Punch (28.1855)

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

245

SAYINGS OF ENGLISH SAGES.

BTHOilPE: The

Whigs have plenty
of confidence.but in-
spire none. Rogues
generally hang to-
gether in ropes, like
onions. An auc-
tioneer does as he
is bid—a postman
as he is directed.
Chaff generally
arises from tread-
ing on a man’s corn.
For bringing up a
picture, there’s no-
thing like beer—
and it’s the same
with a voter at an
election. Algebra-
ical problems are mostly solved by the power of “x”—political problems by XXX.,
and both uuknown quantities. The militia is the mainstay-at-home of the country.
The Cap of Liberty is almost always a Mob-cap. The Crown of France is now
having its Third Nap. Bread may be the staff of life—but to get the Staff, you must
first produce the Tip. Show me a man’s sole, and I’ll tell you the size of his under-
standing. If the world is a “ Yeil of Tears,” it may be as well to get some one
to take up the Tears, and have the Veil fresh sown. What would the Cream of
Life be without Strawberries ? When a politician turns his coat, it’s a sign he’s
getting a little out-at-elbows I never met with but one perfect specimen of Dog-
Latin, and that was “ Cave Canem.” The most sheepish eye is decidedly a pope’s-
eye in a leg-of-mutton. There is a F. Peel in every administration! At t, charity
sermon the “ Collect ” comes after the Service is over. The only nickname that
was literally a nickname was Old Nick for Nicholas. I have no confidence in the
following things—in railways, in sausage pies, in Ostend rabbits, poetry, cheap
clothes, patriots who make a practice of dying upon the floor of the House of Com-
mons, Radicals, Mr. H. Drummond, the Crystal Palace, or in Whigs—much less
in Ministers, or tn newspapers, street music, or any other kind of organs.

THE ROYAL PENSION LIST.

About the richest paragraph we have lately read in the
public papers, is one consisting of a few lines headed with
the interesting words, “The Pensions of the Royal Family.”
We learn from this pithy little article, that while we pay
foreign princes for marrying our princesses, we pay our
own princesses when they are married to foreign princes,—
a state of things not very complimentary to the ladies of
our Royal Family. Surely our Augustas and Sophias
ought not to be considered such very bad bargains that we
should be expected to pay the Mecklenburgs and other
small German potentates who take them off our hands,
and who are in a position to support their own wives and
families. We can only hope that we shall get something'
by way of compensation when our own little Princes are
old enough to marry ; for if a German Prince is worth fifty
thousand pounds a year—the sum we give Leopold—an
English Prince ought to be well worth double the money.

The Millennium of Teetotalism.

(To be drawn by Ge—ge Cr—ksh—nk.)

When every drunkard shall be seen dipping his mug
into the Well of Truth.

A CON EOR THE AGRICLBLTURAL MIND.

When does a Cow make good meat ?—When it’s
(S)potted.

Economy.—Economy is the art of drawing in as much
as one can, but unfortunately young ladies will apply this
‘drawing in” to their own bodies, when they wish to
avoid anything like a “waist.”

A Cobden Proverb. — A man may hold a candle to
enlighten the People, so as to burn his own fingers.

THE DRAMA IN THE QUEEN’S BENCH.

Certain managers keep, as they keep maids-of-all-work, dramatic
poets. It is of course indispensable that they should speak a little
French. Generally, foreign couriers have, we have heard, the prcrer-
ence. Be this as it may, the manager keeps his dramatist upon a
weekly salary, and for such salary has the whole run of his head. Some
of these persons have a happy knack of mixing half-a-dozen French
farces in so original a manner that they make one English “ screamer.”
They take French vaudevilles, as you would take French eggs, and
breaking them and beating them all up together, they make thereof a
thorough English pancake. We know a distinguished egg-cracker who
begins to grow gray, another who is wholly bald, upon pancakes so
compounded.

However, it is a very laudable custom, and is only another proof of
; the high estimation in which the drama is held in England—in the
county of Surrey particularly—that sometimes as much as four pounds
i are given for an affecting play. Last wTeek there was a trial in the
Court of Queen’s Bench corroborative of this cheering fact. Such a
play had. absolutely been produced at the Theatre Royal, St. George’s-
in-t.he-Fieids. The Eton Grammar tells ns (Boni pastoris est, &c., &c ,)
that it is the part of a good shepherd to shear but not to skin his flock.
The manager of the Royal St. George’s was a beautiful illustration of
this merciful axiom. He had employed a poet, named Catchpenny, to
go to Paris to “ procure materials for a piece.” Most perseveringly,
most industriously, did Catchpenny fulfil his mission. The very earliest
of chiffoniers, he might be seen at daybreak, now before the doors of
L’Ambigu, now at the Odeon, raking and poking about whatsoever lay
there. So much bad he at heart the interests of the Royal St. George’s
that one morning he had a manly stand-up fight with Smallbeer, the
English author of the Theatre Royal, Oxford-street, over the body of a
dead rat before the door of the Porte St. Martin. Catchpenny', with
his educated eye, seeing the rat, and thereupon believing that it might be
resuscitated—or galvanised, or iu some way “ originally adapted ’’—for
the Royal St. George’s was about to whip it into his basket, when the
priceless vermin was espied by Smallbeer, and laid claim to. Where-
upon, the two artists commenced a fight with a vigour and earnestness of
which such artists alone are Capable. They had had several rounds when,
iu the scuffle, another rat was kicked up from the rubbish. There now
j being a rat a-piece, the fight terminated, and the combatants embraced,
j That rat, originally adapted, will be brought out at the Theatre Royal,
Oxford. Street, next season ; its skin embroidered with cloth of gold
regardless of expense; with a new tail of Malachite (the history of
which will be given iu the bills): and real diamond and emerald eyes :

the rat is expected to run a hundred nights ; and reasonable is such
expectation; for it will run upon nothing meaner than the most sump-
tuous carpet of velvet-pile, surrounded by the most costly furniture.
The piece is to be called “A Rat! A Rat! Read for a Ducat,” and
will have the advantage of being represented with the entire strength
of the omission of Hamlet. However, to return to the Drama in the
Queen’s Bench. Mr. Serjeant Byles irreverently observed of the
talented Catchpenny, that he had been engaged by the Managers of
the Royal St. George’s, “ as their stock author, just as a horse was-
used at Astley’s to attract.”

“The Chiee Justice. Or an ass. (A laugh).”

Now, our respect for the drama compels us to protest against the
irreverence of the Serjeant, farther blackened into profanation by the
Lord Chief Justice of England. In the first place Catchpenny
was not hired and considered as a horse. The creams and piebalds at
Astley’s have their full feed of oats and hay, with medicinal green food,,
warm mashes, and so forth as they require. Moreover, their coats are
always in the very best condition, with, never a hole in them. Is it
ever thus with the dramatic bard ? We fear not. We beg to state to
Mr. Serjeant Byles, on behalf of Catchpenny, that if he were en-
gaged as a horse—it was the horse Pegasus ! Yes; my Lord Chief
Justice, contemptuously jocular in your ermine !—Pegasus; and not as
you would infer—Pegasinus! If you must have your joke, my Lord,
with genius, at least your wit might have stood upon something higher
than a donkey,—it might at least have taken a zebra. (That, between
ourselves, would have been a juster description of the dramatist of
the day. A poor doukey, that suffereth stripes.)

However, the Lord Chief Justice tried to make some amends. For
in summing up, he “ commented on the wretched spectacle of men of
genius and talent, supposed to be writing pieces which were to live for
posterity as samples of the literature of the age at £4 a job.” The
inference was very kind of Lord Campbell; but really there is no
such thing. Catchpenny would as soon think of cutting his hair for
posterity. As well believe that the poodles at the Pont Neuf are
trimmed for posterity, as that the pieces originally adapted from the
French, are supposed to be as everlasting as the Bulls translated from
Nineveh. Besides, we are credibly informed—need we say, that we are
only too happy to give currency to the cheering truth—that Catch-
penny had more than £4 a piece, although with the generosity of noble
natures, the managers of the Royal St. George’s refused to plead it.
Mr. Catchpenny had a very comfortable truckle-bed under the stage
—with the run of the gallery, after the fall of the curtain, for the
chance of dropt half-pence.