Punch (33.1857)

134 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [September 26, 1857.

£. . a.

Point Lace Bon.net, with emerald flowers . . 12 12 0

White Moire Antique Dress...... 12 12 0

Brussels Lace Veil....... 15 15 0

Six richly Embroidered Collars..... 15 0 0

Green and White Court Dress, with blonde, pearls,

and ribbons....... . 51 5 0

Silk Dress . . '....... 12 12 0

French Cambric Dress...... 8 18 6

Rich Black Velvet Dress...... 28 4 0

Ditto, trimmed with real Lace..... 9 8 6

Point Lace Parasol....... 10 10 0

Point Lace Cap, silver and peach . . . 5 15 6

Spanish Mantilla........ 12 12 0

Another Moire Antique...... 18 18 0

And ever such a quantity of chemisettes, flounces, feathers,
glace jackets, bonnets, and bead-dresses, besides what the
ignorant reporter flippantly calls a black Jace something, with
mosaic fastenings and mantle to suit, £19 Is. In three months,
from December 1855, to February 1856 (that 's three months,
isn't it ?), the bill came to £1493 8s. 0%d.

" Now I call that man a husband, and it is a perfect sin that
he should be persecuted, just because circumstances may have
prevented his paying the bills when the people asked for them.
I dare say he had paid them • loads of money before, and they
ought to have let him off. But, I do think, and every married
woman who knows what dress is will join with me in saying,
that the Loud Chancellor ought to sue out a habeas corpus,
or whatever it is, that forbids innocent persons from being
injured, and Lord Palmerston ought to find money out of
the taxes (we shouldn't grudge it) or the Superannuation, or
where he likes, to help a model husband out of his difficulties.
I hope you will advocate this in your valuable paper, and
oblige all your lady readers, including

" Saturday" " An Ill-Dressed Wiee."

" P.S. Do you notice. Another bracelet, and another hand-
kerchief, and another moire antique. 0, it's scandalous to
think of persecuting such a man ! "

SERVANTGALISM.

INCREDIBLE COCKNEYISM.

Is the following story, told by the Inverness Courier,
possible ?—

ALARMING ACCIDENT.—A gamekeeper and shepherd at
Donchaly, who were out shooting along with three English sportsmen
upon the llth ult., parted company with the gentlemen to drive the
Mistress. " NOT GOING to REMAIN IN A SITUATION ANY LONGER! Why YOU | game towards a certain point agreed upon Unhappily they made their

•nx _ __„„ n I appearance in a different place, and having been mistaken for game were

lOOLISH THINGS, what are YOU GOING TO do, theh ! | fi^d upqq fiye barrel/wer4 discharged at them, and the shots took

Eliza. "Why, Ma'am, YOU SEE OUR Fortune-Teller say THAT TWO YOUNG ; effect in the face and hands of the keeper and shepherd. A messenger
NOBLEMEN is a GOING TO MaRRY US—SO there s no GALL to REMAIN en no was immediately dispatched to Bonar Bridge for Dh. Mackay, who

repaired to Donchaly without delay, and extracted all the grains of lead.
It is fortunate that the shots were at 60 yards range. The invalids are
now able to continue their work.

SITUATIONS NO more

MILLINERY IN EXCELSIS.

"Dear Mr. Punch,

" There are so many cases of cruelty practised by what you men are
pleased to call law, (which always strikes the innocent and lets the guilty
escape) that we grow indifferent; but I do hope that for the sake of humanity
the laws will not be permitted to oppress a brave and gallant soldier (at least
he is a Colonel, and I am sure is brave and gallant) whose name appears in to-
day's Times. I need not mention his name, though it would do him nothing but
honour, for the very evidence against him shows that he must be one of the^ best
men that ever lived, and a model husband. And now some grasping creditors
are trying to worry him, and had not even the decency to give up their
ridiculous persecuting claims though they were told that he was ill, and away
from his native land, poor fellow ! Even Mr. Linklater, whose admirable
management in the British Bank business, made me think he must be a dear
creature, sets himself against this brave and kind soldier, and pretends to think
he is not so ill as he says, notwithstanding that his wife confirms the account.
I am much surprised at Mr. L.

"The case would first make any married woman's mouth water, and then her
eyes. To read the list of the things, the beautiful, lovely, costly things, which
this husband gave to his wife, and all in three months, and then to think that
such a man is being persecuted by lawyers and creditors! Of course my husband
had not the kindness to let me have the paper at breakfast, because he knew
the matter would interest me; but after he was gone to business, I kept the
paper-boy waiting half an hour scratching the door-paint, while I read the
account, and copied out a few of the items. Now look here, Mr. Punch, and
blush for your meanness and that of your sex, when you read what this brilliant
exception to the rule gave his wife (and a happy woman she must be) in three
months. Observe the prices—no bargains, or cheap things, mind, but good
articles, proving that the man respected himself and his wife.

£ «. d.

One Pocket Handkerchief . . , . . . .440

Another...........550

Enamelled Bracelet........4 4 0

Another ... . .330

We strongly suspect that this is a Scotch joke ; one of those
jokes which extend over a whole anecdote, at every two or
three words of which the narrator laughs, and all other Scotch-
men present laugh also, and everybody else wonders why?
Belated with a Scotch accent in a Scotch circle, the above
tale would no doubt be received with immense laughter. But
it must be a romance. See what it involves. Three English
sportsmen mistake, two Scotchmen's heads, at sixty yards, for
a brace of grouse, and all three of them blaze away at the two
heads which they imagine to be heads of game. The bodies
must, at that rate, have been concealed by an intervening
mound or hillock, so that the heads only were visible, and
must, if they appeared like grouse, have appeared like grouse
on the ground. To say that three English sportsmen fired^a
volley together at two grouse on the ground, is to libel the people
of England, represented by the Three Tailors of Tooley Street.