Punch: Punch (33.1857)

28

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 18, 1857.

SELF-CONSTITUTED BEADLES.

0 one more than ourselves
can venerate the office, res-
pect the person, and admire
the dress of a regular parish
beadle, but we scorn and
despise all amateur beadles.
By amateur beadles we mean
Paterfamilias and other
meddlers of his class, who,
under their own, or assumed
names, constitute themselves
the maintainers of petty
decorum, and the enforcers
of small proprieties. These
officious asses are perpetually
occupying themselves in try-
ing to* get little restrictions
on personal liberty, and
especially sumptuary laws,
enacted or put in operation
to the annoyance of other
people. They would, if they

' could, regulate your food,
your drink, your habits and
employments, the cut of your
clothes and of your hair;

BEWARE OF STEEL TRAPS.

The following opinion is borrowed for the occasion from Professor
Knotz : —

"It is extremely probable, that whatever conducts the electricity of the body
from ir, will occasion direct debility. With thiB view, I have long been in the habit
of causing females, who used steel supports in their stays, to lay them aside
altogether."

Now, supposing this theory to be correct, if steel stays are full of
danger, how much more dangerous must steel hoops be ! Not only do
they debilitate the body, but the mind, also, of the beautiful creature
who is weak enough to allow herself to be steel-trapped into this
absurd circle of folly. Against all these hoops and similar abominations,
Punch raises a regular war-whoop, nor will he be satisfied till every
one of thetn is exterminated.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

" What nonsense! I'm tired," exclaimed an Old Bachelor, with
boiling indignation, " of hearing that old question mooted over and over
again! Why, the Women (bless the dear creatures !) always are right:
There never was an argument, or a quarrel, or a grievance, or a dis-
pute, or a spoilt child, or a missing button, or a separation, or a
divorce, or an unbecoming bonnet, or an overboiled leg of mutton yet,
but a woman was invariably in the right! I'm sure ail her Rights are
divine—as divine as herself—and as, of old, one of the Divine Rights
of Kings was ' a King can do no wrong,' so now-a-days one of the

Divine Rights of Woman is, ' A Woman never is wrong.' And it's
they would make you shave yourself after their model - they would otter | my beKef> Sirj tl)at sl)e couidn>t d0 itj uot even if she were to try j »

you every species of impertinence that deserves a kicking, if they were
not afraid of getting themselves accordingly kicked. Not being able to
tyrannize over men, they are accustomed to gratify their contemptible
lust of dominion by coercing, and constraining, and checking, and
Thwarting boys, curbing their inclinations, interfering with their tastes
and amusements, and spoiling their sports in various particulars which
are beneath the notice of any respectable mind. One of these meddlers,
calling himself " A Member of Convocation," has lately been
writing letters, complaining of the free-and-easy style of dress, and the
lively sports and pastimes of the Oxford undergraduates, and calling
for the restraint of those young bucks in regard to the fashions and
diversions at which he carps. Their check-shirts, loose coloured caps,
and "American style of dress" in general, and their indulgence in
tobacco, are denounced by this absurd old pedagogue with all the gravity
of beadleism.

The disciplinary propensities of a little and mean mind, exhibit
themselves in our censor's ensuing observations on smoking :—

" Smoking in the streets and in public, may in a great measure be checked by a
steady application of fines, by which a proctor well known to me was very success-
ful ; he used, by the way, always to fine twice as much for a pipe as lor a cigar."

Did he—the snob ! Why ? The objection, if there is any, to a pipe
of tobacco, relates surely, not to the pipe, but to the weed. Tobacco,
if bad, is no better when formed into a cigar than it is when it forms
the contents of a pipe. Who is to prevent a man—Oxford or adult—
from smoking in his own room? aud since that, for the Oxford man,
ought to be appropriated to study, the very fittest place for him to
smoke in is the street.

If a proctor wanted to break undergraduates of wearing preposterous
coats, waistcoats, trowsers, collars, neck-ties, or othqr articles of
apparel, his best plan would be to summon the offenders before him.
have a photographic artist in attendance to take their likenesses, and
set up those ridiculous portraits to be exhibited in some convenient
public situation. It would be, however, much better to leave all such
matters to our own artists, whose province it is to deal with them, and
the attempt of anybody else to meddle with them is an invasion of that
province. As to the Member of Convocation," he, at all events,
had better let comicalities of academical costume alone, for there can
be no doubt that his own attire is remarkable for peculiarities more
ludicrous than the most absurd shirt-patterns. We have every reason
to believe that, even during the present weather, he wears gaiters.
We wonder what, in their undergraduate days, was the style of costume
sported by the old noodles who now babble against fast fashions and
wear gaiters with their great shoes. What sort of a larva is it, in
statu papillari, that expands into this queer old black beetle

The Patronage of St. Vitus.

The British Public, with an incredulity resembling Bets?/ Prig's,
may generally disbelieve that there is any such Saint as St. Vitus.
There exists, however, a church, dedicated to a personage of that name
and title in sunny Italy; of which edifice the roof, according to tele-
graphic intelligence f rom Mdan, lately fell in. Nobody can be sur-
prised at this intelligence, who considers that such a structure as the
Church of St. Vitus would be likely te be very shaky.

Incendiary Publications.

The cause of the late fire at the War Office, by which one of the
desks was destroyed, is no longer a mystery. The conflagration origi-
nated in the desk containing the Napier correspondence, obviously
by spontaneous combustion. All letters from that fiery family are
henceforth to be deposited in Milnek's fire-proof safes, each letter
having pinned to it one of Peel's official replies ; that being the most
effectual kind of damper known.

quite the reverse.

When the Pope was at Bologna, he expressed the greatest joy at
finding himself in the midst of the Austrian army : and declared lie
owed much gratitude to the Emperor of Austria, and therefore to
his soldiers. We can only say to such an opinion, "No—no—Pio."

a voice from the mute.

Sir G. B. Pechell, the other nisht, in the House of Commons,
presented a petition against the vaccination Bill, from certain
inhabitants of Brighton. We presume that those were the Brighton
undertakers.