Punch (33.1857)

July IS, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

21

THE SOCIAL TREAD-MILL. No. 10.

—. Jj S there are degrees in blackness,

z" \) m /Sk so there are differences in public

X j /|\\ dinners. At Greenwich or Rich-

v ! '!, /H mond there is at least the few

J «tm^ is> hours'escape from stifling, dusty,

s / d u Mfl&f steaming, midsummer London;

Sfc ) W\\liflL^ i S Km the out over the green

|Hk ' "^^ylffifri | woods, or on the bright river,

Wm-£ ^IsmSt "! ?J^--*' which, when the tide is high, at

liyl«sCs ^^fiBBfe. ! WSrlP^ least, has lost the common-sew-

erish look it wears above bridge ;
|^ the peculiarity of the fish-dinner

—though, alas, that, too, begins
to grow sadly stale; the tempo-
■8ffl,\^x rary hilarity which bright sun,
flowing water, and iced cham-
fn^^g^ pagne are sure to produce ;—and,
iShK^I^' lastly, but above all, the absence
iBIp^*^ °^ that peculiar public-dinner
ra^fc-""-"i' ^miction—the toast-master.
]§|§§||l£ " Happily, too, Greenwich and
SpS^l Richmond rooms have not yet
^r^- ^ expanded into the awful dimen-
' sions of those vast dungeons in
^ss^^iiiy#dsi§I§l3ill3^ Russell Street, and St. Martin's-

^pUsP^^^*" ^ in the-Fields, where the punish-

ment of the public dinner is ad-
ministered in its severest form.
In dinners 'down the liver,' or 'on the Hill,' the sentence is carried out in a mitigated
form—without hard labour, as it were. Indeed, they are only semi-public dinners—the worst
of those which are given at Greenwich or Richmond. Sometimes the muster is one of
friendly guests under the wing of a host whose heart is larger than his house ; sometimes
it is an assemblage of old friends, scattered all the rest of the year, but gathered annually
here by the bond of some old association, to reknit half-loosened ties, to rub half-effaced
memories bright again to be once more boys at the same school, or men at the same uni-
versity. Or occasionally the entertainment is of that class which brings together a peculiarly
easy-going style of men, and an especially becoming style of pink capote, worn with the airiest
grace and crowning the freshest and prettiest of summer toilettes. Such parties are merry
enough generally, and free from at least that curse of formality and dulness which broods over
the public dinner proper. Indeed, they are not, as a general rule, penal inflictions at all,
except on the purse of the entertainer.

" And did we look on ourselves in the light of social turnkeys and prison officials—oh!
Fulgentius, chum of my soul, sharer with me of chambers in the Temple, partner in the
same scrubby clerk, sufferer under the same liquor-loving laundress—when we broke out,
in ihat memorable July, and entertained a round dozen of the pleasantest of our male, and
the prettiest of our female acquaintances at the Trafalgar? Surely that dinner was far
enough removed from dulness, or humbug, or excess. But you would insist on bouquets, you
remember. And as for even the bill—didn't you win your charming little jpfe and her nice
little fortune by that identical dinner ? Her Cerberus of an aunt, for whom you had till then
in vain tried to invent a sop, was the one woman there above thirty-two. Seeing only the
bright faces and pretty toilettes about her, and there being no mirror in the room, she fancied
her own face as bright, and her own bonnet as becoming as the rest, was beguiled into the
best of tempers, and then and there admitted Eulgentius to her heart, as 'a most delightful,
well-bred young man,'—which he is, and was, and ever will be—and raised no opposition,
when in the barouche on the way home, he confided the state of his affections to her unguarded
ear just before passing Kennington Gate. No—all considered, I feel I have no right to class
Greenwich or Richmond dinners among the performances on the Social Tread-mill. Their
own humbug, their own vanities, their own absurdities, they may have, but they are among
the least dreary forms in which John Bull foregathers with his kind.

" Only, I think it is time that the fish-course should be brought within more reasonable
dimensions, and that those very obliging persons, Mr. Quartermaine _ and Mr. Hart,
should insist on their cooks devising something new for this part of the dinner. Why this
perpetual sameness of souche of carp, flounder and salmon—the same everlasting fried slips
and lobster-balls, and whiting puddings, and stewed eel, and turbot a VHollandaise, and
sole a la Normande, and salmon-cutlets, sauce piquante— and all the rest of the enormous
but unvarying round, which we are all so tired of ?

" The poor little whitebait are smothered beneath the weight of tnese, which were once their
accessories. Scarce even the hottest devilling can sharpen up the languid appetite tlat has
run the gauntlet of fifteen fishes, before the whitebait appears. So far as I can see, most
people at a Greenwich dinner appear to eat the brown bread and butter with more appetite
than anything else.

" Can't anything new be struck out ? It is to be feared that the fish-dinner is growing,
as everything in this country is so apt to grow, into an institution—with regular forms,
which it gradually comes to be thought profane, not to say indecent, to meddle with, or even
complain of.

" I do not think that in France any chef would have consented to serve as many dinners
of precisely the same pattern as the cooks at the Ship and Trafalgar have gone on sending
up year after year.

" Then again, why do we all think it our duty at Greenwich, to take more liquor,— or rather
more kinds of liquor,—than is good for us ? The mixture of drinks which 1 see thoughtful
men give way to at such dinners is appalling. There is the cold punch with the turtle, and
the hock they hand round with the souche, and the champagne, and the intermediate sherry,

and the claret after—to say nothing ot inter-
mezzi of fancy wines. Of course it is intelligible
that landlords should encourage this kind of
thing, but why do well-intentioned hosts tole-
rate, or sensible guests give way to it ?

" Let no mixture of drinks during dinner be
allowed. If a man likes sherry, let him stick to
it; if he prefer hock, give him hock, but let him
understand he is to be debarred from sherry.
Champagne is an exception : that may be allowed
to every man—and woman. It is potable exhila-
ration : John Bull requires its magic gas to
lift his ponderous mass out of the clouds and
fogs and mists that hang about him when
undated.

" And let some patriot give himself to the
study of fish, considered as an article of food,
not as a branch of natural history. Let him
acquire by reading and experiment the mastery
of all known ways in which every kind of fish
may be dressed; and then let him boldly adven-
ture upon new ones. Let him, thus informed,
take one of the Greenwich Taverns, and give us
something novel in the way of a Eish Dinner.
We will promise him unlimited custom."

OUR FRIENDS WHO BLESS THEIR
ENEMIES.

The Univers rejoices at the mutiny of the
Sepoys in India, and gloats over the imagined
prospect of England's ruin. It, and the Tablet,
and all the rest of the ultramontane Bress,
always exult whenever they see old England in
a scrape, or likely to get into one, and they
abuse us with a rancour which is quite funny.
Suppose we are heretics, we don't know that
we are so, and we are born what we are, so that
at any rate we are not worse than Turks, or
Buddhists, or Brahmins, or Eetichist blacka-
moors, or, anyhow, than the Yezidi or worship-
pers of Old Scratch. We are very much to be
pitied by the self-styled faithful; not to be hated :
according to their professed principles. Boor
heathen that we are, by their account, why
do not Messieurs the Priests and Eriars, and
their Scribes and Editors, love us rather, and
mourn oyer us, and pray for us, instead of
vituperating us, and taunting us, and crowing
over our misfortunes with the malice of
cockatrices ?

Curious Coincidence.

It has been the subject of agreeable comment
that the week which witnessed the promotion
of Prince Albert was remarkable for two
events of an equally harmonious nature. As
it is a pity this coincidence should be lost, we
may as well state, if not too late, that the two
events, which, singularly enough, occurred
during the same week, were :—The Prince
Consort, and Benedict's Concert.

Name and Nature.

The foreign intelligence of a contemporary
contains the statement that—

"His Holiness received his royal visitors uext morning
with his accustomed urbanity."

The present Bope's pontifical nickname or
alias is Pius, however, not Urban.

A Sentiment.—"The right men in the right
place : " the British Bank Directors in the Old
Bailey dock.

The Mercenary Lover's Maxim.—" On ne
s'aime que pour recoiter !"