common Fleas after the.
recent Trial of “ S—mm—ns v. P—rk—ns—n.”
SUPPOSED TO BE SLIGHTLY ALTERED FROM CAMPBELL,.
“ And I could veep,” tlie Oneida Chief's
Caucasian vendor thus begun—
“ To heai- them Councils, with their briefs,
Traducing of my father’s son,
Yith jokes uncommon low.
And that there Judge, vich busts in wrath,
Vich takes no heed of vot lie saith,
But stamps a name as sticks till death—
c A Knave.’ lie called me so.
And all because that Christian boy
Paid somevot dearly for a toy.
That Hemerald brooch, the vich vas given
By HinDand’s Queen to Peel so deep,
I charged but fifty-two eleven,
As I maintains vos really cheap;
They swore the stone was glass.
The bracelet for his gentle Eve,
They called a Oundsditch make-believe.
And said I’d plotted to deceive
The fashionable ass—
Six bills at sight I swore my right.
The jury took vun extra sight.
“ My art goes thump Before me now
That Judge’s countenanth appears ;
I see him knit a norrid brow.
His vice is thunderin in mine ears ;
He puts me in a hawful ole.
He riles me till I’m fit to bust,
He calls my case, from last to first,
About the wilest and the wust
Of vich he’s ad control:
And says the union’s ‘ past belief
Of ‘ such a Pool.’ and ‘ such a Thief.”
THE C
“ Sir,
AN'S BEST ERIEND.
The Police cases under the New Hackney Carriage Act
bhow that a determination to struggle against the working of that
measure prevails among the members of my profession, which, though
i am a legally qualified medical practitioner, is at present that of a
cabman. Eor, Sir, I turned cabman rather than turn quack or
sycophant, one of which things a man must, in general, turn, who has
to get his living out of people most of whom are weakly in mind,
body, and sex : particularly in these days when ladies of rank and
Members of Parliament patronise clairvoyance and homoeopathy. I
may add that I have less driving to do now than I had when 1 was
in medical practice, and that I get better paid for it.
“ My object in addressing you, is to beg that you will use all your
influence to make the public insist on having the provisions of this
Act, in regard to fares, severely carried out.
“It may be the opinion of insolent William, and intoxicated
James, my brethren of the whip, that in expressing this desire I am
merely uttering the sentiments of a truculent magistrate, or other
odious and tyrannical member of the aristocracy, desirous of interfering
between a poor fellow and the swell out of whom it is his business to
get as much as he can. They may be disposed to invoke dreadful
'v engeance upon me for what they consider a sympathy with wealth
and respectability, rather than a fellow feeling with labour and them-
selves. But, Sir, my beery and abusive friends are both wrong. I
want the Act of Parliament, enforced for the benefit of 1 he people;
which is identical with our own.
“ The mistake of vituperative William, the error of hiccuping and
unsteady James, is the supposition that cabs were made for none but
extortionate rascals to drive, and none but opulent spendthrifts to ride
in. Nature—lor nature presides even over hired veliicles—intended cabs
not only for the conveyance of intemperate dandies with cigars in their
mouths, lor travellers in hot haste regardless of expense, and reckless
pleasure-hunters dashing away to Cremorne or the Opera. She meant
them also for the accommodation of sober matrons of narrow circum-
stances and broad umbrellas, poor clerks, small tradesmen, indigent
authors, and other humble persons pressed for time, troubled with
corns, caught in the rain, or otherwise precluded from pedestrianism.
Now, an excessive legal fare was enough to keep these kinds of people
out of cabs; to say nothing of the certainty of an additional demand,
accompanied by insult, and urged in derisive and revolting language.
“ Let it be once understood, on all hands, that the new cab tariff is
to be a serious reality, a thing as settled as the price of a pot of beer,
and I am sure the increase of practice will more than compensate us
for the diminution of our individual fees. 1 speak of those who, like
myself, seek an honest livelihood by taking as many cases—that is,
fares—as they can, upon reasonable terms, instead of plundering such
patients or victims as they can get hold of to the most viUanous
possible extent.
*' Pray, therefore, impress upon all friends of the working man, that
working men are to be considered in the light of cab takers as well as
in that of cab drivers. There are some impetuous young blades who
are prone to scatter their cash about on all kinds of cads, amongst
whom we have the honour to rank in their estimation.
“ Accordingly they in general overpay us monstrously. Advise them
to discontinue that injudicious liberality; it spoils us : it causes us to
be discontented with full wages, and to laugh in the face of a customer
who proposes to pay ns our legal due. It has possessed us with the
notion that everybody who takes a cab is infinitely rich: so that when
a man does not offer us much more than we are entitled to, we are
accustomed to ask him ironically whether he calls himself a gentleman.
Hence it is that we dance, with menacing gestures, around those who
resist our endeavours to cheat them; collect mobs about them; and
pursue them with execrations as far as we dare. A stop will be put
to this state of things by the strict and uniform enforcement of the
much-needed Act which has been passed for the abatement of our
knavery and the prevention of our insolence; I will add, on the whole,
for our good : at least for the good of one member of our body, who
is also a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Licentiate ol
the Apothecaries Company, albeit now necessitated to cry
: The Stand, July, 1853.’
1 Here You Are, Sir !
YTOTICE.—Unless all the Jokes, -which have been sent in about Jullien
-L ’ “ cutting bis bdton,” are immediately removed from the Punch Office, they
will be sold as waste paper, and the proceeds devoted to the benefit of the “ Asylum
fob Idiots.”
THE CAMP.
Juvenile (apropos of Highlander in sentry box). “ On ! my wig, Ciiari.ky. What
A JOLLY JaCK-IN-THE-GrEEN HE’D MAKE ! ”
THE DISCOUNTERS DIRGE.
A Fragmentary Lament found in the Common Fleas after the.
recent Trial of “ S—mm—ns v. P—rk—ns—n.”
SUPPOSED TO BE SLIGHTLY ALTERED FROM CAMPBELL,.
“ And I could veep,” tlie Oneida Chief's
Caucasian vendor thus begun—
“ To heai- them Councils, with their briefs,
Traducing of my father’s son,
Yith jokes uncommon low.
And that there Judge, vich busts in wrath,
Vich takes no heed of vot lie saith,
But stamps a name as sticks till death—
c A Knave.’ lie called me so.
And all because that Christian boy
Paid somevot dearly for a toy.
That Hemerald brooch, the vich vas given
By HinDand’s Queen to Peel so deep,
I charged but fifty-two eleven,
As I maintains vos really cheap;
They swore the stone was glass.
The bracelet for his gentle Eve,
They called a Oundsditch make-believe.
And said I’d plotted to deceive
The fashionable ass—
Six bills at sight I swore my right.
The jury took vun extra sight.
“ My art goes thump Before me now
That Judge’s countenanth appears ;
I see him knit a norrid brow.
His vice is thunderin in mine ears ;
He puts me in a hawful ole.
He riles me till I’m fit to bust,
He calls my case, from last to first,
About the wilest and the wust
Of vich he’s ad control:
And says the union’s ‘ past belief
Of ‘ such a Pool.’ and ‘ such a Thief.”
THE C
“ Sir,
AN'S BEST ERIEND.
The Police cases under the New Hackney Carriage Act
bhow that a determination to struggle against the working of that
measure prevails among the members of my profession, which, though
i am a legally qualified medical practitioner, is at present that of a
cabman. Eor, Sir, I turned cabman rather than turn quack or
sycophant, one of which things a man must, in general, turn, who has
to get his living out of people most of whom are weakly in mind,
body, and sex : particularly in these days when ladies of rank and
Members of Parliament patronise clairvoyance and homoeopathy. I
may add that I have less driving to do now than I had when 1 was
in medical practice, and that I get better paid for it.
“ My object in addressing you, is to beg that you will use all your
influence to make the public insist on having the provisions of this
Act, in regard to fares, severely carried out.
“It may be the opinion of insolent William, and intoxicated
James, my brethren of the whip, that in expressing this desire I am
merely uttering the sentiments of a truculent magistrate, or other
odious and tyrannical member of the aristocracy, desirous of interfering
between a poor fellow and the swell out of whom it is his business to
get as much as he can. They may be disposed to invoke dreadful
'v engeance upon me for what they consider a sympathy with wealth
and respectability, rather than a fellow feeling with labour and them-
selves. But, Sir, my beery and abusive friends are both wrong. I
want the Act of Parliament, enforced for the benefit of 1 he people;
which is identical with our own.
“ The mistake of vituperative William, the error of hiccuping and
unsteady James, is the supposition that cabs were made for none but
extortionate rascals to drive, and none but opulent spendthrifts to ride
in. Nature—lor nature presides even over hired veliicles—intended cabs
not only for the conveyance of intemperate dandies with cigars in their
mouths, lor travellers in hot haste regardless of expense, and reckless
pleasure-hunters dashing away to Cremorne or the Opera. She meant
them also for the accommodation of sober matrons of narrow circum-
stances and broad umbrellas, poor clerks, small tradesmen, indigent
authors, and other humble persons pressed for time, troubled with
corns, caught in the rain, or otherwise precluded from pedestrianism.
Now, an excessive legal fare was enough to keep these kinds of people
out of cabs; to say nothing of the certainty of an additional demand,
accompanied by insult, and urged in derisive and revolting language.
“ Let it be once understood, on all hands, that the new cab tariff is
to be a serious reality, a thing as settled as the price of a pot of beer,
and I am sure the increase of practice will more than compensate us
for the diminution of our individual fees. 1 speak of those who, like
myself, seek an honest livelihood by taking as many cases—that is,
fares—as they can, upon reasonable terms, instead of plundering such
patients or victims as they can get hold of to the most viUanous
possible extent.
*' Pray, therefore, impress upon all friends of the working man, that
working men are to be considered in the light of cab takers as well as
in that of cab drivers. There are some impetuous young blades who
are prone to scatter their cash about on all kinds of cads, amongst
whom we have the honour to rank in their estimation.
“ Accordingly they in general overpay us monstrously. Advise them
to discontinue that injudicious liberality; it spoils us : it causes us to
be discontented with full wages, and to laugh in the face of a customer
who proposes to pay ns our legal due. It has possessed us with the
notion that everybody who takes a cab is infinitely rich: so that when
a man does not offer us much more than we are entitled to, we are
accustomed to ask him ironically whether he calls himself a gentleman.
Hence it is that we dance, with menacing gestures, around those who
resist our endeavours to cheat them; collect mobs about them; and
pursue them with execrations as far as we dare. A stop will be put
to this state of things by the strict and uniform enforcement of the
much-needed Act which has been passed for the abatement of our
knavery and the prevention of our insolence; I will add, on the whole,
for our good : at least for the good of one member of our body, who
is also a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Licentiate ol
the Apothecaries Company, albeit now necessitated to cry
: The Stand, July, 1853.’
1 Here You Are, Sir !
YTOTICE.—Unless all the Jokes, -which have been sent in about Jullien
-L ’ “ cutting bis bdton,” are immediately removed from the Punch Office, they
will be sold as waste paper, and the proceeds devoted to the benefit of the “ Asylum
fob Idiots.”