DOI issue:
July to December, 1853
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16612#0275
264
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
TERRIFIC SITUATION!
LIFE AND DEATH ASSURANCE.
Among our Provident Institutions are Life Assurance
Societies for Parents, which are Death Assurance Societies
for Children. They are otherwise called Coffin Clubs. They
engage to find the money for the coffin : the subscriber, father
or mother, finds the occupant for it—by murder.
The Grand Jury at the Liverpool Assizes has expressed its
opinion that the temptation thus afforded should be destroyed
by law. That might be done, perhaps, by prohibiting the club
from paying anybody on account of a death but the undertaker.
But what need of such clubs at all ?
Such clubs are necessary to protect the poor from being
ruined by a heavy expense. But why the heavy expense?
When I have shuffled off this mortal coil—what does it want,
except to be put reverently underground ? Cannot that be
done for a very small sum of money ? Why is it not done on
reasonable terms ? Simply because the mode of doing it is
not reasonable. Its performance is attended with a useless
sacrifice of furniture—necessitated by the tyranny of custom
—to show what is falsely termed “ proper respect.” Proper
respect is affectionate memory—not furniture.
Should I want “ proper respect ” to be shown to my leg,
if I had the misfortune to lose it, by having it enclosed in an
ornamental box, and deposited in a subterranean apartment,
with a large expenditure in wages, coach-hire, silk, and crape,
and feathers extracted from the tail of a great bird ? If the
leg is not to be treated with such “ proper respect,” why is
the trunk ?
The rich show “proper respect ” by'means of ostrich feathers
and such like. The poor are obliged to follow their lead as
far as they can —and farther. Hence Coffin Clubs—whence
infanticide.
Superior Classes, every nail that you drive to show “ proper
respect,” is an incentive to child-murder.
Theory and Practice.
Cardinal Wiseman, in his interview with the Pope,
promised his Holiness, that in a few years there would not
be a single heretic in England. Of course this is only “ theor-
heretically speaking,” but we are afraid the Cardinal will find
the practice quite another thing.
Heroine of Domestic Drama pursued by the Unprincipled Villian is
ABOUT TO CAST HERSELF HEADLONG EROM A TREMENDOUS PRECIPICE !
The Home of the British Drama.—A French Crib.
THE WAITS TO THE CZAK.
W ord of Peace !—on Earth first spoken nigh two thousand years ago.
Art thou at this moment broken ?—and who dares belie thee so ?
His a tyrant, cruel, scheming, whose ambition takes the field
In the very name, blaspheming, which tlmt message then revealed.
Erost and snow, keen Christmas weather, and the biting winter wind,
Bid us .lovingly together huddle closely, all mankind;
Blood is on the Danube freezing; wounds are agonized with cold,
Only for the sake of pleasing one proud felon uncontrolled.
All good souls are now beseeching blessings on their fellow man.
But one savage, overreaching, brutal despot, thousands ban.
On the field of battle lying, torn and mangled for his whim.
Hear we not the tortured dying call down curses upon him ?
Nations now like kindly neighbours should, as round the Yule log,
close.
Must we take to guns and sabres ? Will the tyrant make us foes ?
Hear the wounded writhing under Cossack hoofs and lances then.
Gracious Heaven ! and may the thunder of our cannon roar Amen !
Originality.
Originality (says Goethe) provokes originality; and we must say,
that at Billingsgate, and in the House of Commons, the provocation
sometimes is. exceedingly strong. The smallest provocation we know
of the kind is in the British drama; in fact so small is it, that we
doubt if it amounts to any provocation at all. We only wish some
one would provoke somebody else to write an original play, by writing
one first himself.
The Golden Age of Life.—Yontli is the season for active
exertion; and all those who emigrate to the Diggings ought to be
Minors.
RURAL SIMPLICITY.
Legal Gentleman. “ Hu ! not a bad glass of Port for a cocktb’/
INN.”
Loots. “Noa, zur, I thinks they meakes thur own Wine esjI.
I KNATV THEY BrEE-EWS.”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
TERRIFIC SITUATION!
LIFE AND DEATH ASSURANCE.
Among our Provident Institutions are Life Assurance
Societies for Parents, which are Death Assurance Societies
for Children. They are otherwise called Coffin Clubs. They
engage to find the money for the coffin : the subscriber, father
or mother, finds the occupant for it—by murder.
The Grand Jury at the Liverpool Assizes has expressed its
opinion that the temptation thus afforded should be destroyed
by law. That might be done, perhaps, by prohibiting the club
from paying anybody on account of a death but the undertaker.
But what need of such clubs at all ?
Such clubs are necessary to protect the poor from being
ruined by a heavy expense. But why the heavy expense?
When I have shuffled off this mortal coil—what does it want,
except to be put reverently underground ? Cannot that be
done for a very small sum of money ? Why is it not done on
reasonable terms ? Simply because the mode of doing it is
not reasonable. Its performance is attended with a useless
sacrifice of furniture—necessitated by the tyranny of custom
—to show what is falsely termed “ proper respect.” Proper
respect is affectionate memory—not furniture.
Should I want “ proper respect ” to be shown to my leg,
if I had the misfortune to lose it, by having it enclosed in an
ornamental box, and deposited in a subterranean apartment,
with a large expenditure in wages, coach-hire, silk, and crape,
and feathers extracted from the tail of a great bird ? If the
leg is not to be treated with such “ proper respect,” why is
the trunk ?
The rich show “proper respect ” by'means of ostrich feathers
and such like. The poor are obliged to follow their lead as
far as they can —and farther. Hence Coffin Clubs—whence
infanticide.
Superior Classes, every nail that you drive to show “ proper
respect,” is an incentive to child-murder.
Theory and Practice.
Cardinal Wiseman, in his interview with the Pope,
promised his Holiness, that in a few years there would not
be a single heretic in England. Of course this is only “ theor-
heretically speaking,” but we are afraid the Cardinal will find
the practice quite another thing.
Heroine of Domestic Drama pursued by the Unprincipled Villian is
ABOUT TO CAST HERSELF HEADLONG EROM A TREMENDOUS PRECIPICE !
The Home of the British Drama.—A French Crib.
THE WAITS TO THE CZAK.
W ord of Peace !—on Earth first spoken nigh two thousand years ago.
Art thou at this moment broken ?—and who dares belie thee so ?
His a tyrant, cruel, scheming, whose ambition takes the field
In the very name, blaspheming, which tlmt message then revealed.
Erost and snow, keen Christmas weather, and the biting winter wind,
Bid us .lovingly together huddle closely, all mankind;
Blood is on the Danube freezing; wounds are agonized with cold,
Only for the sake of pleasing one proud felon uncontrolled.
All good souls are now beseeching blessings on their fellow man.
But one savage, overreaching, brutal despot, thousands ban.
On the field of battle lying, torn and mangled for his whim.
Hear we not the tortured dying call down curses upon him ?
Nations now like kindly neighbours should, as round the Yule log,
close.
Must we take to guns and sabres ? Will the tyrant make us foes ?
Hear the wounded writhing under Cossack hoofs and lances then.
Gracious Heaven ! and may the thunder of our cannon roar Amen !
Originality.
Originality (says Goethe) provokes originality; and we must say,
that at Billingsgate, and in the House of Commons, the provocation
sometimes is. exceedingly strong. The smallest provocation we know
of the kind is in the British drama; in fact so small is it, that we
doubt if it amounts to any provocation at all. We only wish some
one would provoke somebody else to write an original play, by writing
one first himself.
The Golden Age of Life.—Yontli is the season for active
exertion; and all those who emigrate to the Diggings ought to be
Minors.
RURAL SIMPLICITY.
Legal Gentleman. “ Hu ! not a bad glass of Port for a cocktb’/
INN.”
Loots. “Noa, zur, I thinks they meakes thur own Wine esjI.
I KNATV THEY BrEE-EWS.”