DOI Heft:
July 26, 1856
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16618#0046
38
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[July 26, 1856.
The werry first thing as ever I does when I goes to the
Christial Palis, is to git a cheer !
[Observation of Old Lady, July 17th, 1856, as ever was.
"GIVE THE WOELD ASSURANCE OF A MAN."
Mr. Punch has observed that there have lately been several in-
stances in which Life Assurance Offices have resisted the claims of the
policy-holders. He is not about to enter into the details of any of these
cases, in most of which the resistance has been ineffectual, and the law
has made the offices stick to their bargains. Neither is he going to
reproduce Loud Chief Justice Campbell's just but very severe
remarks upon the greediness of some of the new offices to obtaiu
business, which afterwards burns their fingers. Caveat Confirmator.
But considering that any man whose income dies with him, and whose
family does not, is guilty of something very like crime if he neglects to
make assurance-provision for those he leaves behind him, Mr. Punch is
disposed to be proportionately disgusted with any institution, which,
through carelessness, avarice, or clumsiness, brings the assurance
sj stem into any kind of discredit.
He will waive the graver part of the question, the greediness to get
business, and will venture to offer a few impertinent remarks upon the
carelessness or clumsiness of the people, who, in spite of the tremendous
and elaborate investigation they affect to perform, contrive to get let
in, and have to come to a Court of Law for relief, which Mr. Punch
hopes it will continue to be the rule to refuse, and the exception to
grant.
Mr. Punch's reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
business is not abject. The " practical men," who smile compassion-
ately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who perpetually make
the most frightful smashes and blunders. No attorney, for instance,
can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a stock-jobber, the supposed
incarnation of shrewdness, is the moat credulous golemouche id London.
But these assurance people have a system which, one would think,
might secure safety, and prevent a man's later—latest—life from being
troubled with terrors lest his helpless family may be involved in a
struggle for the pittance he has toiled and saved, for years, to ensure
them.
The inquisition into your own health, habits, and history, which is
the first step in an assurance transaction, is exceedingly minute. You
answer, in writing, as to everything which can bear on the subject. Then
you give a reference to a doctor, who is privately examined as to all
u h<\. uf about you; and thirdly, the friend of your soul, with
whom the goblet you sip, is cross-examined to know whether you only
sip it, or drain it, and in what company, and at what hours; and in
some cases, a second friend of your soul is demanded, nay, hoth of these
are occasionally required to give references to respectable Damons and
responsible Pythiases of their own. Next, you are visited by, or visit,
the Office s own medical man, who feels vour pulse, and tests your chest,
and catechises you out of your own deposition, in order to catch you, if
you have been inaccurate, and he sends you before a Board, who repeat
] the scrutiny. And finally, after all these precautions, you are accepted,
or rejected. He must be a preternatural knave who can slip through
the meshes of this net, unless somebody who holds it be a preternatural
|donkey.
Mr. Punch has no objection to the most scrutinising inquiries being
made before a policy is granted ; on the contrary, the more minute the
investigation, the better. And since the twenty-five or thirty questions
by which it is sought to discover the physiology of yourself and that of
your father, mother, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers
and sisters, is insufficient, he begs to frame a few more, conceived in
the same spirit, which he would add to the " particulars required."
Only he would insist, that when everything has been asked, and every-
thing tested, the record should be closed, and the bargain, if made,
should be irrevocable. For instance—
31. Did your great grandmother ever complain of having been
frightpned to d^ath ?
32. Are you in the habit of reading Mr. Alison's Histories, or the
Morning Advertiser, or any other publications tending to
lengthen life ?
33. Do you cross the street carefully, and have you ever been run
over by Pickford's vans, and'how often?
34. Have you au admission to the Zoological Garden*, and if so, do
you habitually go close to the dens of the carnivora, or get
into the serpents' cages ?
35. Is your wife a strong-minded woman?
36. Do you know any Americans, and is there any chance of your
getting into political or other arguments with the owner of a
revolver ?
37. Are you a polite man, who does not mind running out of a hot
Opera house to get up a carriage on a wet night ?
33. Did you ever sit out an Elizabethan drama of modern construc-
tion, and how many years ago, and who attended you, medi-
cally, afterwards ?
39. Do you run after fancy preachers, and do they make you cry ?
40. What was the general state of your ancestors' health, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ?
41. Was any member of your family ever swallowed up by an
earthquake ?
42. When you go to Gravesend, is it by boat or rail; and in the
former case, do you always hold fast by a rope ?
43. Do you always take care not to tread on orange-peel in the street ?
44. Have you ever been afflicted with Irishmen, or any other
epidemic?
45. Who cuts your hair ?
Now, let the offices add these, and any number of similar questions,
to their string of inquiries. And let them examine your friends on
oath, and your doctor as the Americans cross-examine a nigger witness,
namely, by putting him in a corner and kicking his shins until he
answers categorically. And let them have half a dozen Boards, or
even one medical officer whose head is not made of board, and let the
very utmost be done to obtain information. But, as aforesaid, a
bargain should be a bargain—not, of course, that one rogue may make
a prize, but the ninety-nine honest men who save, perhaps screw,
through years of weary toil, to secure homes for the loved ones when
their natural protector shall be at rest, may not be disturbed by a doubt
whether their cherished work has been carelessly or clumsily done,
and whether a corporation—" that which has neither a body to be kicked
nor a soul to be "—otherwise disposed of,—may not take advantage of
its own blunders.
Mr. Punch is justly proud of his patent-leather boots, but were he a
Juryman on a trial wheD an office disputed a policy, he would eat those
boots before giving the Defendants a verdict.
QUEER, QUESTIONABLE QUERIES P
Ake Brewers' horses principally Brood mares?
What hecomes of all the ' Bits " of a woman's mind ?
Is " Death's Door" opened with a skeleton key?
How is it that so many men, who are extremely amiable in private, make them-
selves, the moment they emerge into public life, so supremely ridiculous?
When a lawyer composes his mind, does he do it in 6-8 time?
Would you say that a lady was "dressed loud," who was covered all over with
bugles ?
Shouldn't the Loud Chancelloe marry well, since he has the pick of all the Wards
in Chancery?
Is there any truth in the report that the Arabs who live in the Desert have sandy
hair ? and is it also true that those who live by the Red Sea have carrots ?
In selling a Newfoundland Dog do you know whether it is valued according to what
it will fetch, or what it will bring ?
The Wish of a Veteran,
" Dash it, Sir!" cried a poor old Major, on bearing the amount of
the retiring allowances of the Bishops of London and Durham,
" I wish I were an officer on half-pay in the Church Militant."
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[July 26, 1856.
The werry first thing as ever I does when I goes to the
Christial Palis, is to git a cheer !
[Observation of Old Lady, July 17th, 1856, as ever was.
"GIVE THE WOELD ASSURANCE OF A MAN."
Mr. Punch has observed that there have lately been several in-
stances in which Life Assurance Offices have resisted the claims of the
policy-holders. He is not about to enter into the details of any of these
cases, in most of which the resistance has been ineffectual, and the law
has made the offices stick to their bargains. Neither is he going to
reproduce Loud Chief Justice Campbell's just but very severe
remarks upon the greediness of some of the new offices to obtaiu
business, which afterwards burns their fingers. Caveat Confirmator.
But considering that any man whose income dies with him, and whose
family does not, is guilty of something very like crime if he neglects to
make assurance-provision for those he leaves behind him, Mr. Punch is
disposed to be proportionately disgusted with any institution, which,
through carelessness, avarice, or clumsiness, brings the assurance
sj stem into any kind of discredit.
He will waive the graver part of the question, the greediness to get
business, and will venture to offer a few impertinent remarks upon the
carelessness or clumsiness of the people, who, in spite of the tremendous
and elaborate investigation they affect to perform, contrive to get let
in, and have to come to a Court of Law for relief, which Mr. Punch
hopes it will continue to be the rule to refuse, and the exception to
grant.
Mr. Punch's reverence for the business powers of so-called men of
business is not abject. The " practical men," who smile compassion-
ately at schemers and visionaries, are the men who perpetually make
the most frightful smashes and blunders. No attorney, for instance,
can keep, or comprehend accounts, and a stock-jobber, the supposed
incarnation of shrewdness, is the moat credulous golemouche id London.
But these assurance people have a system which, one would think,
might secure safety, and prevent a man's later—latest—life from being
troubled with terrors lest his helpless family may be involved in a
struggle for the pittance he has toiled and saved, for years, to ensure
them.
The inquisition into your own health, habits, and history, which is
the first step in an assurance transaction, is exceedingly minute. You
answer, in writing, as to everything which can bear on the subject. Then
you give a reference to a doctor, who is privately examined as to all
u h<\. uf about you; and thirdly, the friend of your soul, with
whom the goblet you sip, is cross-examined to know whether you only
sip it, or drain it, and in what company, and at what hours; and in
some cases, a second friend of your soul is demanded, nay, hoth of these
are occasionally required to give references to respectable Damons and
responsible Pythiases of their own. Next, you are visited by, or visit,
the Office s own medical man, who feels vour pulse, and tests your chest,
and catechises you out of your own deposition, in order to catch you, if
you have been inaccurate, and he sends you before a Board, who repeat
] the scrutiny. And finally, after all these precautions, you are accepted,
or rejected. He must be a preternatural knave who can slip through
the meshes of this net, unless somebody who holds it be a preternatural
|donkey.
Mr. Punch has no objection to the most scrutinising inquiries being
made before a policy is granted ; on the contrary, the more minute the
investigation, the better. And since the twenty-five or thirty questions
by which it is sought to discover the physiology of yourself and that of
your father, mother, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers
and sisters, is insufficient, he begs to frame a few more, conceived in
the same spirit, which he would add to the " particulars required."
Only he would insist, that when everything has been asked, and every-
thing tested, the record should be closed, and the bargain, if made,
should be irrevocable. For instance—
31. Did your great grandmother ever complain of having been
frightpned to d^ath ?
32. Are you in the habit of reading Mr. Alison's Histories, or the
Morning Advertiser, or any other publications tending to
lengthen life ?
33. Do you cross the street carefully, and have you ever been run
over by Pickford's vans, and'how often?
34. Have you au admission to the Zoological Garden*, and if so, do
you habitually go close to the dens of the carnivora, or get
into the serpents' cages ?
35. Is your wife a strong-minded woman?
36. Do you know any Americans, and is there any chance of your
getting into political or other arguments with the owner of a
revolver ?
37. Are you a polite man, who does not mind running out of a hot
Opera house to get up a carriage on a wet night ?
33. Did you ever sit out an Elizabethan drama of modern construc-
tion, and how many years ago, and who attended you, medi-
cally, afterwards ?
39. Do you run after fancy preachers, and do they make you cry ?
40. What was the general state of your ancestors' health, in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ?
41. Was any member of your family ever swallowed up by an
earthquake ?
42. When you go to Gravesend, is it by boat or rail; and in the
former case, do you always hold fast by a rope ?
43. Do you always take care not to tread on orange-peel in the street ?
44. Have you ever been afflicted with Irishmen, or any other
epidemic?
45. Who cuts your hair ?
Now, let the offices add these, and any number of similar questions,
to their string of inquiries. And let them examine your friends on
oath, and your doctor as the Americans cross-examine a nigger witness,
namely, by putting him in a corner and kicking his shins until he
answers categorically. And let them have half a dozen Boards, or
even one medical officer whose head is not made of board, and let the
very utmost be done to obtain information. But, as aforesaid, a
bargain should be a bargain—not, of course, that one rogue may make
a prize, but the ninety-nine honest men who save, perhaps screw,
through years of weary toil, to secure homes for the loved ones when
their natural protector shall be at rest, may not be disturbed by a doubt
whether their cherished work has been carelessly or clumsily done,
and whether a corporation—" that which has neither a body to be kicked
nor a soul to be "—otherwise disposed of,—may not take advantage of
its own blunders.
Mr. Punch is justly proud of his patent-leather boots, but were he a
Juryman on a trial wheD an office disputed a policy, he would eat those
boots before giving the Defendants a verdict.
QUEER, QUESTIONABLE QUERIES P
Ake Brewers' horses principally Brood mares?
What hecomes of all the ' Bits " of a woman's mind ?
Is " Death's Door" opened with a skeleton key?
How is it that so many men, who are extremely amiable in private, make them-
selves, the moment they emerge into public life, so supremely ridiculous?
When a lawyer composes his mind, does he do it in 6-8 time?
Would you say that a lady was "dressed loud," who was covered all over with
bugles ?
Shouldn't the Loud Chancelloe marry well, since he has the pick of all the Wards
in Chancery?
Is there any truth in the report that the Arabs who live in the Desert have sandy
hair ? and is it also true that those who live by the Red Sea have carrots ?
In selling a Newfoundland Dog do you know whether it is valued according to what
it will fetch, or what it will bring ?
The Wish of a Veteran,
" Dash it, Sir!" cried a poor old Major, on bearing the amount of
the retiring allowances of the Bishops of London and Durham,
" I wish I were an officer on half-pay in the Church Militant."