DOI issue:
July to December, 1854
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16614#0010
v
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
n.atists that it was best for me to make no noise about the business, j
and to walk the streets as if nothing had happened. (
"That afternoon, about two o'clock, I was standing before Jacob's j
the printseller's shop, talking and joking wiih young Alexis Mibo- j
ladowax : who should pass us m Ins brown Droschki, m which t he
etiquette is never to recognise him, but the Emperor himself ! I
happened to be cracking with laughter at one of Alexis's stories (a
very queer one about, my friend Count Cancrim) when his Majesty
passed. ,■,•,■<
" A man who had been flayed alive at two o clock m the morning
shaking his sides with laughter on the Alexander Platz, at two in the
afternoon—here was a strange occurrence ! The Emperor looked at me
as if I had been a ghost: he turned quite livid when he saw me. I
appeared to take no notice, laughed and chatted on with Alexis, and
pretended to be looking at the brass statue of St. Gregorius Nazian-
zenus, which stands in the Place.
" Gallant men never kiss and tell, so I leave such to imagine the |
rapturous meeting which took place that evening in the blue saloon of
tlie Winter Palace between me and my lovely rescuer—the pressure of
the hand, which, though but momentary, causes the frame to thrill
with happiness—the rapid glance of the eye, more eloquent than a
thousand speeches. Oh! Matilda ! Can 'it be that you have for-
gotten me so soon, and for a Qu--; but I am advancing matters—
no woman could be fonder or truer than Matilda was then.
" It, was, I have said, a Thursday evening, the night of the Empress's
weekly reception. Our Quaker friends had come to take leave; they
were to depart indeed before it was light the next morning, and 1
recollect Matilda asking me why young Mr. Dodkins was not present,
whom I had introduced to her family, from •which he had received great
and constant attention. The young Quaker is a man of enormous
wealth, and I recollect Matilda and myself counting up, in roubles,
the amount of the income which he receives in pounds sterling for his
share of the business.
" I laughed. I supposed Dodkins wanted to keep his moustaches,
and did not care to face his uncle, old .Tedediah Dodkins, who with
some of the old members of the deputation, Jived with an old friend, a
serious tallow merchant on the English Quay.
"I went, into the Imperial presence with the rest, and made my bow
to their Majesties. The dear Empress, I thought, turned away her
head from me with a very mournful expression, whereas the Autocrat
looked as black as thunder. I did not, mind his black looks ; made my
obeisance, and retired presently into the pink and silver drawing-room,
where Ealconnet's silver bust of the Empress Catherine stands,
and where the Maids-of-Honour commonly sit and have tea; it is ex-
ceedingly good at St. Petersburg, as everybody knows, and I drank
two or three and twenty cups whilst chattering with these charming
girls.
" Presently I saw Matilda coming, with a look of great anxiety in
her face; she beckoned me to speak to her, and I followed her into the
embrasure of the window, in which the Cupid and Psyche stands
looking out on the Tolstoi Square.
" ' Oh, my Mulliganovitch,' she said, 'my Nijni, my Moujik, my
Caviare, my M--, my beautiful, my brave, my best beloved, I have
dreadful news for you.'
" ' Speak, cushla ma chree na hoclish,' says 1, (the Celtic and the
Sclavonic dialects are very similar), seizing her lovely hand, and pressing
it to my beating waistcoat; ' speak, light of my eyes, and tell me what
is the matter.'
" ' You asked for passports for Prussia this morning at the Police
Office, and they were promised to you.'
" ' They w ere, adored creature ; will you fly with me ?'
"'Oh Mulliganovitch, (such a heavenly expression of the eyes
here) you will never be allowed to depart to Prussia: to-morrow at ten
o'clock, somebody who tells me everything—get away you jealous
creature, and don't be jealous of him, or doubt your poor little Matilda,
»uforms me that you will be seized and sent to Siberia: you are con-
sidered as a naturalized Russian subject. The Emperor laughed for a
moment when he heard of poor Count Tuffskln being mistaken for
you. _ Oh, dear, dear Mulliganovitch, I could not sleep all night for
thinking of what might befal you; but after his laugh, he grew more
angry than ever, and had it not been for the Empress going on her
knees to him this very evening, the horrid operation would have been
performed on you.'
" I ground my teeth, crunching between them the execration which
otherwise had issued from my lips. To be sent to Siberia—the
thought was madness !
" ' Ladies are not allowed to go thee,' sobbed out Matilda,
divining the causes of my emotion; 'they will separate me from my
Mulliganovitch ; they will marry me to that horrid tipsy Tuffski ;'
" I don't know what I should have done in that moment of grief
and joy had not Matilda's mamma called her at this very juncture, and
left me to contemplate my fate, and (to quote the beautiful words of
General Wolfe), bitterly think of the morrow.
" Go to Siberia ! I swore I would die first.
'"' Bashi-Bozouk."
TEMPERANCE IN TRUTH.
" The mixture of a lie ever pleaseth," says Lord Bacon ; un-
fortunately for himself, a sad authority for the truthfulness of the
saying. The Scotch are a nation of philosophers. There is in
Edinburgh many a philosopher who, like Diogenes, would live in a
tub—if the tub were made a whiskey-cask inside, with "water-cask " in
large letters painted externally. It must be confessed that teetotallers
are, at times, terribly temperate in water; especially in that particular
water drawn from the well of truth. Truth's bucket is as hateful to
their nostrils as though it reeked with the penal fires of Islay or
Gienlivat. But, like Diogenes, they are philosophers, and can lie very
comfortably in every sort of cask.
The folks of Glasgow, it seems, rejoice in a new local act—may it
remain national with them as the national thistle!—that forbids the
furnishing not only of drink, but of meat, to any man, woman, or child,
hungering for a tavern dinner, unless the man, woman, or child, afore-
said, are indwellers of the hostelry, sleeping there !
What is the consequence, as related in the Times, by an authenticated
correspondent ? Two men are starving for a dinner. They enter a
tavern; are resolutely denied the meal; but at length obtain it, by
taking beds for the night! They are permitted the use of knife and
fork under the fiction that they are to wear nightcaps! They are
allowed to have a fowl for dinner, on the lie that they take with it,
goose-feathers. Such are the beds of Justice in Scotland at this hour;
most truly of Justice, for here she must sleep in them; sleep the sleep
of whiskey—the sleep of temperance, temperate of truth !
Doctor Latham, in his Handbook to the Courts of Natural History
for the Crystal Palace, gives specimens of certain savages, who thrust
pieces of wood through the lobes of their ears; and cause the most
unnatural projection of the under lip, as offerings to their sense of the
beautiful. Are there no unsophisticated folks who, in the same way,
sacrifice to their sense of truth? who project the lip with a Phari-
saical lie; and to prove that they do not take the toddy-ladle to their
own mouths, insist upon thrusting it through the lobes of their neigh-
bours' ears ? We wish Doctor Latham would add a specimen or
two from the natives of Caledonia,
THE WRITING-MASTER AT THE HOME-OFFICE.
Lord Palmerston in addition to the many matters he has on his
own hands, has been directing his energies to the hands written by
those who are under him. It is perfectly natural that the bottle-holder
should object to such "fists" as he has occasionally met, with in his
correspondence at the Home Office. He has accordingly dealt out a
few raps on the knuckles, the effect of which will, we trust, be satis-
factory. The next thing for his Lordship to do, will be to issue
appropriate copies to the various departments of the Government.
We can imagine a few of those sentences for copy-books, which in
his mixed position of moralist and minister, would most probably occur
to him :—
Evil communications corrupt good Lord John Manners.
If Sibthorp 's bliss, 'tis folly to be other-ioise.
It 's a long political life that has no turning.
Government waste makes National want.
The Duke of Decanters.
When the King of Portugal and bis brother, the Duke of
Oporto, partook of the meat-breakfast, genteelly called dejeuner a la
ifeurchette, at the Mansion House the other day, there were, as we are
informed, some curious wines on the table. To the Duke of Oporto
the most curious of these wines appeared, we believe, a purple sort of
wine, if it can be called wine, nearly as strong as brandy; and we have
good reason for stating, that the Duke's astonishment was excessive
when his Royal Highness was told that this liquor was the produce of
his own dukedom. We trust that the Duke of Oporto's visit to the
Mansion House will be followed by results advantageous to the Port
of London, and consequently to that of England.
An Evil Liver.
They say that_ Nicholas is labouring under a liver affection—the
only sort of affection of which his nature is capable. It appears, there-
fore, that the Czar is troubled with bile; and there can be no doubt
that he complains bitterly of Gaul.
A Botanico-Medico Proverb.—Patients are Simples that do not
grow in every medical man's garden.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
n.atists that it was best for me to make no noise about the business, j
and to walk the streets as if nothing had happened. (
"That afternoon, about two o'clock, I was standing before Jacob's j
the printseller's shop, talking and joking wiih young Alexis Mibo- j
ladowax : who should pass us m Ins brown Droschki, m which t he
etiquette is never to recognise him, but the Emperor himself ! I
happened to be cracking with laughter at one of Alexis's stories (a
very queer one about, my friend Count Cancrim) when his Majesty
passed. ,■,•,■<
" A man who had been flayed alive at two o clock m the morning
shaking his sides with laughter on the Alexander Platz, at two in the
afternoon—here was a strange occurrence ! The Emperor looked at me
as if I had been a ghost: he turned quite livid when he saw me. I
appeared to take no notice, laughed and chatted on with Alexis, and
pretended to be looking at the brass statue of St. Gregorius Nazian-
zenus, which stands in the Place.
" Gallant men never kiss and tell, so I leave such to imagine the |
rapturous meeting which took place that evening in the blue saloon of
tlie Winter Palace between me and my lovely rescuer—the pressure of
the hand, which, though but momentary, causes the frame to thrill
with happiness—the rapid glance of the eye, more eloquent than a
thousand speeches. Oh! Matilda ! Can 'it be that you have for-
gotten me so soon, and for a Qu--; but I am advancing matters—
no woman could be fonder or truer than Matilda was then.
" It, was, I have said, a Thursday evening, the night of the Empress's
weekly reception. Our Quaker friends had come to take leave; they
were to depart indeed before it was light the next morning, and 1
recollect Matilda asking me why young Mr. Dodkins was not present,
whom I had introduced to her family, from •which he had received great
and constant attention. The young Quaker is a man of enormous
wealth, and I recollect Matilda and myself counting up, in roubles,
the amount of the income which he receives in pounds sterling for his
share of the business.
" I laughed. I supposed Dodkins wanted to keep his moustaches,
and did not care to face his uncle, old .Tedediah Dodkins, who with
some of the old members of the deputation, Jived with an old friend, a
serious tallow merchant on the English Quay.
"I went, into the Imperial presence with the rest, and made my bow
to their Majesties. The dear Empress, I thought, turned away her
head from me with a very mournful expression, whereas the Autocrat
looked as black as thunder. I did not, mind his black looks ; made my
obeisance, and retired presently into the pink and silver drawing-room,
where Ealconnet's silver bust of the Empress Catherine stands,
and where the Maids-of-Honour commonly sit and have tea; it is ex-
ceedingly good at St. Petersburg, as everybody knows, and I drank
two or three and twenty cups whilst chattering with these charming
girls.
" Presently I saw Matilda coming, with a look of great anxiety in
her face; she beckoned me to speak to her, and I followed her into the
embrasure of the window, in which the Cupid and Psyche stands
looking out on the Tolstoi Square.
" ' Oh, my Mulliganovitch,' she said, 'my Nijni, my Moujik, my
Caviare, my M--, my beautiful, my brave, my best beloved, I have
dreadful news for you.'
" ' Speak, cushla ma chree na hoclish,' says 1, (the Celtic and the
Sclavonic dialects are very similar), seizing her lovely hand, and pressing
it to my beating waistcoat; ' speak, light of my eyes, and tell me what
is the matter.'
" ' You asked for passports for Prussia this morning at the Police
Office, and they were promised to you.'
" ' They w ere, adored creature ; will you fly with me ?'
"'Oh Mulliganovitch, (such a heavenly expression of the eyes
here) you will never be allowed to depart to Prussia: to-morrow at ten
o'clock, somebody who tells me everything—get away you jealous
creature, and don't be jealous of him, or doubt your poor little Matilda,
»uforms me that you will be seized and sent to Siberia: you are con-
sidered as a naturalized Russian subject. The Emperor laughed for a
moment when he heard of poor Count Tuffskln being mistaken for
you. _ Oh, dear, dear Mulliganovitch, I could not sleep all night for
thinking of what might befal you; but after his laugh, he grew more
angry than ever, and had it not been for the Empress going on her
knees to him this very evening, the horrid operation would have been
performed on you.'
" I ground my teeth, crunching between them the execration which
otherwise had issued from my lips. To be sent to Siberia—the
thought was madness !
" ' Ladies are not allowed to go thee,' sobbed out Matilda,
divining the causes of my emotion; 'they will separate me from my
Mulliganovitch ; they will marry me to that horrid tipsy Tuffski ;'
" I don't know what I should have done in that moment of grief
and joy had not Matilda's mamma called her at this very juncture, and
left me to contemplate my fate, and (to quote the beautiful words of
General Wolfe), bitterly think of the morrow.
" Go to Siberia ! I swore I would die first.
'"' Bashi-Bozouk."
TEMPERANCE IN TRUTH.
" The mixture of a lie ever pleaseth," says Lord Bacon ; un-
fortunately for himself, a sad authority for the truthfulness of the
saying. The Scotch are a nation of philosophers. There is in
Edinburgh many a philosopher who, like Diogenes, would live in a
tub—if the tub were made a whiskey-cask inside, with "water-cask " in
large letters painted externally. It must be confessed that teetotallers
are, at times, terribly temperate in water; especially in that particular
water drawn from the well of truth. Truth's bucket is as hateful to
their nostrils as though it reeked with the penal fires of Islay or
Gienlivat. But, like Diogenes, they are philosophers, and can lie very
comfortably in every sort of cask.
The folks of Glasgow, it seems, rejoice in a new local act—may it
remain national with them as the national thistle!—that forbids the
furnishing not only of drink, but of meat, to any man, woman, or child,
hungering for a tavern dinner, unless the man, woman, or child, afore-
said, are indwellers of the hostelry, sleeping there !
What is the consequence, as related in the Times, by an authenticated
correspondent ? Two men are starving for a dinner. They enter a
tavern; are resolutely denied the meal; but at length obtain it, by
taking beds for the night! They are permitted the use of knife and
fork under the fiction that they are to wear nightcaps! They are
allowed to have a fowl for dinner, on the lie that they take with it,
goose-feathers. Such are the beds of Justice in Scotland at this hour;
most truly of Justice, for here she must sleep in them; sleep the sleep
of whiskey—the sleep of temperance, temperate of truth !
Doctor Latham, in his Handbook to the Courts of Natural History
for the Crystal Palace, gives specimens of certain savages, who thrust
pieces of wood through the lobes of their ears; and cause the most
unnatural projection of the under lip, as offerings to their sense of the
beautiful. Are there no unsophisticated folks who, in the same way,
sacrifice to their sense of truth? who project the lip with a Phari-
saical lie; and to prove that they do not take the toddy-ladle to their
own mouths, insist upon thrusting it through the lobes of their neigh-
bours' ears ? We wish Doctor Latham would add a specimen or
two from the natives of Caledonia,
THE WRITING-MASTER AT THE HOME-OFFICE.
Lord Palmerston in addition to the many matters he has on his
own hands, has been directing his energies to the hands written by
those who are under him. It is perfectly natural that the bottle-holder
should object to such "fists" as he has occasionally met, with in his
correspondence at the Home Office. He has accordingly dealt out a
few raps on the knuckles, the effect of which will, we trust, be satis-
factory. The next thing for his Lordship to do, will be to issue
appropriate copies to the various departments of the Government.
We can imagine a few of those sentences for copy-books, which in
his mixed position of moralist and minister, would most probably occur
to him :—
Evil communications corrupt good Lord John Manners.
If Sibthorp 's bliss, 'tis folly to be other-ioise.
It 's a long political life that has no turning.
Government waste makes National want.
The Duke of Decanters.
When the King of Portugal and bis brother, the Duke of
Oporto, partook of the meat-breakfast, genteelly called dejeuner a la
ifeurchette, at the Mansion House the other day, there were, as we are
informed, some curious wines on the table. To the Duke of Oporto
the most curious of these wines appeared, we believe, a purple sort of
wine, if it can be called wine, nearly as strong as brandy; and we have
good reason for stating, that the Duke's astonishment was excessive
when his Royal Highness was told that this liquor was the produce of
his own dukedom. We trust that the Duke of Oporto's visit to the
Mansion House will be followed by results advantageous to the Port
of London, and consequently to that of England.
An Evil Liver.
They say that_ Nicholas is labouring under a liver affection—the
only sort of affection of which his nature is capable. It appears, there-
fore, that the Czar is troubled with bile; and there can be no doubt
that he complains bitterly of Gaul.
A Botanico-Medico Proverb.—Patients are Simples that do not
grow in every medical man's garden.