Punch: Punch (32.1857)

240

PETER THE CRUEL.

In a case heard at Guildhall the other day, a husband, named Allen,
was charged with having punched his wife's head, because she did not
complv with his demand for a shilling. Her reason was a miserable
one. She had not a shilling. Beaten, she applies for redress. Solo-
mon Saddler is on the Bench, and brayeth as follows :—

" Sir Feteh. Laurie said : The new Act of Parliament for the protection of women
has been carried out too far, and the hard-working and industrious man has fre-
quently been punished with great severity, for a blow given to his wife in a moment
of anger or provocation."

Evidently, Peter's mind is in his old shop. His exceedingly apropos
remark (for "this is quite a different case,_SiR Peter," said the other
Aldermau) was prompted by a recollection of bye-sone times. In
dealing with a wife [dicit Peter), "there's nothing like Leathering."

THE SOCIAL TREAD-MILL. No. 7.

" I once knew a young husband and wife, both well born, who loving
one another, had been courageous enough to marry without waiting
for fortune. An old servant of the wife's family followed her young
mistress into the stuffy Pimlico first floor, tt» which she passed from
the old Hampshire country house without a sigh or a misgiving, and
in which she spent many a long lonely day, while ' Willie ' was in
Chambers, awaiting the briefs that were so long in coming. But they
did come at last; and my charming and courageous couple were
rewarded for the faith which had carried them into matrimony on
three hundred a year.

"In those days of struggle and saving, the old servant was the only
one of the three who seemed to suffer under a sense of contrast
between the fine old Hampshire mansion, its lordly ways and rustic
state, and the fusty, choky London lodging, with its close-pinching
economy and town-squalor. It so happened, that her master, among
some relics of a home, broken up and scattered to the four winds by
a father's death, possessed a massive fish-slice, suggestive of the family
plate-chest m which it had erst reposed, and the solemn butler, who had
once watched over its safe-keeping.

" My young friends' old servant rejoiced exceedingly in this fish-
slice. It was to her a symbol of the lofty fortunes from which her
master and mistress had, wilfully as it were, descended. When
aflronted by the landlady of the lodgings, or harassed by some imper-
tinence ot the wretched servant-of-all-work—who, trodden on by all,
was not particular on whom she turned—the attached dependent would
take out this fish-slice, and apparently derive comfort from cleaning it.
It was a sort of life-buoy, which kept her sense of the family dignitrv
above water.

" Breakfasting with my friends one morning, I was astonished to
sec the fish-slice on the table. It was very much in the way of the
cups and saucers, and my friend got impatient, and at last rapped out,

' Confound that - fish-slice! I wonder, my darling, why Grem-

ssawe will insist on parading it at breakfast ?'

" The little wife laughed, and removed the ponderous piece of plate,
and then I learnt how Grimshawe could not be broken of this habit of
solemnly placing her cherished fish-slice on the table at every meal.

" Poor Grimshawe ! The fish-slice was to her as a blue-riband - an
order—a title—something to extort respect from all civilised people
without reference to fortune. Her master and mistress were quite
willing to stand upon their personal claims and chances, but Grim-
shawe would thrust the fish-slice down your throat on all occasions.

" When I see people giving way to some cowardly piece of display—
parading some incongruous patch of splendour on their threadbare
every-day habits,—I always think of Grimshawe and the fish-slice.

" The Kotoos were eminently of the fish-slice order of people. Their
table looked gorgeous under the epergnes with their glowing sheaves
of flowers, and the silver wine-coolers with the long-necked green-
yellow bottles peeping out of them, and the gay dessert intermixed
with the flower-baskets,—only we were all aware that the epergnes, and
the wine-coolers, and, for all we know, the very forks and spoons, with
all their heraldry, were hired from the pawnbroker's, or the man who
lets out rout-seats, or came in Galantine's spring-van with the green
boxes. In fact, the Kotoos' fish-slice was Brummagem electrotype,
and not solid silver, and everybody saw through the plating.

" Kotoo had what he called the menew by his side — Galantine's bill
of fare -from which he called over the dishes. The document was not
a modal of orthography in itself, and was not made more intelligible
by Kotoos' pronunciation of its ill-spelt French.

" ' Here's Potage a la Ramifolle, Mrs. Flaunter, and t'other's a
Peicrey d-e Cressy. Try some of these Roojays a la Cardinal, Penny-
hoy,' and then to me, 'There's Cabilow, if you prefer it.' I saw he
hadn't the remotest notion what ' Cabillaud' meant. 'Thank yon,'
said I, maliciously, 'I'll take cod.' ' Cod !' exclaimed Kotoo, much
disgusted that such a plebeian fish should be asked for at his table.
'Cod! I'm afraid it's not in the menew.' The attentive Walker,
however, had already supplied my wants, and Kotoo blushed when he
saw it was cod after all, and very woolly cod, too, which Galantine
had put off upon him under the imposing foreign title of 'cabillaud'
Mrs. Kotoo is more mistress of the tongues than her husband, and I
saw her give Kotoo such a look !

"It was evident that in spite of all Mrs. K.'s efforts to sit as if it
was quite natural to her to have dinner ministered to her by the
haughty hands of Walker and his satellites, she was in her secret soul
full of anxieties. I could not at first understand this, for I thought
the plan of leaving everything to Galantine had this advantage at
least, of securing tranquillity to the master and mistress of the house.
But I soon found that it was the waiters our hostess was nervous
about. In fact Walker had had occasion to complain to her of some
of his staff before dinner, and as I sat with my back to the sideboard
at one corner of the table, I was the involuntary confidant of many of
Walkea's difficulties. He was a general worthy of a_better_army than
the awkward squad with which Galantine had provided him on this
occasion. I had once or twice observed our amiable hostess wince as
one of the waiters passed her. At last I saw her exchange a rapid
whisper with Walker. That worthy reddened, but recovered himself,
and at once, as if he had merely received an order in regular course,
made a circuit of the table in his usual magnificent manner, with the
champagne, which—I may sav, en passant - did not flow quite as freely
from his hands as it might have done if we had helped ourselves, or
each other. I should say that we were now at what Kotoo persisted
in calling the ' relieves,' till Mrs. Kotoo corrected him—by using the
word with an exaggerated stress on the last syllable, thus, ' relevays'—
at which sound Pennyroy, who had disappeared from me behind one
of the flower-baskets, suddenly emerged with an awakened face, and
the exclamation ' Railways ? Won't I take any Railways, Ma'am ?
Not if I know it—' and then he launched into a diatribe on the state
of the Railway Market, of which nobody but Mrs. Kotoo and I
understood the relevancy. While Pennyboy was on this theme—
which really revived the flagging society for a while, every one having
his or her own remarkable experience of radway speculation to record
—I became conscious of a serious drama in action at the side-table,
within ear-shot of my chair.

" This was what passed in a low whisper : —

" Walker {to one of the trailers, in a tone of disgust). So you've been
at them inions, agin!

" Waiter {rapidly, but evidently conscience-stricken). No—I aven't,
leastways I never touched one since last night, as ever was - which me
and my wife-

" Walker {cutting him short, as feeling that the time will not atlow of
their going into the subject, and with dignity). There—remove them
kivers—and don't breathe so 'ard.

" The mystery of Mrs. Kotoo's whisper, and the source of a ceitain