DOI issue:
November 3, 1855
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16616#0195
November 3, 1855.]
PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
183
AN OPINION BACKED BY SOMETHING LIKE AN
AUTHORITY.
"The 'Times' is quite right in saying they should send Men out,
and not Boys."
"HOW VERY LIKE SPOONBILL!"
Thebe is not a more foolish fallacy than that which avers that nature
in her boundless variety has made no two objects precisely alike. The
truth is, we are too apt to be too complimentary to nature. .Nature is
ali very well in her way; but nature, being leminiue, is too frequently
flattered by our ignorance and simplicity. We very much doubt if,
after all, nature is not sometimes a very mucti overrated female. We
propose to make a short narrative in explosion of the fallacy aforesaid.
We feel, too, that we shall have the sympathy, the consent of our
reader going along with us.
Mr. Spoonbill is a distinguished parishioner of Marylebone. He is
in fact a model parishioner. He has upheld all the respectabilities of
life,—a moral Atlas. Propriety is his atmosphere. Even as it is said
the white-coated ermine, when one spot ot dirt has tainted its snowi-
ness, stops, turns upon its back, and there and then dies—so we believe
would Spoonbill cease and determine, as the lawyers say, if brought
into rude and sudden contact with the least possible indecorum.
Mb. Spoonbill is rather a peculiar-looking person: in fact, he has
been called a very odd-looking man; a man not to be easily mistaken.
When nature thought of the ens, the mind of Spoonbill, she thought
of an earthen vessel of harmonising characer wherein to enshrine it.
The mind of Socbates in the head of Socrates was, we know, likened
to the precious drug or spice of the apothecary in the pot or jar deco-
rated with the face of a faun or satyr. Well, it is very plain—as we
shall prove—that nature, in the case of Spoonbill, made two mugs so
alike each other that nature only, it is our belief, could tell the
Spoonbill mug from the other vessel belonging to the other parly.
Anybody, with less faith—faith, did we say ?—creed, religion—m the
respectability of Spoonbill might have been deceived into scandal of
that pure aud very upright man. But no: we knew it could not be
Spoonbill; it was morally impossible; and yet—again and again—
we could not suppress the exclamation—aud yet "how very like
Spoonbill!"
Spoonbill was distinguished for his affection for his country; his
dogged love,—nay, his bull-dogged love for old England. He had
never been to Erance; and never intended to go. Not he! Talk of
the belle alliance, all such fine words wouldn't change one frog into a
nightingale. He would live and die, and never stir a foot out of the
blessed, tight little island. And yet, with this conviction of the sin-
cerity of Spoonbill, a few days ago in Paris, turning round the Rue de
la Paix, we came plump upon a man—his hat was genuine Parisian
certainly, and there was a day or two's tendency towards a moustache,
but otherwise, coming plump upon that man—we had hardly breath
enough left to say—" Gracious ! How very like Spoonbill 1"
We went to the Exposition of the Beaux Arts : we could have been
content to winter there. We were in the Belgian Court and—imme-
■ tiately opposite, with eyes nailed to a lorgnette, opposite that most
beautiful Leda was our man of the day before—the man so very like
Spoonbill ! Now, Spoonbill, as a shareholder of the Crystal Palace
had—it was his pride to dilate upon it—churned up a very stormy
meeting, and had Iohi his resolution only by twenty, a resolution that
went to put the Venus de1 Medicis into a shawl, and Debay's First
Cradle—(who can lorget ihat divine young mother with her dove-like
babes ?)—into a dressiug-gown. And here was that man—except with a
sort of satyr-like Jeer—that man, before that Leda, so very like
Spoonbill!
In the evening, we went—and why not ?—to the Bal Mabille. Does
not Mrs. Beech eb Stowe say of this place, and there is not a grisette
of Paris who will not agree with her, that it is " a scene where earthli-
ness is worked up into a s'yle of sublimation the most exquisite con-
ceivable ? " We repeat it, t hen : we went to the Bal Mabille, and there
—he—he who in the morning was fixed by Leda, was whirliog away
in the whirlpool of a waltz. (There are not less than four w's in that
I bit of fine description.) There he was, the moustache still looking up,
spinning round and round, that man so very like Spoonbill! Now
Spoonbill hated, loathed all public dancing.—Had he not, on his side-
board, a salver, a testimonial subscribed to him by his neighbours for
his successful opposition to a licence for music and dancing for the
i Cat-in-Walnut-Shells ? Nevertheless—though we thought of the salver
we could not help saying—" How very like Spoonbill ! "
Another night, and we paused and thought we would take a seat and
take an ice outside the Cafe Vachette. We turned round and—there
was the man so very like Spoonbill! So like, and yet so different!
The man was stirring hot brandy-and-water, and smoking a vile rank
cigar. Now Mb. Spoonbill is a rigid teetotaller, and has been seen
more than once to weep copious water-drops at the discourses of Mb.
Gough the water moralist. Nevertheless, as the man stirred and
smoked—and that, too, on the public Boulevards, with all the varnished
vice of Paiis, all the hollowness of the brass, all the tinkling of the
cymbals, passing and sounding before and round about him—nev<-rthe-
| less, we ielt a sort of vague terror, as we cried in our inmost soul—
" How very like Spoonbill! "
The next day was Sunday. We went to Versailles. The fountains
were to play. The grandes eaux ! The crowd was great; the fountains
magnificent. Gi eat was the well-bred admiration of the French. At
the climax, however, I heard an Englishman roar out—and the French
laughed—"Btavo! Capital! Ancore ! " It was that man again! Now
the good, gentle, pious Spoonbill himself had petitioned in favour of
the Beer Bill, and had resolved to support Lobe Ebbington again and
again for Marylebone, if only for his lordship's support of that Bill.
Spoonbill was the darkest of British Sabbatarians ; and yet here was
a man on a French Sunday in a French show-palace, roaring and
applauding ; and that man—so very like Spoonbill !
We returned to London with an uneasy sense of mystery. "We could
not help it: we inquired about Spoonbill. Surely he had never left
London ? Left London! Impossible. Mbs. Spoonbill had been to
Cornwall to see a well-to-do aunt, and how, under such circumstances,
could Spoonbill leave the house ? Botk could not be from home at t he
same time.
Unfortunately, however, Spoonbill had had a fit of the gout, tnat
had kept him in his bed ; but he would not nave Mbs. Spoonbill know
it—no—for that would only shorten the dear soul's holiday with her
aunt.
Amd yet with a startling fact or facts like these staring us in the
face, it is to be expected of us that we are to continue to subscribe to
the fallacy that nature, in tier boundless variety, makes no two things
alike. If such were the case, how could that dissolute—for we will call
him dissolute—man in Paris be, we might almost say one and the same
with the punctilious, temperate, pious man in London ? Low could
such a roysterer be so very like the respectable Spoonbill ?
A JOKE IN SPITE OF HIS TEETH.
Some people may imagine that the expression, " mad with the tooth-
ache," is a mere phrase, but the following joke made by an individual
when suffering under acute pain in one of his molars, affords proof of
the existence of what may be called dental insanity. While rolling
in agony from one side of his bed to the other, this unreasonable being-
asked himself in the middle of the night, " What property is a man
likely to come into, if all his lower teeth should become affected ? "
The reply was as mad as the question, " About a dozen achers in
llotten-iiow." Surely this man's friends must either take out his
teeth, or take out a commission of lunacy.
Cause and Effect.
The American publishers lately held a festival in New York.
Bbyant the poet was among the speakers. He said—" When I hear
of a rich bookseller, I know there have been successful authors." Ju>t
so. Whenever Punch hears of a fat American fox, he knows there have
been English geese with " plenty of meat upon 'em."
PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
183
AN OPINION BACKED BY SOMETHING LIKE AN
AUTHORITY.
"The 'Times' is quite right in saying they should send Men out,
and not Boys."
"HOW VERY LIKE SPOONBILL!"
Thebe is not a more foolish fallacy than that which avers that nature
in her boundless variety has made no two objects precisely alike. The
truth is, we are too apt to be too complimentary to nature. .Nature is
ali very well in her way; but nature, being leminiue, is too frequently
flattered by our ignorance and simplicity. We very much doubt if,
after all, nature is not sometimes a very mucti overrated female. We
propose to make a short narrative in explosion of the fallacy aforesaid.
We feel, too, that we shall have the sympathy, the consent of our
reader going along with us.
Mr. Spoonbill is a distinguished parishioner of Marylebone. He is
in fact a model parishioner. He has upheld all the respectabilities of
life,—a moral Atlas. Propriety is his atmosphere. Even as it is said
the white-coated ermine, when one spot ot dirt has tainted its snowi-
ness, stops, turns upon its back, and there and then dies—so we believe
would Spoonbill cease and determine, as the lawyers say, if brought
into rude and sudden contact with the least possible indecorum.
Mb. Spoonbill is rather a peculiar-looking person: in fact, he has
been called a very odd-looking man; a man not to be easily mistaken.
When nature thought of the ens, the mind of Spoonbill, she thought
of an earthen vessel of harmonising characer wherein to enshrine it.
The mind of Socbates in the head of Socrates was, we know, likened
to the precious drug or spice of the apothecary in the pot or jar deco-
rated with the face of a faun or satyr. Well, it is very plain—as we
shall prove—that nature, in the case of Spoonbill, made two mugs so
alike each other that nature only, it is our belief, could tell the
Spoonbill mug from the other vessel belonging to the other parly.
Anybody, with less faith—faith, did we say ?—creed, religion—m the
respectability of Spoonbill might have been deceived into scandal of
that pure aud very upright man. But no: we knew it could not be
Spoonbill; it was morally impossible; and yet—again and again—
we could not suppress the exclamation—aud yet "how very like
Spoonbill!"
Spoonbill was distinguished for his affection for his country; his
dogged love,—nay, his bull-dogged love for old England. He had
never been to Erance; and never intended to go. Not he! Talk of
the belle alliance, all such fine words wouldn't change one frog into a
nightingale. He would live and die, and never stir a foot out of the
blessed, tight little island. And yet, with this conviction of the sin-
cerity of Spoonbill, a few days ago in Paris, turning round the Rue de
la Paix, we came plump upon a man—his hat was genuine Parisian
certainly, and there was a day or two's tendency towards a moustache,
but otherwise, coming plump upon that man—we had hardly breath
enough left to say—" Gracious ! How very like Spoonbill 1"
We went to the Exposition of the Beaux Arts : we could have been
content to winter there. We were in the Belgian Court and—imme-
■ tiately opposite, with eyes nailed to a lorgnette, opposite that most
beautiful Leda was our man of the day before—the man so very like
Spoonbill ! Now, Spoonbill, as a shareholder of the Crystal Palace
had—it was his pride to dilate upon it—churned up a very stormy
meeting, and had Iohi his resolution only by twenty, a resolution that
went to put the Venus de1 Medicis into a shawl, and Debay's First
Cradle—(who can lorget ihat divine young mother with her dove-like
babes ?)—into a dressiug-gown. And here was that man—except with a
sort of satyr-like Jeer—that man, before that Leda, so very like
Spoonbill!
In the evening, we went—and why not ?—to the Bal Mabille. Does
not Mrs. Beech eb Stowe say of this place, and there is not a grisette
of Paris who will not agree with her, that it is " a scene where earthli-
ness is worked up into a s'yle of sublimation the most exquisite con-
ceivable ? " We repeat it, t hen : we went to the Bal Mabille, and there
—he—he who in the morning was fixed by Leda, was whirliog away
in the whirlpool of a waltz. (There are not less than four w's in that
I bit of fine description.) There he was, the moustache still looking up,
spinning round and round, that man so very like Spoonbill! Now
Spoonbill hated, loathed all public dancing.—Had he not, on his side-
board, a salver, a testimonial subscribed to him by his neighbours for
his successful opposition to a licence for music and dancing for the
i Cat-in-Walnut-Shells ? Nevertheless—though we thought of the salver
we could not help saying—" How very like Spoonbill ! "
Another night, and we paused and thought we would take a seat and
take an ice outside the Cafe Vachette. We turned round and—there
was the man so very like Spoonbill! So like, and yet so different!
The man was stirring hot brandy-and-water, and smoking a vile rank
cigar. Now Mb. Spoonbill is a rigid teetotaller, and has been seen
more than once to weep copious water-drops at the discourses of Mb.
Gough the water moralist. Nevertheless, as the man stirred and
smoked—and that, too, on the public Boulevards, with all the varnished
vice of Paiis, all the hollowness of the brass, all the tinkling of the
cymbals, passing and sounding before and round about him—nev<-rthe-
| less, we ielt a sort of vague terror, as we cried in our inmost soul—
" How very like Spoonbill! "
The next day was Sunday. We went to Versailles. The fountains
were to play. The grandes eaux ! The crowd was great; the fountains
magnificent. Gi eat was the well-bred admiration of the French. At
the climax, however, I heard an Englishman roar out—and the French
laughed—"Btavo! Capital! Ancore ! " It was that man again! Now
the good, gentle, pious Spoonbill himself had petitioned in favour of
the Beer Bill, and had resolved to support Lobe Ebbington again and
again for Marylebone, if only for his lordship's support of that Bill.
Spoonbill was the darkest of British Sabbatarians ; and yet here was
a man on a French Sunday in a French show-palace, roaring and
applauding ; and that man—so very like Spoonbill !
We returned to London with an uneasy sense of mystery. "We could
not help it: we inquired about Spoonbill. Surely he had never left
London ? Left London! Impossible. Mbs. Spoonbill had been to
Cornwall to see a well-to-do aunt, and how, under such circumstances,
could Spoonbill leave the house ? Botk could not be from home at t he
same time.
Unfortunately, however, Spoonbill had had a fit of the gout, tnat
had kept him in his bed ; but he would not nave Mbs. Spoonbill know
it—no—for that would only shorten the dear soul's holiday with her
aunt.
Amd yet with a startling fact or facts like these staring us in the
face, it is to be expected of us that we are to continue to subscribe to
the fallacy that nature, in tier boundless variety, makes no two things
alike. If such were the case, how could that dissolute—for we will call
him dissolute—man in Paris be, we might almost say one and the same
with the punctilious, temperate, pious man in London ? Low could
such a roysterer be so very like the respectable Spoonbill ?
A JOKE IN SPITE OF HIS TEETH.
Some people may imagine that the expression, " mad with the tooth-
ache," is a mere phrase, but the following joke made by an individual
when suffering under acute pain in one of his molars, affords proof of
the existence of what may be called dental insanity. While rolling
in agony from one side of his bed to the other, this unreasonable being-
asked himself in the middle of the night, " What property is a man
likely to come into, if all his lower teeth should become affected ? "
The reply was as mad as the question, " About a dozen achers in
llotten-iiow." Surely this man's friends must either take out his
teeth, or take out a commission of lunacy.
Cause and Effect.
The American publishers lately held a festival in New York.
Bbyant the poet was among the speakers. He said—" When I hear
of a rich bookseller, I know there have been successful authors." Ju>t
so. Whenever Punch hears of a fat American fox, he knows there have
been English geese with " plenty of meat upon 'em."