DOI issue:
July to December, 1853
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16612#0093
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
81
RESOURCE. FOR YOUNG LADIES.
HY should young ladies
in distress commit sui-
cide, or turn governesses
in genteel families, when
they might earn a decent
competence by penny-a-
lining? Can they? Why
yes, to be sure they
can. For example, here
is apiece of that work
as characteristic as
crochet:—
“ The Mooks.—This morn-
ing, with the break of dawn,
the quick report of the rifle
would be heard on all the
moors of Scotland, and before
this sheet is in the hands of
our readers, many thousand
boxes of birds will have been
oagged by the keen sports-
men.”
“Many thousand boxes
of birds,” each box con-
taining several, will have
been “ bagged by the
keen sportsmen; ” every
single bird almost out of
the several thousand bag-
ged on “the quick re-
port of the rifle.” For,
you see, the rifle could not, except very rarely, kill two birds with one bullet: so
that a brace of grouse dropping to the “ quick report of the rifle ” would be a rare
occurrence. Pop goes the rifle; down goes the bird, perhaps; but that is all, in
general. As the keenest sportsmen, however, sometimes miss, and rifle balls have
a longish range, the sporting on these moors must have been rather dangerous to
unfeathered birds as well as to game. Six shots might “ achieve; ” but the
seventh, at least, would, in all probability, “ deceive,” as the British melodramatist
says in Per Freischiitz. But we are ourselves filing wide
of our mark, or digressing from the point: which is, that
the above paragraph, copied from the Stirling Journal, is
evidently the production of a lady. The sex of the
writer is betrayed in the vague allusion to “ the rifle.”
A masculine scribe, with that precision in reference to
shooting that cannot be expected from the female mind,
would have been more specific, and would have told U3
whether these wonderful Scotch rifles that brought down
so many grouse were Mime rifles or American revolvers.
A CIVIL CABMAN’S SAUCE.
A Cabman was summoned before the Loud May on—
The report in the Times may be found—
For refusing to take in his carriage a fare.
Which to do he was legally bound.
The cab of defendant, complainant averred.
That he saw, disengaged, on the stand;
And to hive it proposed, but defendant demurrea,
And declined to accord the demand.
But only to think, now, how gentle, how mild,
How pleasant a Cabman can be!
As he made the objection, he quietly smiled.
And observed that he wanted his Tea.
In the same ahv strain and light iocular mood,
Which we cannot too highly admire.
Did the gentleman not, he politely pursued.
That refreshment himself, too, require ?
But how shall we ever the sequel relate r
This behaviour-, so worthy of praise.
Procured—it is really distressing to state—
Twenty Shillings—or else Fourteen Days !
EL VERDADERO DESCUBRIMIENTO DTXIMAYA.
POR DON VELASQUEZ CROCKER, UN INGENIO DE ESTA CORTE.
The manuscript of the following “True Discovery of Iximaya,” by
“ a wit of this court ” (as the old Spanish dramatists would have said),
was brought to Mr. Punch's office, together with three pounds of
j chocolate and a box of cigars, by an unknown hand. Mr. Punch
forgives the mixed jargon of the verses, being moved thereto by the
integrity of the chocolate and cigars, which were entirely Spanish; but,
as his readers have not tasted of the one, or inhaled the fumes of the
other, he has employed three of the best Spanish scholars in the
Foreign Office (placed at his disposal by Lord Clarendon) to prepare
the annexed translations of his correspondent’s most recondite
phrases.
Senor Punch, amigo mio; cuyo sobremucho brio
Todo triste enfado rio drives from out the heart of man !
Judith, cuyo cor airoso ofiende su esposo !
Y Tobias, tan jocoso, de los canes Grande Can!
Hear a singular narration of a long-lost Aztec nation
In a lonely situation dwelling on its ancient plan:
I alone have entered into its forbidden lands by dint o’
All the wit of Mendez Pinto, and the brass of Jonathan.
In the town of Guatemala, sitting in the antesala
(That you know’s the tap-room parlour) of a queer old Spanish inn,
While the portly Mesonero—platicante el dinero
De tan rico forastero through his appetite to win—
Brought from out the meagre larder of his precious poor posada
A saorosa sazonada, mess of beans, in dripping fried;
1 was mindful of a greasy Padre, very fat and wheezy,
Who, with action free and easy, came and sat him by my side ;
Saying, “ Senor por mi vida, it I share your slight comida,
It is not.because I need a meal, but that I wish to show
Mi poquito de respeto por tan principal sujeto.”
“ Tan afable y discreto Padre I am glad to know :
You are welcome, father,” said I; “my repast, you see, is ready,
So, if you will bless the bread, I gladly will the half resign.”
Thus we sat, some white wine sipping, and the pan bendito dipping
in the unctuous beans and dripping, till I said, “O ! Padre mine.
Prithee tell me sin enganos why your old ciudadanos
, Twixt two large and fierce volcanoes chose to build this lordly town ?*
* The town stands between two volcanos: one of fire, the other of water.
Uno d’agua rebienta; un con llamas atormenta
El Pueblo ; both have sent a raging torrent rolling down.”
“ Ah ! amigo muy amado ! ” said the Padre ; “ Alvaradc
Este lugar mas dichado chose betwixt each fatal spout.
Thinking that whene’er they brought or floods of fire or streams of
water
On the town from either quarter, one would put the other out.”
Then I said, “ I’ve heard men say a town entitled Iximaya,
Never seen by white man, lay a few leagues off behind the hills.
Is it true, Sir ? ” Said the Padre, “ Por los ojos de mi madre,
Vino con los contos cuadre ! Talking, dry-lipped, nothing skills.
Bring us, quick, some Batafia and cigars, Dolores mia;
Manana sera otro dia; all to-night we ’ll men-y be.
Yo estaba un chiquito (here he took a cigarrito)
Algo de lo pastorcito, when its walls I chanced to see :
’Twas from yonder high Sierra’s cloud-encircled summit; where a
Vagabunda negra perra, which I loved, had gone astray,
Sus esplandientes tejas, blancas como mis ovejas,
I could see and count the rejas, tho’ ’twas twenty leagues away.”
Struck by what the priest related, for a while I meditated
How to find if what he stated were the very truth, or no.
Then I said, “You live so near it, that methinks ’tis somewhat queer it
Is not better known down here.” “ It, Senor,” said he, “ is not so * 1 * * * S
Por, sus gallos y gallinas, envueltos en basquinas
Viven en profundas minas, lest they should be heard to crow.”
S to Dolores winking, straight I left the Padre drinking,
departed quickly, thinking, “ I will make a journey there.”
Soon I paid the Mesonero ; sought me out an Arriero,
Asked the road, and hired a pair o’ steady mules and paid the fare.
Dificil y peregrino se mostraba el camino ;
Nunca Mulatero vino on that lonely road before ;
Por las selvas mas obscuras, y profundas espesuras.
Where the jaguar would be sure, as we appeared, to give a roar,
Por los montes y fuentes, y arroyas sin puentes.
Where the alligator spent his leisure hours, on we bore;
Till the Mulatero dying, I was forced to leave him, lying
On the mountain after trying circulation to restore.
Then for want of preparation for my novel situation
I was threatened with starvation; ate the very clothes I wore ;
Comi yo de las albardas por el tanto Sol asadas ;
Gene de las almohadas sodden in the streams I past;
Till one day, desalihado, flaco, manco, fatigado,
I attained (A ! desdichado !) Iximaya’s walls at last
81
RESOURCE. FOR YOUNG LADIES.
HY should young ladies
in distress commit sui-
cide, or turn governesses
in genteel families, when
they might earn a decent
competence by penny-a-
lining? Can they? Why
yes, to be sure they
can. For example, here
is apiece of that work
as characteristic as
crochet:—
“ The Mooks.—This morn-
ing, with the break of dawn,
the quick report of the rifle
would be heard on all the
moors of Scotland, and before
this sheet is in the hands of
our readers, many thousand
boxes of birds will have been
oagged by the keen sports-
men.”
“Many thousand boxes
of birds,” each box con-
taining several, will have
been “ bagged by the
keen sportsmen; ” every
single bird almost out of
the several thousand bag-
ged on “the quick re-
port of the rifle.” For,
you see, the rifle could not, except very rarely, kill two birds with one bullet: so
that a brace of grouse dropping to the “ quick report of the rifle ” would be a rare
occurrence. Pop goes the rifle; down goes the bird, perhaps; but that is all, in
general. As the keenest sportsmen, however, sometimes miss, and rifle balls have
a longish range, the sporting on these moors must have been rather dangerous to
unfeathered birds as well as to game. Six shots might “ achieve; ” but the
seventh, at least, would, in all probability, “ deceive,” as the British melodramatist
says in Per Freischiitz. But we are ourselves filing wide
of our mark, or digressing from the point: which is, that
the above paragraph, copied from the Stirling Journal, is
evidently the production of a lady. The sex of the
writer is betrayed in the vague allusion to “ the rifle.”
A masculine scribe, with that precision in reference to
shooting that cannot be expected from the female mind,
would have been more specific, and would have told U3
whether these wonderful Scotch rifles that brought down
so many grouse were Mime rifles or American revolvers.
A CIVIL CABMAN’S SAUCE.
A Cabman was summoned before the Loud May on—
The report in the Times may be found—
For refusing to take in his carriage a fare.
Which to do he was legally bound.
The cab of defendant, complainant averred.
That he saw, disengaged, on the stand;
And to hive it proposed, but defendant demurrea,
And declined to accord the demand.
But only to think, now, how gentle, how mild,
How pleasant a Cabman can be!
As he made the objection, he quietly smiled.
And observed that he wanted his Tea.
In the same ahv strain and light iocular mood,
Which we cannot too highly admire.
Did the gentleman not, he politely pursued.
That refreshment himself, too, require ?
But how shall we ever the sequel relate r
This behaviour-, so worthy of praise.
Procured—it is really distressing to state—
Twenty Shillings—or else Fourteen Days !
EL VERDADERO DESCUBRIMIENTO DTXIMAYA.
POR DON VELASQUEZ CROCKER, UN INGENIO DE ESTA CORTE.
The manuscript of the following “True Discovery of Iximaya,” by
“ a wit of this court ” (as the old Spanish dramatists would have said),
was brought to Mr. Punch's office, together with three pounds of
j chocolate and a box of cigars, by an unknown hand. Mr. Punch
forgives the mixed jargon of the verses, being moved thereto by the
integrity of the chocolate and cigars, which were entirely Spanish; but,
as his readers have not tasted of the one, or inhaled the fumes of the
other, he has employed three of the best Spanish scholars in the
Foreign Office (placed at his disposal by Lord Clarendon) to prepare
the annexed translations of his correspondent’s most recondite
phrases.
Senor Punch, amigo mio; cuyo sobremucho brio
Todo triste enfado rio drives from out the heart of man !
Judith, cuyo cor airoso ofiende su esposo !
Y Tobias, tan jocoso, de los canes Grande Can!
Hear a singular narration of a long-lost Aztec nation
In a lonely situation dwelling on its ancient plan:
I alone have entered into its forbidden lands by dint o’
All the wit of Mendez Pinto, and the brass of Jonathan.
In the town of Guatemala, sitting in the antesala
(That you know’s the tap-room parlour) of a queer old Spanish inn,
While the portly Mesonero—platicante el dinero
De tan rico forastero through his appetite to win—
Brought from out the meagre larder of his precious poor posada
A saorosa sazonada, mess of beans, in dripping fried;
1 was mindful of a greasy Padre, very fat and wheezy,
Who, with action free and easy, came and sat him by my side ;
Saying, “ Senor por mi vida, it I share your slight comida,
It is not.because I need a meal, but that I wish to show
Mi poquito de respeto por tan principal sujeto.”
“ Tan afable y discreto Padre I am glad to know :
You are welcome, father,” said I; “my repast, you see, is ready,
So, if you will bless the bread, I gladly will the half resign.”
Thus we sat, some white wine sipping, and the pan bendito dipping
in the unctuous beans and dripping, till I said, “O ! Padre mine.
Prithee tell me sin enganos why your old ciudadanos
, Twixt two large and fierce volcanoes chose to build this lordly town ?*
* The town stands between two volcanos: one of fire, the other of water.
Uno d’agua rebienta; un con llamas atormenta
El Pueblo ; both have sent a raging torrent rolling down.”
“ Ah ! amigo muy amado ! ” said the Padre ; “ Alvaradc
Este lugar mas dichado chose betwixt each fatal spout.
Thinking that whene’er they brought or floods of fire or streams of
water
On the town from either quarter, one would put the other out.”
Then I said, “ I’ve heard men say a town entitled Iximaya,
Never seen by white man, lay a few leagues off behind the hills.
Is it true, Sir ? ” Said the Padre, “ Por los ojos de mi madre,
Vino con los contos cuadre ! Talking, dry-lipped, nothing skills.
Bring us, quick, some Batafia and cigars, Dolores mia;
Manana sera otro dia; all to-night we ’ll men-y be.
Yo estaba un chiquito (here he took a cigarrito)
Algo de lo pastorcito, when its walls I chanced to see :
’Twas from yonder high Sierra’s cloud-encircled summit; where a
Vagabunda negra perra, which I loved, had gone astray,
Sus esplandientes tejas, blancas como mis ovejas,
I could see and count the rejas, tho’ ’twas twenty leagues away.”
Struck by what the priest related, for a while I meditated
How to find if what he stated were the very truth, or no.
Then I said, “You live so near it, that methinks ’tis somewhat queer it
Is not better known down here.” “ It, Senor,” said he, “ is not so * 1 * * * S
Por, sus gallos y gallinas, envueltos en basquinas
Viven en profundas minas, lest they should be heard to crow.”
S to Dolores winking, straight I left the Padre drinking,
departed quickly, thinking, “ I will make a journey there.”
Soon I paid the Mesonero ; sought me out an Arriero,
Asked the road, and hired a pair o’ steady mules and paid the fare.
Dificil y peregrino se mostraba el camino ;
Nunca Mulatero vino on that lonely road before ;
Por las selvas mas obscuras, y profundas espesuras.
Where the jaguar would be sure, as we appeared, to give a roar,
Por los montes y fuentes, y arroyas sin puentes.
Where the alligator spent his leisure hours, on we bore;
Till the Mulatero dying, I was forced to leave him, lying
On the mountain after trying circulation to restore.
Then for want of preparation for my novel situation
I was threatened with starvation; ate the very clothes I wore ;
Comi yo de las albardas por el tanto Sol asadas ;
Gene de las almohadas sodden in the streams I past;
Till one day, desalihado, flaco, manco, fatigado,
I attained (A ! desdichado !) Iximaya’s walls at last