Punch: Punch (33.1857)

210

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [November 21, 1857.

MORE NOVELTY.

The Misses Weasel think Crinoline a preposterous and extravagant invention, and appear at Mrs. Roundabout's

Party in a Simple and Elegant Attire.

MRS. FANNY PERN ON THE AMERICAN CRISIS.

ell, 1 never ! No !
Snakes and bracelets,
darned (as stockings are
darned, you know) if I
ever did. Moses and
Aaron ! So it's us
— us, women, ladies,
us, the delicious little
blue-eyed tremblers, at
whose tiny tootsicums
you've been kneeling
for nobody never knows
how long—it 's us who
have been and done it,
and got you all into
debt, and stopped your
banks, and made your
bills good for nothing
but to light the beastly
cigars you've got on tick, ain't that the word ? By Diana and the mischievous
urchin Dan Cupid, that is what you've concluded to come to, is it? And you
call yourselves men ! K I could blush, I'd blush for you, but I calculate it
wouldn't do you more good than emptying my teapot into the almighty Niagara.

"And what have we, poor timid slaves, been doing, if it please my lords and
masters of the Creation to certify. Let us hear our crimes, anyhow. What ?
Buying too many robes, and spending too much in jewellery, and perfumes, and
soap, and gloves, and flowers, and slippers for our dear little trotters. Those are
the things that you are not ashamed to throw into our faces. Grant me patience,
gracious Jupiter, while 1 write such matters down. Why, a right minded man,
not to say American, would down upon his marrow-bones to his wife, and humbly
thank her for having at all events got some pleasure out of his money while it lasted.
And she, if she was a dear, warm, kind, affectionate, sweet, good, darling little rib
fas we all are till you make us more t'other), would say to him, shaking her lovely

curls over his face, ' Sam,' or ' Bill,' or ' Al&biades,' as
the case might be, ' I forgive you,'—and I don't know—
I say I don't know, but if he looked very penitent indeed,
and was a handsome fellow—I don't know, but she might
just—there, it's out—give him a kiss. Ah, and a good one
too —not one of the touches that wouldn't make a dew-
drop absquotulate from a rose-leaf, but one as if she meant
it. But the notion of a husband charging his ruin upon
one of those angels, who in the disguise of wives, float
about your homes, and fill the air with essence of Paradise
—well, there !

" In course its all our doing too. No little trifle of ex-
travagance on your side the table. Nothing about poker,
or any other little game. Nothing about racing or bets
on horses to be sent over to England, to have their hearts
broken by the cheating of John Bull's jockeys, or to be
poisoned by dukes and marquises for fear the Stars and
the Stripes should bang the old country on its own turf.
No oysters and portwine, and such like, monkeying the
aristocrats of Britain. No chests of cigars as big as
umbrellas. No Gumticklers, and Neck-twisters, and
Brandysmashes, and Bullsmilk, and Tonguescrapers; nor
any other of your nasty excuses for liquoring when you 're
ashamed to call out, like free citizens of the noblest empire
in the world, for what you really mean. No opera-boxes
that ain't always filled with your own wives, but are some-
times sent as presents to somebody else's—same remark
as to shawls and trinkets, my masters. Oh, no! nothing
of all this. Ask about these things and the lords of creation
are as mute as a dead nigger in a coal-hole. But there's
something in all this, girls, notwithstanding, I swear it by
the memory of St. Washington.

" But come, girls, up and be doing! If we've done the
mischief, (and my lords say so, and therefore, of course it
must be so) we must repair it. We '11 have a good time.