Punch (29.1855)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 27, 1855.

PUECH'S ILLUSTRATIONS TO SHAKSPEARE.

" The firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster."

Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii., Scene v.

A CABINET QUESTION.

The superior sorts of German wines are
called " Cabinet." We have a shrewd, unchari-
table opinion, that these are the only kinds of
Cabinet that the King of Prussia ever opens
his mouth at. Thus, when the Court Circular
of Prussia informs us, "His Majesty, Fred-
erick William, attended a Cabinet yesterday
afternoon : " it simply means that he was present
at a meeting at which none but the choicest,
Cabinet wines were admitted. It is a pitv, how-
ever, that the same Court Circular (the Heidel-
berg Ton, filled with Jobannisberg, would not
be a bad emblematic Circular for such a Court)
never informs us how many bottles with 'he
King's private seal were discussed upon these
august occasions ?—and how long his Teetotal
Teutonic Majesty was engaged in discussing
them? Again, there is another great lapsus j
—we are always kept in the dark as to whether
Madame Clicquot {Veuve) is ever present at
these little Cabinet reunions? We fancy that
at a meeting, where the order of the day is ihe
exclusion of all politics, that her presence would
2'ive verve and sparkle to many a dull moment.
But, wit hout a doubt, the poor Court Historian
has a difficult task of it. It would be unkind
to wish to increase his perplexities. If he were
to publish all the truth, we should be having
some such paragraph as the following creeping
into the Royal record :—

•' The Cabinet sat for four hours, when it was suddenly
brought to an end by His Majesty accidentally falling
from his chair, and spraining his ancle. His Majesty
received every attention from his Ministers, who even
carried their solicitude so far |as to carry their Royal
Master up to bed."

Spanish Arithmetic.

In a Spanish paper there is an account of the
execution of twenty-five rebels. The writer de-
clares that " the rebels were all of them taken
out, and shot by fours" This comes of a nation
never paying its debts; it inevitably loses the
knowledge of the first elements of arithmetic.

BENCH BUFFOONERIES.

If some of the County Magistrates are deficient in wisdom, they
appear to be making a desperate effort to make up for the deficiency by
a display of wit, of which we have been favoured with the following
specimens from the town of Sunderland :

SUNDERLAND POLICE.

"James Flinn, drawing his knife to stab the officer who was taking him up for
fighting.—All i have to say is, the po iceman took me out of my brother's hands. i
was talcing the knife out to cut some tobacco.

" V. C. Holmes. There was no tobacco found on him.

' Mb. Simpson (one of the Magistrates). You won't baccy us in that manner.
" Fined 40s."

To our southern apprehensions, this kind of thing seems to want all
the ordinary attributes of humour ; but to the northern appetite for
waggery which finds wit in the effete balderdash of Christopher
North, whose feeble-minded play on the word "Mulligatawny" has!
been seriously cited as a specimen of first-rate facetiousness, it is
possible that the pun of Mr. Justice Simpson on the word "baccy"
may be voraciously devoured. A joke at the end of a sentence, as in
the above instance, is well enough, but when justice is interlarded with
jokes, and the decision is affected by the ribaldry with which the case
is interwoven by the Bench, the matter becomes rather more grave, and
we therefore protest against the mode of proceeding indicated by the
following paragraph:

"Bartholomew Ganley, and his wife, Mary, kicking up a shindy in their own
cabin in Church Street.

" Barth. i believe, Sir, the officer telling the truth. 've been six or seven years
in Sunderland.

"Mr. Simpson. How often have you been here?—Only once, Sir, and it was for a
very small thing.

" Me. Simpson (to the Mayor). I would let him go, Sir, that's a good character for an
Irishman.

" The Mayor. My brother magistrates think you should get off, as you have behaved
so well previously ; you are therefore discharged.
" Mr. Simpson. And let it be six or seven years before you come back ! "

This is all very pretty and playful as far as it goes, but however

humorous the notion, of letting a man off who is charged with one
offence, because he has been only once previously charged with another,
we cannot recognise the law or the logic, in accordance with which
the arrangement was come to by the Magistrates. The parting advice
of Mr. Justice Simpson, "Let it be six or seven years before you come
back," would seem to involve the dictum, ihat offences committed at
intervals of six or seven years may be committed with impunity.

It is possible that the whole report may be erroneous, and that none
of the waggeries recorded in the extracts we have made were perpe-
trated by the Sunderland Bench, but presuming the facts to be fairly
stated, we think there is ground for a quo warranto, to know by what
authority Momus is found acting in the Commission of the Peace for
the borough alluded to.

Soyer's Final Triumph.

The ingenuity of Soyer makes rations go so far, that one wishes
he could also apply it to projectiles. If he could do as much with
shells as he can accomplish with eggs, how soon we should demolish
the north side of Sevastopol! One more achievement Soyer has
to perform for the completion ot his glory. It is to cook the Bussian
eagle, which no doubt he would do beautifully, if we could but catch
the bitd, as we wish we soon may.

CASUALTIES AT HOME.

The Balaklava Railway does not appear to have been so dangerous
as the trenches, at least, we do not hear that more lives were lost on
the former than in the latter. _ Railway travelling seems to be better
managed in the Crimea than it is at home.

A Muscovite Jerusalem.—There is, it is said, a sham Jerusalem
built at Moscow. Very proper. The " mock tomb " exactly harmonises
with the Christianity.