Punch (29.1855)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

December 22, 1855.]

ME. PUNCH AT HOME,

THE ENEMY AT BERLIN.

To the Eight Honourable the Lord Mayor Salomons.

My dear Lord Mayor,

Your Government—the Municipal Government of the City of
London—is the envy of surrounding nations. The respect which they
entertain for it. is immense. They consider the Lord Mayor to be the
greatest institution in the world. If any of them ever again try a new
Constitution, I am convinced that it will be modelled on that of the
Corporation of London. A Common Council of citizens ; a number of
Aldermen eligible to the Mayoralty in turn, a Chief Magistrate or
Lord Mayor to be elected out of these annually, when his turn comes,
but liable to be passed over if unfit for his dignity, and to hold office
for twelve months only, which will give them a sufficiently frequent
opportunity of gratifying their love of political change without actual
revolution and bloodshed—I am quite sure that this is the system to
suit the prevalent complaint of the European peoples.

Now, my Lord, read this :—

" Yesterday the house of Mendelssohn here opened a subscription for a new
Russian Five-per-Cent. Loan at 86, with but little success."

The above is an electro-telegraphic communication despatched to
the Times from Berlin. Your Lordship knows that the Mendelssohns
are members of the same community as that to which you are yourself
an ornament. I need not say, if they have taken this Russian loan,
that they are a disgrace to it. You are well aware that the Czar has
ordered a conscription of the Jews, and is driving them to fight, by the
stick and the knout, under the auspices of wooden and painted idols,
for the purposes of his own pride, rapacity, and aggrandisement,
under the pretence of fighting for Christiani'y. Every shekel, every
sixpence, suoscribed to this loan is a contribution towards driving
Hebrews as sheep to the slaughter; a means of causing Rachel to
weep for her children. If the Mendelssohns have been guilty of
this atrocity, have their brethren no power to make them repent it ?
If they have done this thing, are they not dogs ? I beg pardon of that
faithful animal the dog—and have you no tin-kettles which you can,
among you, contrive to tie to these dogs' tails ? Can you not combine
to avenge on their villanous heads this sacrifice of their kindred to the
Golden Calf and to Moloch? And with the influence which you, as
Lord M^roR of London, must possess among the Israelites, is it not

in your power to set the movement against these rascals, which 1
suggest, on foot ?

The Electric-Telegraph sometimes tells fibs, but if it shall have
proved veracious in this instance, I respectfully invoke the indignation
and the power of your Lordship against a firm who, in that case, are
the accomplices of the great Russian felon,—and you are well aware,
as a magistrate, that the accessory is as bad as the principal, if they
have done this wickedness, my Lord, sfirupyour people, I say, against
these traitors, these abettors of robbery and murder, these greatest
unhanged blackguards in Christendom, Heathendom, or Jewry.

Monarch of the City, I have the honour to be

Your faithful Subject,

85, Fleet Street, Bee. 5616—1855.

WHAT GENTLEMEN OUGHT TO DO.

Advertisers seem to have very odd notions of the duties and obliga-
tions of gentlemen. We have been told of all sorts of things that
" every gentleman ought" to do, or to buy, or to suffer, and we are
convinced that if we were to endeavour to construct a guide to gentle-
manly conduct from the advertising columns of the papers, we should
find that unless a man is either bruising his oats, having his hair dyed,
purchasing a dressing-case, dining at a particularly cheap eating-house,
or purchasing a real head of false hair, he can be no gentleman. Some
times we are told that " No gentleman should be without" some pecu-
liar kind of tooth-brush, or shirt, or shaving soap, and we are led to
draw the inference that our social rank is regulated by the contents of
our carpet-bag, or the fittings of our washhand-stand.

One of the latest and most extraordinary rules for the conduct of a
gentleman that was ever promulgated, is a sort of moral law, laid down
in an advertisement, that " gentlemen should see their linen dressed
with the starch " sold at a particular establishment. How they are
to " see their linen dressed," unless they attend at the residence of
their washerwomen, is a question wTe cannot solve. Nor do we under-
stand how they can be sure of the employment of the right sort of
starch unless they either purchase it themselves, or go with the laun-
dress when she lays in her stock for washing day.

At an extensive Laundry, police regulations would be necessary to
prevent confusion during the ceremony of the starching of every
gentleman's linen in the gentleman's presence; for as it is a moral
obligation on his part, to see it done, there must be no compromise ot
principle, no doing the thing by proxy, no appointment of a deputy,
but a bond fide conscientious supervision of the starching process by
the owner of every separate article. In the height of the London
season the doors of the West End blanchisseuses would be besieged by
the noble and the gentle, all jostling each other for priority of admit-
tance : and it would be necessary to make such arrangements as would
prevent too great a rush, by setting aside one morning for Shirt Eronts,
and appointing—after the custom of the Court—a day now and then as
" a Collar Day." We confess that after weighing the advantages and
disadvantages of the plan, we have come to the conclusion, that the
advertiser is wrong, and that gentlemen should not see their linen
dressed with starch from his establishment.

LULLABY BY A SOLDIER'S NURSE.

Be quiet, Prince Aleert,—though valiant a knight,
Thou must not, thou canst not, be suffer'd to fight;
The warfare, the wounds, the destruction we see,
They cannot be braved, good Prince Consort, by thee.

Be quiet, Prince xIlbert—the time will not come
When thy bones may be broken by round shot or bomb'
Be quiet, Prince Albert, be quiet, do, pray,
And don't get of Army Reform in the way.

The Hall of Science.

It is intended to give a dinner to Sir B. Hall, to celebrate the
passing of the Act for the local management of the Metropolis. We
are quite ready to admit that the honourable Member has earned a
dinner by what he has already done ; but, we confidently expect- that he
will yet do much more, and t hat he will prove himself still the B. Hall,
though far from the End all of his career of usefulness.

newdegate and spooner on the war.

These Conservative Gentlemen have spoken out at Rugby for the
War like trumpets—yea, like silver trumpets. What alchemy there is
in a good cause, that, can transmute ordinary tin horns into the pre-
cicusness of melodious metal!