Punch (29.1855)

12m

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[September 22, 1855.

PUNCH ? ILLUSTRATIONS TO SHAKSPEARE.

" An eye like MARS (Ma's) to threaten and command."

Hamlet, Act iii., Scene 4.

A CAROL FOR CRICKETERS.

Ant.—Apparent.

Here a sheer hulk from fierce round bowling,

We mourn a batsman true;
No more he '11 send the ball a-rolling;

He's batter'd black and blue.
Long at the stumps he did his duty,

And puzzled many a scout,
Eor though swift balls might spoil his beauty

They rarely put him out.

Ne'er from the wicket he departed

Without a decent score;
And seldom were his timbers started

Until his legs were sore.
At pads and gloves, as things new-fangled,

With pleasant scorn he'd laugh ;
Bat now so grievously he's mangled.

No more we '11 fear his chaff.

Curious Characteristics of Waiters.

In Ireland, the waiter, when he answers you,
is always "Going! " in England, however, your
waiter, when he favours with an audible response,
is always "Coming!" But we have generally
found with waiters, as a class, that it is when you
want them to come that they are always " going,"
am*, on the contrary, it is when you wish them
'o go that they will persist in "coming." To
avoid these unpleasant contingencies, there is
nothing like a dumb waiter—one who bears
without a murmur anything and everything you
choose to put upon him, and expects no fee or
gratuity in return.

The Real "Vine Disease"—Drunkenness.

THE CLERICAL AUCTION MART.

On Tuesday afternoon, says a paragraph in the Times, Mr. Alder-
man Earebrother attended at Garraway's Cofl'ee-House, for the
purpose of disposing, by public auction, of the advowson and right of
presentation to the rectory of Lytchett Maltravprs, in the county of
Dorset. After stating various interesting particulars about the living,
the value ( f which was estiman d at £607 a-year, the worthy Alderman
proceeded to inform his congregation that—

" The incumbent was thirty-three years of age, and some representations had been
made as to the state of his health. He (the worthy Alderman) would not say what
those representations were, but intending purchasers might easily satisfy them-
selves on that point."

The Times' reporter, however, omits to state that the Alderman in
the pulpit—a worshipful preacher in a place of suitable worship—
proceeded to dilate upon the delicate hint above quoted, in the follow-
ing extemporaneous burst of song, to the tune of George Barnwell
stood at his shop-door.

Yes, gentlemen, certainly, yes,

'Tis true, and the truth must be told, Sirs,
He is but thirty-three, I confess,

Such a fact it were wrong to withhold, Sirs.
The incumbent is but thirty-three;

And 'he purchaser's loss would be weighty,
If He should—as might possibly be—

Hold his present preferment till eighty.

[Spoken.) If he should, ugh ! ugh ! (coughs.) If he should by a mir—
ugh!—by a mirac—ugh! ugh!—by a miracle—ugh! ugh! ngh ! The
air of the locality is recommended by the faculty too in cases of—ugh !
ugh !—in cases of (expectorates) ugh ! ugh ! ugh !

Thirty-three is an earlyish age,

One would count on a longer lease, surely ;
They who sleep at the end of that page,

Shut up human life's book prematurely.
Thirty-three and a fine heahhy air,

Thirty-three aad a light occupation,
Thirty-three and exemption from care,

Might look forward to lengthen'd duration.

(Spoken.) Old Parr lived to a hundred-and-twenty. But old Parr
never had to take cod-liver oil—ugh! ugh !—to wear a respirator—

ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! It isn't everybody at thirty-three, even with a broad
chest and sound lungs, that's likely to live as long as old Parr. Ugh !
ugh ! Dear me, what a cough I'm troubled with !—but I hope it isn't
a churchyard cough, though a man might have a churchyard cough at
the early age of thirty-three.

Life's flow stops at thirty-three soon,

To compare human life to a river ;
But the sun of our day sets at noon,

From organic disease of the liver.
How long a young man may drag on

Kxistence is not a hard question,
Supposing his stomach is gone,.

And has quite lost the power of digestion.

(Spoken.) When no food is retained ; when the face is hollow (sucks
in his cheeks)—eyes thus (pressing his own back in their orbits); abdo-
men so (describing a concavity by a downward wave of the hand in front
of his stomach); when physicians of the greatest eminence have been
consulted in vain—when there is schirrus of the pylorus, ossification of
the valves of the heart, hypertrophy of the left ventricle, aneurism of
the aorta, iucipient ascites, ramollissement of the brain, tetanus
opisthotonos, and threatening paralysis, the whole system presenting
one complicated mass of disorder and disease, no sane actuary would
calculate on a protracted existence—even although the age of the suf-
ferer were ouly t hirty-three.—Ugh ! ugh ! ugh !—ahem !—hem !—ngh!
ugh ! ugh! ugh !

An old age, hale, hearty, and green,

May the present incumbent await, Sirs;
Some representations have been,

Of his health made respecting the state, Sirs.
What they were I won't say ; but to such

As may fancy to risk this transaction,
The trouble will hardly be much,

Of obtaining complete satisfaction.

Short-Lived Choler.

The provincial papers record, as a wonder, that the Americans are
wearing " paper shirt-collars, which a New York manufactory throws
off at the rate of a thousand an hour." The invention is in keeping
with the " Go-a-head" nation. What is paper, but linen in an advanced
stage of existence ?