Punch (34.1858)

January 23, 1858.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

31

The Frightful Figure that Nearly Terrified Old Fogey and his Wife
out of their Wits—and which proved, after all, to be only an Ordinary
Mortal, carrying Roasted Chesnuts !

MARRIAGE ON SMALL MEANS.

by A SWELL op SLENDER INCOME.

To marry a girl on three hundred a-year,
Would^ involve seif-denial extremely severe,
When if ten times that income a fellow enjoyed,
On his pleasures and wants it might all be employed.

I must put down my brougham if I am to wed,
And establish a cradle, of course, in its stead.
I must give up my club and my sporting pursuits,
And resort to cheap tailors, and wear fewer boots.

A wife, whom a fellow has got to support,
Is the dearest of things that a fellow can sport;
And still dearer are children—I speak in the sense
Of a man of the world—in respect of expense. P

Oh, yes ! I'm aware the cigars I consume
Are so much per annum that flies off in fume,
And I know that the sum which in smoke I expend,
Would suffice to procure tops and bottoms no end.

My cab-hire would buy lots of small boots and shoes
But the latter investment I beg to refuse,
And I'd rather devote all I could from my store
To buy my own boots—which I mentioned before.

Of course, if a man gives up all that makes life
Worth living, why then he may marry a wife,
Whose face is her fortune—whilst all he has got,
Will just serve to boil—horrid object—the pot.

I wish you may get it—I wish you may see
Myself in a chair with a child on each knee,
And a number of others, about me at play,
In a cottage, with nowhere to put them away.

I '11 follow my pleasures, I '11 stick to my club,
And while I'm enjoying my glass and my grub,
With content I '11 regard want of conjugal bliss,
Exclaiming, "That isn't so jolly as this."

To make Writing Impervious to Criticism.—Write
on Bank-notes.

THE RIVAL POWERS AT NAPLES.

The priests and the earthquake at Naples have been contending one
with the other. The contest has consisted in trying which could be
the more shocking—the earthquake in violence, or the priests in folly

shaking, even to overthrow, the monuments, at least, of their super-
stition. In the letter above quoted, is given the following inscription,
taken from the engraving of a statue of the Madonna found among
some ruined houses : — ,

S. M. Di Loreto di Polly. Erected on oecaaioa of the earthquakes of 165'2

and humbug. Ihe earthquake having made a prodigious effort, Which ! and 1814. On the 22ncl May it sweats manna. . . . Manna flows from the side

overthrew a house and part of a belfry, the priests answered it by a of Makia to save guilty souls devoted to her."

demonstration thus described by the Times correspondent:—

" It is difficult to describe the consternation of the people ; all ran to the tem-
porary building where Divine Service is performed, and the crucifix and the image
of the Madonna being brought out, all followed in procession, priests and all,
scourging themselves with ropes."

Flogging is one of those operations that no man, even if anxious to
whip himself soundly, can so effectually perform on his own person, as
another man, sufficiently able-bodied, can do it for him. It is to be
regretted that the people, instead of lashing themselves, which they
probably did with all their might, had not taken the ropes out of the
hands of the priests, and given every one of those reverend impostors a
smart sound sensible taste of the rope's end. However, if the
" faithful" chose to give themselves a good hiding, they only inflicted
on their own shoulders that chastisement to which proverbial wisdom
devotes the back of the fool, and which, accordingly, they richly
deserved.

That the faithful did not perceive and act upon the propriety of
thrashing their priests is the more wonderful, by reason that they are
in the habit of abusing St. Januauius when his blood does not melt
soon enough to please them. Now, their reverences the priests alto-
gether failed in their attempt to stop the earthquake; although they
overdid their soluble red substance the other day, and made the
coagulum boil; but as Dr. Johnson said of the aerial voice which
called him Sam, through a keyhole, " nothing came of it." The earth-
quake had still the best of the battle, and seems to have minded the
miraculous ebullition no more than it would have cared for that of a
tea-kettle. It went on shaking the earth—whilst the priests shook
nothing whatever, but the faith of every rational member of their
communion.

Again, the earthquake has had the advantage of the priests in

This Madonna, the writer states, was one " who had granted some
special favours during the earthquakes " mentioned in the inscription.
The church in which the image was set up is now a heap of ruins; so
that the special favours of the idol have not as yet been repeated in the
earthquake of 1857-8, unless they were confined to sweating manna
under a lot of rubbish. Perhaps, however, it will rebuild the church
without funds and without architect or workmen, to confute British
incredulity and compel Mr. Punch to belabour his own hump with his
own cudgel.

A DRAMA OF MANY HEADS.

Mb,. Granier de Cassagnac, in his new paper called Le Rfoeil, (a
reveil, judging from the reading, that is generally followed by a most
tremendous headache), has written an article on the French Drama,
which he has divided into fifteen heads. We must say that this is a
rare number of heads for such a very small quantity of brains ! But,
how about the English Drama? How many heads can our Drama of
the present day boast ? Supposing the English Drama to be, by any
power of stretching, divisible into fifteen heads, it would be with those
heads as with the French watches sold here:—the cases would be
English, but the works, with which they are filled, woidd be imported
from Paris.

" Muscular Christianity."

We think this term, though cleverly intended, is wrongly applied.
If religion hangs on a question of muscle, then the Mussulman must
be the leading and most powerful member of the Churcl'