DOI issue:
April 12, 1856
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16617#0157
April l'2, 1856,] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAH1VAKL 149
DRAMATIC REVELATIONS.
Very respectable attempt has
been made at Drury Lane to
introduce II Trovatore in an
English dress ; though by the
way, the dress is not English
after all, for the costume is
Spanish and appropriate. The
principals, the band, the
chorus, and the general get-
ting up, are all first rate—for
the money. Though we were
greatly pleased by the perform-
ance of the opera, we derived
some amusement from the
playbill, and especially from
the following part of it:—
HThe Evening's Entertainment
will conclude with a
GRAND BACCHANALIAN
REVEL
by Miss LEES, Mr. TANNER, and
the CORPS DE BALLET."
We did not remain to see
the result, and we cannot
imagine that any very rampant
revelry could be got out of the
combined jollity of Miss Lees
and Mr. Tanner, though the
Corps de Ballet may have con-
tributed the usuil amount of boisterous mirth in which supernumeraries are always prepared
to indulge at the bidding of the stage manager. An ordinary dinner party requires at
least, six or eight persons to achieve a reasonable amount of cheerfulness, but we cannot
conceive how a'Bacchanalian llevel could possibly be got uo by a solitary couple, even though
they be such energetic roystems as Miss Lees and Mr. Tanner.
a DECEASED DIGNITARY.
The following paragraph will, we trust, lead
to a Coroner's inquest.
" No Court Leet of the Hundred of Whalesbone and
Half-Hundred of Dean will be held this Easter tor the
election of a High Constable. That officer may, therefore,
he definitively pronounced to be defunct."
Of couise it is quite competent to the hundred
and half-hundred above mentioned to sacrifice
their hundred weight—or at all events a it,w
pounds of it—by refusing to proceed to the
election of a High Constable; but why the officer
should be pronounced to be "defunct," because
he is not re-elected, or another appointed in his
place, is a riddle, we have no solution of. We
have not searched our map for the Hundred of
Whalesbone, which is possibly somewhere in
Wales, and we therefore cannot name the county
whose Coroner we now invoke, but we trust the
defunct High Constable will be properly sat
upon by an intelligent jury of his countrymen.
French Automata!
There are some odd individuals, human and
brutal, now on exhibition at the Egyptian Hall.
You would swear they were all things of flesh
and blood, and some of human speech : they
come direct from Paris. Having seen them, we
are quite willing to believe that the same me-
chanician who produced them is also the father
of every Member of the French Senate ; indivi-
duals who, like the automata in Piccadilly, do
really move ?!?d speak, and who, like them, you
would almost take for real men !
THE CRY OE THE WOMEN.
In the year of light 1848, the wisdom of the Egyptian government
manifested itself by rebuking its women. The women had become
noisy, and they were to be silenced. They, in their ignorance and
effrontery—for the boldness of women, where women hide all of their
faces but their eyes, is not to be thought of without a flesh-quake—they
had "made lamentations," and "lifted their voices," and the upshot
was, the paternal and affectionate Egyptian government could no longer
endure the hubbub. If the women lamented, they should have still
greater cause to lament: if they continued to lift their voices, they
should be made to pitch them still higher and higher ! "Any woman,"
said the edict, " making lamentations for a dead person belonging to
her, Allah will certainly make her tongue the length of seventy
cubits:" a punishment, it might be thought, held to be no punishment
whatever by the lamenting female. Further, such a woman would " be
raised from the dead with a black face, blue «-yes, and the locks of her
hair stretched out to her feet." Finally: "It is better for women to
sit at home than to go and pray at the mosque."
Now, at the present time, our liberal and otherwise peaceful country
is much disturbed by women who make lamentations—by women who
lift up their voices, even to the altitude of Parliament. They lament
their wrongs, and life up their voices for what they call their rights !
What shall be done unto such women? It avails not in our land of
light to threaten to visit the offenders with a longitude of tongue of
seventy cubits. What then, we say, should be done unto them ?
A woman marries a man; for there can be no doubt of the fact that
for every man who marries a woman, no less than twenty women marry
men; therefore, we say, a woman marries a man, and becomes his
property. She is the bone of his bone, the flesh of his flesh; and it
proves how little the heroic man often thinks of his own bone or own
flesh, seeing how often he fractures the one and bruises the other in
the body of his wife. Bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she is,
nevertheless, but not pocket of his pocket. Now these lamenting women
lift their voices up to Parliament, and pray that a very little pocket,
even the smallest of separate pouches may, under certain conditions,
be permitted them.
" Our Husbands beat us," they lament; "our husbands," lifting up
their voices, they cry, " desert us; yet desert not the property "they
hold and do not maintain in us. Oh! ye wise men of Parliament, ye
sages of St. Stephen's, help us, and vouchsaf e to us the allowance of a
little pocket! We are deserted by the husbands of our bosoms ; and
when we labour with our fingers, or think with our heads (if it be not
too presumptuous in us to think at all), the savage and the sot whom
we are chained to, carrying the link of the manacle on our third finger,
returns and lakes unto himself all that we have worked for, and have
gained ; and taking it, leaves us, we preventing it not.
" We, therefore, Oh, St. Stephens! lift up our voices, and pray that
you will step between the wicked and the weak; that you will assure
to the wife the wages of her toil, nor suffer them to be taken by the
hand of the deserting, but awhile returning husband, the savage and
the drunkard.
"Lift us from the dust, Oh,ye wise men', and, with your horse-hair,
Oh, ye sages, wipe the tear-drops from our eyes ! "
Now, this petition or lamentation—in which Mr. Punch gives willing
ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering—has been rebuked, pooh-
poohed, pished and tiddle-de-dee'd ; but in these scoffings Mr. Punch,
joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him, say, witn certain editorial
porcupines of the male gender, "Of what avail these lamentations of
lamenting women, whose cries are foolishness ?_ Wherefore should
women at any time lift up their voices; when, is it not manifest from
the beginning, that women were created to sing small? And finally, if
women be beaten by savages, and robbed by sots, what of it? It is
better that women should be beaten and crouch in the dust—it is
better they should be robbed and sit at home, than go and petition
Parliament." _
A Martyr !
Ctjrtius jumped into a gulf: Drummond, it is plain, is ready for
self-sacrifice ! For he informed Sir. B. Hall that he, Sir B., intended
to fill up a hole opposite Devonshire House, at a cost of 1400/.,
" When," said Mr. Drummond, crossing his arms, and looking upward
with a self-sacrificing air, "when all Sir Benjamin had to do was to
write up—' Rubbish "may be shot here !' "
The King of Oude's Dose.
Accounts from India state that on the 4th instant, General
Outraji submitted to the King op Oude the draught of a treaty.
His Majesty doubtless found the draught rather distasteful; but the
disorders of his reign will probably be cured by that physic.
the favourite trip with puseyites.
When a man (says Dr. C * * * * * g) talks of going to Heme, it
is a painful sign that his mind is beginning to wander.
DRAMATIC REVELATIONS.
Very respectable attempt has
been made at Drury Lane to
introduce II Trovatore in an
English dress ; though by the
way, the dress is not English
after all, for the costume is
Spanish and appropriate. The
principals, the band, the
chorus, and the general get-
ting up, are all first rate—for
the money. Though we were
greatly pleased by the perform-
ance of the opera, we derived
some amusement from the
playbill, and especially from
the following part of it:—
HThe Evening's Entertainment
will conclude with a
GRAND BACCHANALIAN
REVEL
by Miss LEES, Mr. TANNER, and
the CORPS DE BALLET."
We did not remain to see
the result, and we cannot
imagine that any very rampant
revelry could be got out of the
combined jollity of Miss Lees
and Mr. Tanner, though the
Corps de Ballet may have con-
tributed the usuil amount of boisterous mirth in which supernumeraries are always prepared
to indulge at the bidding of the stage manager. An ordinary dinner party requires at
least, six or eight persons to achieve a reasonable amount of cheerfulness, but we cannot
conceive how a'Bacchanalian llevel could possibly be got uo by a solitary couple, even though
they be such energetic roystems as Miss Lees and Mr. Tanner.
a DECEASED DIGNITARY.
The following paragraph will, we trust, lead
to a Coroner's inquest.
" No Court Leet of the Hundred of Whalesbone and
Half-Hundred of Dean will be held this Easter tor the
election of a High Constable. That officer may, therefore,
he definitively pronounced to be defunct."
Of couise it is quite competent to the hundred
and half-hundred above mentioned to sacrifice
their hundred weight—or at all events a it,w
pounds of it—by refusing to proceed to the
election of a High Constable; but why the officer
should be pronounced to be "defunct," because
he is not re-elected, or another appointed in his
place, is a riddle, we have no solution of. We
have not searched our map for the Hundred of
Whalesbone, which is possibly somewhere in
Wales, and we therefore cannot name the county
whose Coroner we now invoke, but we trust the
defunct High Constable will be properly sat
upon by an intelligent jury of his countrymen.
French Automata!
There are some odd individuals, human and
brutal, now on exhibition at the Egyptian Hall.
You would swear they were all things of flesh
and blood, and some of human speech : they
come direct from Paris. Having seen them, we
are quite willing to believe that the same me-
chanician who produced them is also the father
of every Member of the French Senate ; indivi-
duals who, like the automata in Piccadilly, do
really move ?!?d speak, and who, like them, you
would almost take for real men !
THE CRY OE THE WOMEN.
In the year of light 1848, the wisdom of the Egyptian government
manifested itself by rebuking its women. The women had become
noisy, and they were to be silenced. They, in their ignorance and
effrontery—for the boldness of women, where women hide all of their
faces but their eyes, is not to be thought of without a flesh-quake—they
had "made lamentations," and "lifted their voices," and the upshot
was, the paternal and affectionate Egyptian government could no longer
endure the hubbub. If the women lamented, they should have still
greater cause to lament: if they continued to lift their voices, they
should be made to pitch them still higher and higher ! "Any woman,"
said the edict, " making lamentations for a dead person belonging to
her, Allah will certainly make her tongue the length of seventy
cubits:" a punishment, it might be thought, held to be no punishment
whatever by the lamenting female. Further, such a woman would " be
raised from the dead with a black face, blue «-yes, and the locks of her
hair stretched out to her feet." Finally: "It is better for women to
sit at home than to go and pray at the mosque."
Now, at the present time, our liberal and otherwise peaceful country
is much disturbed by women who make lamentations—by women who
lift up their voices, even to the altitude of Parliament. They lament
their wrongs, and life up their voices for what they call their rights !
What shall be done unto such women? It avails not in our land of
light to threaten to visit the offenders with a longitude of tongue of
seventy cubits. What then, we say, should be done unto them ?
A woman marries a man; for there can be no doubt of the fact that
for every man who marries a woman, no less than twenty women marry
men; therefore, we say, a woman marries a man, and becomes his
property. She is the bone of his bone, the flesh of his flesh; and it
proves how little the heroic man often thinks of his own bone or own
flesh, seeing how often he fractures the one and bruises the other in
the body of his wife. Bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she is,
nevertheless, but not pocket of his pocket. Now these lamenting women
lift their voices up to Parliament, and pray that a very little pocket,
even the smallest of separate pouches may, under certain conditions,
be permitted them.
" Our Husbands beat us," they lament; "our husbands," lifting up
their voices, they cry, " desert us; yet desert not the property "they
hold and do not maintain in us. Oh! ye wise men of Parliament, ye
sages of St. Stephen's, help us, and vouchsaf e to us the allowance of a
little pocket! We are deserted by the husbands of our bosoms ; and
when we labour with our fingers, or think with our heads (if it be not
too presumptuous in us to think at all), the savage and the sot whom
we are chained to, carrying the link of the manacle on our third finger,
returns and lakes unto himself all that we have worked for, and have
gained ; and taking it, leaves us, we preventing it not.
" We, therefore, Oh, St. Stephens! lift up our voices, and pray that
you will step between the wicked and the weak; that you will assure
to the wife the wages of her toil, nor suffer them to be taken by the
hand of the deserting, but awhile returning husband, the savage and
the drunkard.
"Lift us from the dust, Oh,ye wise men', and, with your horse-hair,
Oh, ye sages, wipe the tear-drops from our eyes ! "
Now, this petition or lamentation—in which Mr. Punch gives willing
ear to the cry of weakness and unjust suffering—has been rebuked, pooh-
poohed, pished and tiddle-de-dee'd ; but in these scoffings Mr. Punch,
joineth not. He cannot, for the life of him, say, witn certain editorial
porcupines of the male gender, "Of what avail these lamentations of
lamenting women, whose cries are foolishness ?_ Wherefore should
women at any time lift up their voices; when, is it not manifest from
the beginning, that women were created to sing small? And finally, if
women be beaten by savages, and robbed by sots, what of it? It is
better that women should be beaten and crouch in the dust—it is
better they should be robbed and sit at home, than go and petition
Parliament." _
A Martyr !
Ctjrtius jumped into a gulf: Drummond, it is plain, is ready for
self-sacrifice ! For he informed Sir. B. Hall that he, Sir B., intended
to fill up a hole opposite Devonshire House, at a cost of 1400/.,
" When," said Mr. Drummond, crossing his arms, and looking upward
with a self-sacrificing air, "when all Sir Benjamin had to do was to
write up—' Rubbish "may be shot here !' "
The King of Oude's Dose.
Accounts from India state that on the 4th instant, General
Outraji submitted to the King op Oude the draught of a treaty.
His Majesty doubtless found the draught rather distasteful; but the
disorders of his reign will probably be cured by that physic.
the favourite trip with puseyites.
When a man (says Dr. C * * * * * g) talks of going to Heme, it
is a painful sign that his mind is beginning to wander.