Punch (28.1855)

10

PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

We stop the press to announce that, as the
Society of Antiquarians have discovered all the
offenders who have added to themselves with-
out authority the F. S. A. are without exception,
out-door patients, their case, it is thought, will
be sufficiently dealt with if their names are
sent to Sir Peter Laurie, the Governor. They
will doubtless have their heads shaved and he
duly dieted according to the severity of the
disease.

Young Lady (reading Crimean Correspondence). “I must tell you, too, that I have
QUITE ABANDONED POOR BROWN BESS, AND THAT WITH MY BEAUTIFUL MlNIE—”

Elder Lady (interrupting hastily). “There—There—My Dear, Go on to the next
Letter. We don’t want to hear about his Bessies and Minnies—These Soldiers
are all alike ! ”


F. S. A.

We take the following extraordinary statement from the Athenceum:—a statement that, we
venture to say, combines within itself a greater evidence of destitution with a more dreadful
hopelessness of imposture than any in scientific or literary annals yet recorded.

“ The Council of the Society of Antiquaries having been apprised that several persons are in the habit oj using the
initials of Fellowship with that Society without 'lie necessary qualification of being Fellows, have come to the
determination to take some steps to check, ifpossible, the practice for the future ;—pending, however, any stringent
measures on the subject, the Council have at once resolved publicly to advertise the names of all offending parties
that may be forwarded to them.”

We trust that the Council of the Society of Antiquaries will not be too hard upon offenders
who assume the initials of Fellowship without any right so to do, in merciful consideration of
the modesty of those individuals who, from their discoveries, are in every way justified in
appending to their names the golden letters F. S. A.; but who nevertheless bashfully refuse
to do so.

Albert Smith for instance, who in a former lecture discovered that “ straps belonged to
the dark ages of dress trowsers ” has never yet taken up his fellowship though invited to
submit to the dignity.

Mary Wedlake who has for nearly a hundred years, with all the sweet pertinacity of
woman, asked of dumb generations—“Do you Bruise your Oats yet?” has hitherto
rejected the initials.

Mr. Charles Kean as the importer of the oldest translations from the East End remains
undecorated. He has moreover played the Corsican Brothers until one brother is totally
bald, and the other brother grey-headed,—and yet we never heard that he had availed
himself of the smallest admiration (for which he is ever grateful) conveyed in the antiquarian
letters.

The Niam-Niams, or tailed men, exhibited by Doctor Kahnt are—we hear—about lo
assume the initials; which must be thought the more selfishly preposterous, seeing that
they have already appendages of their own.

A distinguished cheesemonger, elected on the strength of his oldest and bluest Stilton,
has, we hear, received an intimation from the Council, that his election is not valid: not
from any wanted age in the cheese, as wasj anticipated; but from the fact that, one of the
fifty sovereigns paid by him for F. S. A., has been found a bad one,—a fact that, with all the
audacity of a shopkeeper, he has ventured to deny. The man declares that the sovereign
wai good when he paid it; however it may have suffered since from disreputable company.
He nevertheless continues to mark his cheeses with the initials of the Society, F, S. A.,
—which he contemptuously renders—“ Fine Aged Stilton.”

Since writing the above we have heard that the Council are in possession of the names of
twenty miserable offenders, all of whom have, without authority, used the F. S. A. They
will be proceeded against with all the rigour of the law. The historical gridirons of Smith-
field will be red again.

BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.

I am a man who dwell alone,

Save only that I keep a dog,

Who eats my scraps up, orts and bone,

So that the creature shares my prog.

I had a boiled salt round of beef
On Monday, all to my own cheek,

Whereon my hunger sought reliet
From day to day, for near a week,

Of cold boiled beef the daily round,

After a while begins to tire,

One longs for something nicely browned.

Or steaming from the genial fire.

And then the beef was getting dry ;

But food away I never fling.

What can be done with it ? thought 1:
Bubble and Squeak, Sir!—that’s the thing.

King George the Fourth was not a dunce
At least in gastronomic lore :

Bubble and Squeak he tasted once ;

And then he ate it evermore.

The King had oft on Turtle dined,

As 1 have sometimes chanced to do,

We both, to think I am inclined,

The less enjoyed it of the two.

So large with what it fed on grew
My whetted appetite’s increase,

That ’twas as much as I could do
To leave my dog a little piece.

And even when I gave him that,

1 muttered in a doubtful mood,

“ Is this quite right now—-what 1 ’mat,

In giving you, Sir, Christian food ? ”

The dish at which I’ve pegged away,

So that it my interior fills,

Would that they had it this cold, day,

The Brave on the Crimea’s hills !

They in the cannon’s mouth do not
The Bubble reputation seek,

But Glory find; their onset hot.

Leaves to the Russians all the Squeak.

But Bubble, not of empty air,

And Squeak that’s more than idle sound,
Soon may those gallant heroes share
At mess on Russia’s conquered ground!

The Rose and the Mistletoe.

A remark art,y intelligent young botanist of
our acquaintance asserts it as his firm conviction,
strengthened by hF public observation, not the
less than by his private experience, that plants
have a decided influence upon the actions of
mankind in general, aud oi womankind, perhaps,
in particular. In illustration of this axiom, he
adduces with some shrewdness the indisputable
fact, that many a delicate young lady who would
shrink, with maiden modesty, Irorn being kissed
under the mistletoe, has yet not the slightest
objection to that ceremony if it be perlormed
under the rose.