Punch: Punch (32.1857)

March 7, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

93

THE CHINESE BOY.

The Chinese Boy to the war is gone,

In the House of Lords to floor 'em.
His friend Yeh's sword he has girded on,

And his potlid set before him.
" Land of Tea," said the Noble Lord,

" For sauce though Justice pays thee,
One Peer at least, without reward,

Shall back, defend, and praise thee."

The Champion failed—his attempt was vain,

But ambition won't knock under;
He '11 up and at 'em yet again,

With a roar of empty thunder.
And say, " No stain shall sully me,

No dodge of factious knavery,
I fight, the chief of the pure and free,

With disinterested bravery."

FELINE INTELLIGENCE.

Among the enigmas of the second column of the Times we have been
lately not a little puzzled by the following :—

LOST, on Monday evening, the 16th inst., ne;ir Fitzroy Square, a large
TABBY CAT, with white throat and feet, aged 10 years. Whoever will take it

to Mb.-----shall receive ONE POUND REWARD. No

further reward will be offered.

Considering the visits and the shillings we have paid to the Begent's
Park Gardens aud to Wombwell's Menagerie, our acquaintance with
zoology can be scarce below the average. But we must confess to
utter ignorance of the fact, that the age of cats may be discerned like
that of horses, and that each year of their lives is distinguishably
marked in them. We cannot help inferring this to be the case when
we find the years of a lost cat precisely stated, as being one of the
clues by which the finder may identify it: only we cannot help thinking
that for the guidance of people as ignorant as ourselves, the advertiser
should have added some instruction as to how the age of the animal is
to be discovered. We might recognise a rabbit by its length of ears,
but the years of a cat are not so plainly visible ; and were we to catch
a stray one in our present want of knowledge, we could no more
ascertain if it were then in its tenth year, than we could undertake to
say in which of its nine lives it was existing when we caught it.

A Card.—For Naples.

MR. MIVART presents his Compliments to his Catholic Majesty,
Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, and begs to be allowed to state that, at
the present oritical juncture, he can accommodate at his well-known Hotel, any
Uncrowned Head seeking temporary retirement, with a most commodious suite of
Apartments, admirably appointed and fitted up with the most delicate regard to
Royalty in distress. N.B. A Porter sits up all night. Italian spoken on the
Premises.

DUST EEOM A BATH BRICK.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of Mr. Punch's
corespondents are compelled to be content with the certainty, that for
a fraction of one of his golden minutes they have engaged his
intensest attention—and that justice will be done. The thousandth
sometimes obtains public answer. Mr. Henry Dallaway, of Bath,
is one in a thousand. He, of all the personages referred to by Mr.
Punch m his remarks upon the mode in which the poor little children
at Bath were baulked of their pantomime, has addressed Mr. Punch
with a protest.

Mr. Dallaway states that he " has sustained an unblemished cha-
racter for twenty-five years." Upon this fact Mr. Punch begs to con-
gratulate Mr. Dallaway, even while temporarily unable to discover
its exact bearing upon the subject. Next he states, that on Mr.
Chute's offering the Guardians of the Bath Union a free admission
for 300 children, he, Mr. Dallaway, objected to the acceptance of
such offer, on the ground that "it was calculated to do persons of that
class more harm than good." Mr. Punch has not, and never expressed,
the least doubt that such was Mr. Dallaway's opinion, and it is upon
the sentiment that would deprive "that class" of amusements which
are thought to be salutary to Her Majesty's children, and Mr.
Punch's children, and the children of rate-payers, that Mr. Punch
makes, and, D.V., intends to make, incessant war. Thirdly, Mr. Dal-
laway states, that the offer having been courteously refused, " here
the matter would and ought to have rested, but Mr. "Chute and some
of the pot-house Newspapers took up the subject very angrily, and
have been stirring up Earth and Hell in throwing abuse on the unfor-
tunate Guardians." That Mr. Dallaway's character is unblemished,
Mr. Punch is perfectly ready to believe upon the ipse dixit of a gentle-
man of whom Mr. P. never heard in his life until he read of Mr.
Dallaway's ridiculous conduct in the Pantomime and Pauper case;
but Mr. Dallaway's language, as above given, rather befits some
savage porter, of the class posted at the gate of certain London work-
house doors to bully away the poor, than the calm, iust, but kindly
Guardian, who, from within, directs rational relief. We must leave
the epithetical D. to settle with the journals what is to be understood
by pot-house Newspapers; but if the term imply that the humbler class,
during the hours of refreshment, seek instruction from such publi-
cations, Mr. Punch is happy to state that His journal, studied at
Windsor Castle, is also bethumbed in the pot-house. The other
figure of speech indicates an amount of topographical theology
creditable to the supporter of the Reverend Mr. Newnham, the
anti-pantomime clergyman of Bath ; but the metaphor is slightly con-
fused, and all that Mr. Punch can make out of it is, that Mr. Dalla-
way is in a vulgar passion and uses coarse language.

Mr. Dallaway next enters into details as to the comforts of the
Bath Union, and his statements are so gratifying that their entire
irrelevance may be overlooked. He then draws a contrast between the
happv Bath pauper and the unhappv Bath rate-payer, in numerous cases
a lodging-house keeper who has "but a few months for extortionate
charges, and during the rest of the year lives upon his plunder and his
basement floor. The contrast is afflicting, but fails to establish, irre-
fragably, that the poor little children ought to have been prevented
from seeing Jack and the Beanstalk. Feeling this, Mr. Dallaway,
on his sixth page, finishes off Mr. Punch with some logic. His objection
was, that the taking the children to the theatre would have been " the
placing them in an unnatural position," (does Mr. D. think that the
spectators stand on their hands, like the clown?) "raising then tastes
and ideas to a false standard" (poor brats—up to the top of the
Beanstalk at least), " and perhaps implanting a propensity for sight-
seeing which they might rob their employers to gratify."

This last is a home-thrust, and must be applauded by every Bath
lodging-house keeper, as she looks out the " other " key to her lodger's
tea-caddv. A far-sighted friend is Mr. Dallaway—a real Guardian
of the Poor. From what may not those 300 children have been saved
by that act which dashed their merriment, and blighted their hopes ?
The Beanstalk might, who knows ? have eventually turned to Hemp;
Jack might have prefigured another inevitable Jack, fatally known at
Newgate; every trap that opened might have hinted at the drop, and
Harlequin's black cap have symbolised that of the judge who ten years
heuce shall go the Western Circuit. Mr. Dallaway has floored us,
and needed not instantly proceed to weaken Ms case by a reference to
"late hours" which has really little to do with a morning performance,
or by the discomfiting sneer which, as an arrierepensee he has written
on his envelope, " Bepresent the Union children going in state to the
theatre, and the rate-payers sweeping the streets for them." No, Mr.
Dallaway, and do not you be petulant, even on the strength of twenty-
five years of a good Bath character. Your logic has prostrated Mr.
Punch, and that gentleman has barely strength to hint, in getting away
from so formidable an antagonist, that all Mr. P. ventured to say
against Mr. D. was to reprint his own declaration that he had seen
the Serious Family. He will hardly see one in Bath when this epistolary
feat of his is the subject of family discussion.