DOI issue:
October 10, 1857
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16620#0165
October 10, 1857.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
155
SACRIFICES TOO ALARMING.
kiting from Bond-
street, a dashing
young haberdasher,
under the signature
of H. G. W., states
certain obvious rea-
sons why youngmen-
milliners are not
quite so ready to en-
list for private sol-
diers as they are
expected to be. The
sum of his commu-
nication is, that if
you are to get parties
into the Army from
behind the counter,
you must render the
exchange worth their
while. Half-a-crown a-day, and, on passing a sufficient, but not. too strict, exami-
nation, a commission guaranteed to the survivors, in a new Native Regiment, are
his terms, which are certainly reasonable; and, if these are granted, he says, with
characteristic spirit and in language to match:—
"i am certain that in a few weeks, from the London drapers alone, a battalion of young men
eager to avenge the atrocities of Nena Sahib and Co. might be raised, to be called the First
Battalion of Volunteer Guards, or the Royal Counterjumpers.'
To ask a young man to throw up a salary from five to twenty times as much as the
pay of a soldier, in order to embrace a soldier's life, with all its hardships and
dangers, and its poor look-out in the event of not being cut short; whereas, by
sticking to the shop he might in time become a Lord Mayor or a Member of
Parliament, is to call upon him to make a tremendous sacrifice not to be expected
even of a linendraper. " Allow me to tempt you," is a phrase which the Recruiting
Sergeant ought to be enabled to address to the linendraper's assistant with some
prospect of success if the temptation is permitted. Superior articles—of agreement
—the tempter should have to exhibit, and not such as any respectable young man
of decent intelligence and education would pronounce to be decidedly interior.
Otherwise the answers which the Sergeant will generally get from behind the
counter will be: "We couldn't do it, really," and "No, Sir; not at this
establishment."
BLACK STRAP BERRIES.
A Certain Inn of late, by chance,
I, in a ramble, passed:
When, at the portal steps, a glance
Upon a man I cast.
A basket which, upon his crowH,
This individual bore,
He took therefrom, and set it down
At that same Tavern-door.
This basket being full of fruit,
Did my attention seize;
'Twas crammed with berries black as soot,
In one word, blackberries.
Now, to that Tavern if I go,
And happen there to dine,
There's one thing I won't do, I know :
I'll call for no Port wine.
TO GENTLEMEN IN SEARCH OF EXCITEMENT.
We have seldom seen an advertisement that held out
livelier prospects to the person who may succeed in gaining
the post it offers than this :—
A SCHOOLMASTER, possessed of a missionary spirit, is
-ft required for a Protestant mixed ragged school, established
principally for the children of Roman Catholics. The requirement ia
for three months, with a possibility of permanency. Address, with
references to the Committee.
The "possibility of permanency," we should suppose,
will very much depend on whether the schoolmaster does
or does not get his head broken in the first three months'
exercise of his "missionary spirit."
One can imagine the scene in the neighbourhood of this
Protestant ragged school intended for Roman Catholic
children!
We beg strongly to recommend the situation to the
Rev. Hugh Hanna.
AN ART TREASURE.
"Mr. Punch,
"I am one of that interesting class of men, well born, what
is called well-educated, well-dressed, good-looking, with a hatred of
everything low—including work — who find it so hard to meet
with a place in the world at once suited to their obvious claims, their
tastes and their capacities. The time has been when I should have
been easily and comfortably provided for in a Government situation.
But the low and levelling spirit of middle-class agitation has reached
even the administrative circles, and my way to a clerkship in the
Red Tape and Sealing-Wax Department, in which my family held
lucrative and dignified situations for many generations, is barred
against me by those offensive Civil Service examiners, to whose
vulgar pretensions, I, for one, am determined never to submit
myself. In the good old times the Army might have offered _ me
a resource. But Commissions without purchase are now given
to Officers' children, forsooth,—won by competitive examination,
I dare say, or reached by some such pedantic road—and I don't
mean to give any Board the pleasure of prying into my style and
spelling.*
" Even for diplomatic appointments, they are now beginning to insist
on a knowledge of foreign languages, and I dare say there's an
examination, or some similar annoyance, to be faced even for an
attache-skip. But I have not tried my chance in that quarter,
as our connection is at present in opposition. At all events, here
I am, at twenty-seven, with my birth, breeding, and accomplish-
ments, literally not knowing where to turn for a sovereign ! There's
the diggings — but am I to go and associate with a set of navvies ?
There's the bush; cattle-hunting seems good fun enough—but only
imagine smearing sheep against the scab, with the thermometer
at 85°, and eating kangaroo steamed, and parakeet-pie, made by a
black woman. Volunteering for India's out of the question. The
Company's service is not the thing, and the heat would be too great
a bore.
" Thus barred from all avenues, I will not say to fortune or dis-
tinction—perhaps I have no right to expect these—but even to
* Note by Editor.—We have corrected the orthography and punctuation of our
listinguished correspondent.
comfort and independence, you may conceive with what delight my
eye fell the other day on this advertisement :—
ARTISTIC STUDIO.—WANTED Young Gentlemen, as SITTERS
-ft- fir GROUP pictures, gentlemanly looking. Apply personally, in a fas'n ion-
able ball-dress, to g. r., 12, J— Place, New Road, from 3 to 5 o'clock, is. for
every two hours' sitting.
" I hasten to communicate the announcement to your widely
circulated pages, in the hope it may meet the eye of young men, like
myself, ornamental, but denied the means of usefulness by the
iniquitous arrangement of Society. Two shillings an hour is twelve
shillings a-day for six hours' work—nay, six hours' sitting—which can-
not be very fatiguing. A man can five on that with strict economy,
and a judicious use of the advantages of his club; particularly if he
has a gentlemanlike knowledge of billiards, and can hold his aces at
whist.
"I am this moment starting for J— Place. I haven't the remotest
idea where it is. I'm afraid it is not the part of Town in which one
would like to earn a living ; but I have no right to be nice.—Trusting
that this letter will be the means of opening up to others that avenue
to employment for ' gentlemanly-lookmg young men,' who can com-
mand ' a fashionable ball-dress,' of which I am about to avail myself.
I remain, Mr. Funch, Yours Paithfully,
" Percy Vernon Montgomery Lazy-Tongue."
" P.S.: 1 reopen my letter ! Oh gracious goodness ! what have I gone
through ! I paid my last available five shillings to have the wretches
photographed. There they are ! (at page 150).
" These are the ' gentlemanly-looking young men !' These are the
' fashionable ball-dresses !' He wants us to stand for Stereo-
scopic slides, of 'Scenes from Life; the Upper Circles' as the
Snob calls it. He actually told me that I was 'too quiet.' —That my
style of dress wasn't 'spicy enough;' and asked if I hadn't such a
thing as a coat with a silk lining to the lapelles, and a worked dicky !
I suppose I shall have to carry a board about the streets,—but I
wouldn't earn my bread among such a set of snobs, if it was to be
twice as thickly buttered !
" I send my letter, with this postscript. The lano and the antidote.—
Oblige me by inserting the picture, as a warning to persons situated
like myself."
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
155
SACRIFICES TOO ALARMING.
kiting from Bond-
street, a dashing
young haberdasher,
under the signature
of H. G. W., states
certain obvious rea-
sons why youngmen-
milliners are not
quite so ready to en-
list for private sol-
diers as they are
expected to be. The
sum of his commu-
nication is, that if
you are to get parties
into the Army from
behind the counter,
you must render the
exchange worth their
while. Half-a-crown a-day, and, on passing a sufficient, but not. too strict, exami-
nation, a commission guaranteed to the survivors, in a new Native Regiment, are
his terms, which are certainly reasonable; and, if these are granted, he says, with
characteristic spirit and in language to match:—
"i am certain that in a few weeks, from the London drapers alone, a battalion of young men
eager to avenge the atrocities of Nena Sahib and Co. might be raised, to be called the First
Battalion of Volunteer Guards, or the Royal Counterjumpers.'
To ask a young man to throw up a salary from five to twenty times as much as the
pay of a soldier, in order to embrace a soldier's life, with all its hardships and
dangers, and its poor look-out in the event of not being cut short; whereas, by
sticking to the shop he might in time become a Lord Mayor or a Member of
Parliament, is to call upon him to make a tremendous sacrifice not to be expected
even of a linendraper. " Allow me to tempt you," is a phrase which the Recruiting
Sergeant ought to be enabled to address to the linendraper's assistant with some
prospect of success if the temptation is permitted. Superior articles—of agreement
—the tempter should have to exhibit, and not such as any respectable young man
of decent intelligence and education would pronounce to be decidedly interior.
Otherwise the answers which the Sergeant will generally get from behind the
counter will be: "We couldn't do it, really," and "No, Sir; not at this
establishment."
BLACK STRAP BERRIES.
A Certain Inn of late, by chance,
I, in a ramble, passed:
When, at the portal steps, a glance
Upon a man I cast.
A basket which, upon his crowH,
This individual bore,
He took therefrom, and set it down
At that same Tavern-door.
This basket being full of fruit,
Did my attention seize;
'Twas crammed with berries black as soot,
In one word, blackberries.
Now, to that Tavern if I go,
And happen there to dine,
There's one thing I won't do, I know :
I'll call for no Port wine.
TO GENTLEMEN IN SEARCH OF EXCITEMENT.
We have seldom seen an advertisement that held out
livelier prospects to the person who may succeed in gaining
the post it offers than this :—
A SCHOOLMASTER, possessed of a missionary spirit, is
-ft required for a Protestant mixed ragged school, established
principally for the children of Roman Catholics. The requirement ia
for three months, with a possibility of permanency. Address, with
references to the Committee.
The "possibility of permanency," we should suppose,
will very much depend on whether the schoolmaster does
or does not get his head broken in the first three months'
exercise of his "missionary spirit."
One can imagine the scene in the neighbourhood of this
Protestant ragged school intended for Roman Catholic
children!
We beg strongly to recommend the situation to the
Rev. Hugh Hanna.
AN ART TREASURE.
"Mr. Punch,
"I am one of that interesting class of men, well born, what
is called well-educated, well-dressed, good-looking, with a hatred of
everything low—including work — who find it so hard to meet
with a place in the world at once suited to their obvious claims, their
tastes and their capacities. The time has been when I should have
been easily and comfortably provided for in a Government situation.
But the low and levelling spirit of middle-class agitation has reached
even the administrative circles, and my way to a clerkship in the
Red Tape and Sealing-Wax Department, in which my family held
lucrative and dignified situations for many generations, is barred
against me by those offensive Civil Service examiners, to whose
vulgar pretensions, I, for one, am determined never to submit
myself. In the good old times the Army might have offered _ me
a resource. But Commissions without purchase are now given
to Officers' children, forsooth,—won by competitive examination,
I dare say, or reached by some such pedantic road—and I don't
mean to give any Board the pleasure of prying into my style and
spelling.*
" Even for diplomatic appointments, they are now beginning to insist
on a knowledge of foreign languages, and I dare say there's an
examination, or some similar annoyance, to be faced even for an
attache-skip. But I have not tried my chance in that quarter,
as our connection is at present in opposition. At all events, here
I am, at twenty-seven, with my birth, breeding, and accomplish-
ments, literally not knowing where to turn for a sovereign ! There's
the diggings — but am I to go and associate with a set of navvies ?
There's the bush; cattle-hunting seems good fun enough—but only
imagine smearing sheep against the scab, with the thermometer
at 85°, and eating kangaroo steamed, and parakeet-pie, made by a
black woman. Volunteering for India's out of the question. The
Company's service is not the thing, and the heat would be too great
a bore.
" Thus barred from all avenues, I will not say to fortune or dis-
tinction—perhaps I have no right to expect these—but even to
* Note by Editor.—We have corrected the orthography and punctuation of our
listinguished correspondent.
comfort and independence, you may conceive with what delight my
eye fell the other day on this advertisement :—
ARTISTIC STUDIO.—WANTED Young Gentlemen, as SITTERS
-ft- fir GROUP pictures, gentlemanly looking. Apply personally, in a fas'n ion-
able ball-dress, to g. r., 12, J— Place, New Road, from 3 to 5 o'clock, is. for
every two hours' sitting.
" I hasten to communicate the announcement to your widely
circulated pages, in the hope it may meet the eye of young men, like
myself, ornamental, but denied the means of usefulness by the
iniquitous arrangement of Society. Two shillings an hour is twelve
shillings a-day for six hours' work—nay, six hours' sitting—which can-
not be very fatiguing. A man can five on that with strict economy,
and a judicious use of the advantages of his club; particularly if he
has a gentlemanlike knowledge of billiards, and can hold his aces at
whist.
"I am this moment starting for J— Place. I haven't the remotest
idea where it is. I'm afraid it is not the part of Town in which one
would like to earn a living ; but I have no right to be nice.—Trusting
that this letter will be the means of opening up to others that avenue
to employment for ' gentlemanly-lookmg young men,' who can com-
mand ' a fashionable ball-dress,' of which I am about to avail myself.
I remain, Mr. Funch, Yours Paithfully,
" Percy Vernon Montgomery Lazy-Tongue."
" P.S.: 1 reopen my letter ! Oh gracious goodness ! what have I gone
through ! I paid my last available five shillings to have the wretches
photographed. There they are ! (at page 150).
" These are the ' gentlemanly-looking young men !' These are the
' fashionable ball-dresses !' He wants us to stand for Stereo-
scopic slides, of 'Scenes from Life; the Upper Circles' as the
Snob calls it. He actually told me that I was 'too quiet.' —That my
style of dress wasn't 'spicy enough;' and asked if I hadn't such a
thing as a coat with a silk lining to the lapelles, and a worked dicky !
I suppose I shall have to carry a board about the streets,—but I
wouldn't earn my bread among such a set of snobs, if it was to be
twice as thickly buttered !
" I send my letter, with this postscript. The lano and the antidote.—
Oblige me by inserting the picture, as a warning to persons situated
like myself."