Punch (35.1858)

2

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[ July 3, ] -353.

school, instead of assembling in crowds to listen to the serenaders of
Ethiopia. More ; for the cup of tyranny is to be filled to overflowing.
The Street Cries, which from dewy morn to hagy eve are heard in the
complaining districts, are to be put down, on the ground that they
render homes uninhabitable, drive the hale man from his home, and the
>ick woman to distraction. Bah ! Suppose that it is so, and that a few
i housand well-to-do people do suffer the martyrdom they complain of.
What is this trifling evil, in a population like ours, compared to the
Uardship of forbidding the free Englishman to do as he pleases on his
native soil? If tradesmen allege that they are cruelly injured by the
peripatetic traffic, is it for them that we should make arbitrary edicts,
'or them that we should import new edicts into our code. Nolumus
leges Anglirn mutare. Better that whole districts should suffer by the
grinding and yelling, than that police-restrictions should convert the
population of London into a mass of slaves. But we venture to predict
that the reform will never be effected, and that never shall the humble
minstrel be forbidden his pensive strain, or the wandering vendor
required to silence his howl!

PERMANENT ENLARGEMENT OE THE STRAWBERRY.

There is an old saying that throws ridicule upon anyone who sub-
divides his labour to that finikin extent, as to make two bites of a
cherry. But with strawberries, this subdivision of labour is abso-
lutely necessary. The strawberry is attaining such a Falstaffian
corpulency, that there are few mouths belonging to the female sex
that can open sufficiently wide as to take it in at one bite. Two
and three bites of a strawberry that has any fashionable pretensions
to size, is not at all an uncommon operation. We have seen young
ladies put the strawberry on their plate, and carve it into thin deli-
cate slices, and sugar them with as much care, as if it were an
orange. However, the sweetest thing in connection with this expand-
ing fruit, occurred last week at Richmond. A newly-married couple
were dining in the public room of Honeysuckle Cottage. The husband
was trying to persuade his pretty wife to venture on a strawberry.
"No, dear," she replied, with the most charming daintiness, "I can't
manage an entire one, but if you will have half, love, I will take the
other half." The monster "pine" was accordingly bisected; and so
large was each moiety, that the young wife had actually to bisect her
half again! The person who made two bites of a cherry, would,
carrying out the same ratio of affectation, have to make two hundred,
at least, of a strawberry.

SAVE ME PROM MY ERTENDS.

The Theatrical Critic of the Times, in his notice of Mr. Charles
Kean's Shylock, declares that " in the trial scene every line is a point."
In the name of Euclid, we beg to protest against the assertion. A
line we all know is " length without breadth," and a point is " that
which has position but no magnitude." Obviously a thing cannot
be both at once. Which definition of his style does Mr. Charles
Kean prefer? W^ould he rather have it understood _ that his per-
formance is remarkable for its length, but utterly deficient in breadth
—or that his Shylock occupies a place on the stage, but has nothing
great about it ?

harsh distraint.

It will be very sharp practice of the Yankees if, as some of their
stump orators threaten, they, without waiting for any explanation, at
once proceed to seize and sell up our Styx.

Retaliation.—The Jews have often taken in the Lords—let the
Lords now prove their spirit of generosity by letting in the Jews.

MR. PUNCH, PERSPIRING, DEBATETH OF

DINNKR.

Eytte Eirste.

The sunshine is baking—thermometer making

Attempts up to tropical figures to climb;
The Dog-days outspeeding old Sirius his leading.

Have come up to town quite six weeks ere their time.

O'er man-hole and gully, with nose informed fully

Of the odours for London olfactories stored,
You may curse Vestry-talkers—improvement's staunch balkers,—

And to pave Satan's palace send Thwaites and his Board.

To a stomach so squeamish, nor Guinness nor Beamish,
Tonic Bass nor brisk Alsopp can wake it to play,

And alanguid digestion, how solemn the question,

" Where, my dear Mr. Punch should a man dine to-day ? "

Far from London's stagnation, her streets' exhalation,
The dust of her parks, and the scorch of her stones,

There is nothing to curb an escape to suburban

Sweet air and green shade, for the sunstricken bones.

There's Greenwich invites me, and Blackwall excites me—
Where crowned with blue borage the Badminton reams;

Oh, iced cup of Moselle !—the very proposal,
To fall like sweet dew on my parch'd palate seems.

Oh, the Moet to sip, with the ice at one's lip,
While the breath of the river just waves the green blind !

The breath of the river ! A horrible shiver
Crawls through me, to think what those words bring to mind.

Though the Ship's cordon bleu, or the Biunswick's outdo
All that Soyer, or Ude or Careme e'er have done,

Who for them boldly stems the foul water of Thames—
That Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus, in one ?

Between banks fringed with nuisance, safe guarded by usance,

With fetor of feces and blackness of pitch,
Rons that huge open sewer, that gutter impure,

That many times magnified Eleet or Hound's ditch.

But were Thames even purer, I'm not sc much surer
That the Ship and Trafalgar and Brunswick combine,

Such dining attraction, as wakes into action
An appetite blase and bilious as mine.

With turtle beginning—therein, though, not sinning;

Erom fin to green fat—dear chelonians—I kiss 'em !—
Our meal, on its journey—"formosa superne,"

Non " desinit" solum, sedit tola " in piscem."

I'm sick of those douches of thin water-souches—
Of spitch-cocks and Spey trout, and huge Gloucester jowls;

As somewhat a bore I regard e'en John Dory ;
I abhor whiting-pudding, and lobster-rissoles.

To old hands e'en the whitebait, though devilled, 's a slight bait,
What to gourmand's a treat, is to gourmet a trial:

In short, by St. Venter, my protest I enter
'Gainst a dinner of fish "etpraterea nihil"

All gammon and spinach are Blackwall and Greenwich,
And by civilised diners " taboo " should be reckoned;

When I learn where one may go, and 'scape fish-farrago,
I will mention the fact in some future Eytte Second.

Nearly Kicking the Bucket.

A Man was seen at the foot of Chelsea Bridge taking fish out of the
Thames with his hands, and putting them into a bucket of fresh water.
They were only just saved iu time, as they were all but poisoned with
the filth. Amongst the varieties that fell an easy prey were gudgeons
and perch. There is another variety, however, which is not recorded,
and which is to be found in the greatest abundance in the river. One
has only to breathe, and it is caught in a minute. We allude to the
famous Thames(S)Tench. At this time of the year it is most prolific.

n.b. this is not a joke.

Why would it not do to row the Lord Mayor's barge on tin
Thames with silver oars ? Because the oars would instantly get tar-
nished with sulphuretted hydrogen.