Punch (27.1854)

QUITE A NOVELTY.

Amiable Experimentalist. "Makes a delicious Side Dish, doesn't it? But it is not the common Mushroom ; it's a large
Fungus, called the Agaricus Procerus. It grows solitary in hedge rows, is called Colubrinus, from the snake-like
markings on its stem. tlie plleus is covered with scales, which are eormed by the breaking-up op the mud-coloured
Epidermis, and- [Generalpanic takes place.

NO MATES FOR THE VULTURE.

There sits a Vulture, gaunt and grim,
Double-headed, golden-crowned,

Foul of scent and lean of limb,
Keen for carrion, peering round

With eyes, albeit seeming dim,
That sweep a vast horizon's bound.

When a sickening nation reels
To the death, this vulture's there,

Ever narrowing, as he wheels,
His circuit, in the tainted air,

Till an instinct sure reveals
Safest time the prey to tear.

So round Brescia's shattered wall,
Sullen swept this bird obscene,

Sniffing through the sulphurous pall,
Peek of blood, with relish keen;

Waiting on the .prey to fall,
When beforehand death had been.

So beside the lone lagune,

Where beleaguered Venice stood,
Through the long siege, late and soon,

Hovered still this bird of blood,
Till to death, in mortal swoon,

Sunk the Lady of the Flood.

When 'neath Arad's gallows-tree,
Proud the martyr's death to die,

Stood the Magyar chivalry—
The hideous bird was waiting nigh,

Until Death should leave him free
To rend the flesh and scoop the eye.

And shall England's Lion bold,
And shall 1 ranee's Eagle true,

With this bird alliance hold
In the work they have to do,

Though each head be crowned with gold,
And each claw be sceptred too ?

Never—for the Lion's pride
And the Eagle's is the same ;

Carrion neither will abide,
Stooping but to living game—

Victors, they would be defied,
Or the victory brings not fame.

Hence, then, craven carrion-bird—
To the gibbets and the graves !

With thy kindred vultures herd'—
Puss and Prussian—fools and knaves :

Be one freeman's strength preferred,
To the strength of million slaves !

THE SMUGGLER OF HAMPSTEAD
HEATH.

Eyerybody is asking what could have
induced the Lords to pass Sir Thomas
Maryon Wilson's "Finchley Poad Build-
ing Act," which is so framed as to enable him
ultimately to enclose Hampstead Heath ?
There is no knowing, unless it was fellow-
feeling with the donkeys, whom their Lord-
ships may conceive to be over-driven and
over-ridden on that hitherto common
property.

If this Bill has passed the House ot
Commons, it is evident that a gross act of
smuggling has been committed, whilst the
people's Preventive Service were asleep or
intoxicated. In case it has originated in
the Peers and has yet to get through the
Lower House, let this be a notice to the
St. Stephen's Coast-Guard to be on the
look-out for the contraband article, so as to
frustrate the machinations of the Hamp-
stead Will Watch, as we may call
Wilson ; who has so long and so perti-
naciously been watching his opportunity of
getting an Act of Parliament to enable
him to violate his father's Will.

Class Eook for Belgravia.

published—with numerous illus
nd ladies—a new child's book
gravian youth, entitled, Puseyism in Fun made Popery in Earnest.

Shortly will be published—with numerous illustrations afforded by
various clergymen and ladies—a new child's book for the use of Bel-

The Sovereign of Potsdam.

The King of Prussia is pursuing courses which may cost him a
crown. In this country at any rate they would render him liable to be
fined five shillings.