Punch (25.1853)

60

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

garments {Deinde, Vice-Cancettarius scissoribus sive sartoribus vestiariis
hujusmodi vestes conficiendi potestate interdicat') ; and that the Heads
shall prohibit their scholars from wearing them ; but that if the young
men, with a morbid pertinacity (morbi pertinacia), persist in clothing
themselves in the aforesaid garments, the Yice-Chancellor shall, after
three monitions, expel them.

“ The motherly care shown by Alma Mater that her sons should not
fall into scrapes by making Guys of themselves, is here very strongly
evidenced; and I think it would be a profitable subject for inquiry, if
Ain. Hume would move for a return of the number ol times that the
Yice-Chancellor and the Heads of Houses have met, in accordance
with the above Statute.

“ The remainder of Tit. XIV is taken up with the cut of the gowns,
&c., but is as unlike a ladylike page of Le Follet (which Mrs. Brown
takes in) as anything can be.

•‘The Statutes demanding attention in Tit. XV. are so numerous
that I will trouble you with them in another letter; but they are so
amusing that they will repay perusal, and your opinion upon them will
•act only be highly valued by, hut of the greatest use, to

“Dear Mr. Punch,

“ Your constant reader,

“Peterloo Brown.”

SONG.—RIPEFORAJAIL.

Ripeeorajatl for an income is burning,_

Ripeforajail has no taste for clod-turning,

Ripeforajail has no funds for gin-spinning,

Yet Ripeforajail has “ Green” gold for the winning ;

Come lend a kind ear to a betting muff’s tale.

While he tells you the craft of bold Ripeforajail.

The Earl of Barepurse, o’er Newmarket doth ride,

And views his colt win in the very last stride,

Long odds for his net, and the Ring for his game,

Short whist for the wild, and the dice for the tame ;

Bat the Tattersall gudgeons, and Crock pigeons pale.

Are less free to Earl Barepurse than Ripeforajail.

Ripeforajail, when his carcase was light.

Used to sweat and to curry a thoroughbred bright,

And when “ grown overweight ” the Kents turned him abroad.
To pick winners, in print he each week pledged his word ;
Gents who love “ the blue ribbon,” and sport the blue veil,
Became quite confidential with Ripeforajail.

Ripeforajail to distinction is come.

He’s no longer a tout, but he owns a flash home;

A fig for The Davis and ’cute Harry Hill !

They might lay the long odds, he lays longer odds still,

A baize board and counter, and weeds very stale,

Are the sole stock in trade of bold Ripeforajail.

The Cockburn was steel, and the Bethel was stone.

And Palmerston warned him he soon must be gone ;

Pierce and loud this last week was the curse and the cry
Of his victims when shutters alone met the eye ;

With their Goodwood deposits he gave them leg-bail.

And a cove at Boulogne looks like Ripeforajail.

SPHERES OP REAL USEFULNESS.

The subjoined advertisement relates to an exhibition, which is,
perhaps, somewhat interesting, and which might be rendered very
much so:—

TMORAMA Of CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, 32, Sloaue Street, will continue
-L'' open for a short time. Parents will find this a truly Christian exhibition for
their children. Tahiti—New Zealand—The Maori—Island of Tanna—Death of
Captain Cook—First Missionary House at Tahiti —Cape Coast Castle—Banyan Tree—
Ashanti—Missionary Tombs—The Dungeon, and Rose Madiai.

What this exhibition wants, in order that it may enlist the sym-
pathies of those who are the most earnest promoters of Missionary
enterprise, is the addition of a few views of certain savage and heathen
regions, the conversion and civilisation of whose inhabitants are more
particularly important to the British public. The New Cut, Ratcliff
Highway, Houndsditch, AVhitechapel, and the slums of Westminster,
afford fields lor the operation of preachers and philanthropists as
extensive, as remarkable, and as unknown as the Polynesian
Archipelago or the Cannibal Islands.

Dietetic Pule of Conduct—Never ask a favour of a man until
ne lias had his dinner.

Old Lady (who is not used to these new-fangled notions). “ Oh, Sir/
Please, Sir! don’t, Sir / Don’t for goodness’ sake Fire, Sir/”

WHAT IS A MILE ?

We think that the question of “What is a Mile?”—a question
which promises to swallow up in interest the Eastern Question, and
all other questions which as yet remain unanswered—should be settled
as soon as possible ; for, until it is settled, we shall never be able to
arrive at a proper settlement ofrthe Cab fares. This settlement is due
—not only to the persons who ride in cabs—but to those who drive
them, for there are so many varieties of a mile, and so many different
ways of measuring it, that it is impossible to say which is the right
one. Eor instance—

If a young ladv walks round the corner of the street in which she
lives, she comes liome quite fatigued, and “is sure she has walked
more than a mile.”

If a husband is dragged—a little against his will—to a certain street,
where there happens to be a bonnet shop, though it is not more than
twenty yards, he is morally certain “ he has been taken a mile out
of his way, if he has been taken an inch.”

It is curious the number of miles a mother-in-law has walked when
she feels desirous, poor creature, of having a cab.

Besides, miles vary so much. A mistress’s mile is generally very
different to a servant’s—a master’s to a clerk’s. Auctioneers’ miles are
proverbially very short ones when they are describing a property as
being not more than “ an omnibus distance from town,” or when
they are enlarging upon the merits of a Yilla that is “ only an easy
drive from a railway station.” Travellers’ miles, on the contrary, are
generally very long ones. You will hear a delicate young man, who
has just returned from a pedestrian tour, boast ot having walked
his “two thousand miles,” just as if he had trailed a pedometer
behind him, and had measured every inch of the road. Panoramas
also, have a very elastic method of stretching out a mile, which
cab-drivers would doubtlessly not object to adopt as their own
particular standard of measurement. They talk very glibly of being
“three miles long,” whereas, if the distance came to be measured, it
would probably turn out to be—like cabmen’s distances generally—not
more than half. There is another deficiency, too, that frequently occurs
with the mileage question. We have known a distance, that when a
party first went over it, was only four or five miles, become suddenly
increased to eight or ten at least, when the same party—especially it
a dinner party—had to go over it again on their way back. This diffi-
culty has been felt so strongly at times, that every one of the party has
preferred—at that late hour—stopping where he was, instead ol
walking home all that distance. These unnecessary difficulties impera-
tively call for a speedy answer to the puzzling question, “What is a
Mile?” for hitherto the question has been passed overby our Police
magistrates, from one parish to another, like a pauper, for the want of
a settlement.