Punch (35.1858)

October 30, 1S53.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

173

BISHOPS AND NUGGETS.

hat generous lady, Miss Burdett
Cotjtts, has offered £15,000 for the
endowment of a Bishopric in British
Columbia. The site for the proposed
see is a gold region, newly discovered,
and promising to be the resort of a
great many roughs and b'ackguards,
likely to brutalise the rest of the im-
migrants. There is, according to the
Morning Post, but one thing that can
be expected to avert that deplorable
result:—

" Only the presence of a strong moral equi-
poise will save that community from all the
pestiferous conseqences of an unconscionable
lust of gold. The presence of a Bishop will
secure this."

So a Bishop is the moral equipoise of a lust of gold. This may,
perhaps, be truly said of some of our Colonial Bishops, but cau hardly
be predicated of every prelate with perfect safety. We know that a
good many Bishops cannot exercise their apostolical functions on less
than £5,000 a-year. Whether a Bishop shall act, in British Columbia,
as a moral equipoise to the lust of gold, or otherwise, will depend
altogether on the sort of Bishop sent out there. Many a Bishop of
Diggings, that might be named, would, if he could, appropriate all the
gold in his diocese.

LUGGAGE TRAINS FOR LADIES.

Eheu, domino;! quo no.? rapids.'' Quousque tandem abutere pati-
entid pecunidque nostra? Quern ad finem sese effrcenata jactabit
crinolinornania ? Quamdiu—

W'e really beg your pardon, ladies. We hope you will forgive our
letting off oui Latin at you. It is extremely brutal of us, we are well
aware. The man who can discharge his Latin at a lady deserves
kicking with boots made in the reign of Edward the Third. But,
ladies, in our present state of mind we will not hold ourselves respon-
sible for anything we say. Our agitation is too great for us to pick
aud choose our language as we usually take care to do. What we
want to ask you is, Where is it to end? To what climax are you
hurrying us ? Is it, pray, to Bedlam or to Bankruptcy that you mean
to drag us ? To what lengths (and widths) do you intend indulging
in your fashionable frenzy ? Ciinolinomaniacs! ask ye why this
outburst ? Listen, and perpend:

" The great development of ladies' dresses has necessitated the construction of
trunks of extra size to convey them on Railways ; and as such trunks not only take
up room, but cost much trouble, the Railway Companies contemplate henceforth
chargiug for them by size instead of weight."

This we learn from Galignani, and probably the paragraph must be
taken as applying to foreign Railways only. But we sincerely trust
the English ones will follow the example. Let them at once institute
luggage trains for ladies, and charge most exorbitantly for the crino-
line they carry. A guinea a square yard should be the very lowest
tariff. Ladies having more than fifty yards about them should be
charged five pounds per mile for every inch of the excess. To prevent
its being smuggled, every lady should be measured when she takes her
ticket, and the yards found on her person should be added to the
yards discovered in her trunks. If tne aggregate exceed the figure
we have named, the crinolinomaniac should, as we have stated, pay
for the excess. Any such offender convicted of such surplusage twice
within a twelvemonth should be fined one hundred pounds, and have
to advertise in Punch her name and her address.

You say these are harsh measures, ladies. Well, and so they are.
Mais que voulez-vous ? If you will be maniacs, we must deal with you
as such. You then say, that your husbands, and not you, will chiefly
be the sufferers by the plan we have proposed. Well, and so they
will—if they are fools enough to pay for you. But do you dream that
any man of them, not being an idiot, would travel twice with any wife
who cost (say) fifty pounds for crinoline the first journey she took
with'him? No, no, ladies. Husbands sometimes are great fools, and
will submit on such occasions to do anything you ask of them. In the
honeymoon perhaps they might consent to travel, just for once, upon
such terms: just as in the honeymoon they submit to be kept waiting
while you " set your bonnet straight," and to be the guardian of your
eleven bandboxes. But, you know, this fervour of affection soon cools
down. Next trip, the eleven are cut down to six, and so they gradually
dwindle as the husband's sway assumes more sensible proportions. In
the like manner dear Frederick might consent for once to pay the fifty
pounds for crinoline: but we question if a second time you'd catch
him quite so amiable. Next autumn you would hear—"My love, I
really can't afford it. I'll pay for you with pleasure, but I can't pay

for your luggage. Choose then, my sweetest pet; will you go uncri-
nolined, or will you stay at home ? "

We repeat then: start by all means luggage trains for ladies ; and
charge, Railways, charge your highest for all carried by them—crinoline
must be paid for—that's the only way to check it. It is no use trying
to laugh or reason women out of it. In all matters of dress, and in
that of crinoline especially, the mind female is impervious to ridicule
and reason. The only argument to use with them is the argumentum
adpocket-urn. Upon husbands who are fools enough to let their wife's
dress ruin them, we have no intention to waste advice or pity. But
to the sensible majority* we say, petition Parliament to make it
penal for a Railway to carry crinoline unpaid for. You will then have
the cure for it quite in your own hands—or at least in your own
pockets. By refusing_ to defray the cost of its conveyance, you may with
justice force your wives to leave their crinoline at home, and thus
prevent their taking room up aDd annoying other people with it. You
will thus be spared the pain of seeing jour wives laughed at whenever
they go out with you : as must clearly be the case so long as ladies
travelling persist in making such broad farces of themselves as they
at present do.

* Query, minority ?—Jv.dy.

Vol. 35.

Youth (suddenly). "'Orrid murder—on')/ Penny /"

NOTIONS, BOTH RUDE AND CRUDE.

Love is a Radical, Friendship a Conservative.

A little property brings as much tr^uhle with it as a large one.

Those, who never admire others, are rarely admired themselves.

The worst form of ingratitude is to refuse to accept a favour from the
hands of a person to whom you have had the pleasure of rendering one.

The reason why justice is so often denied is, because it is demanded
as a right. We have a notion, that if it were solicited as a favour
it would be much more frequently conceded.

Many a fool goes into society to run away from himself ; but if
others run away from him, instantly he gets offended ; and yet it
strikes us, that the latter are only following the good example that had
been set to them in the first instance by the fool himself.

Elattery to a Erench fashionable woman becomes, after a time,
almost as indispensable as Rouge—but then with the one as with the
other, it all depends upon the delicacy of the application!

Fame is a Temple one can only mount a step at a time. As a
Frenchman would say:—" On n'y arrive que par degres."

Instantly another is attacked, how eagerly we all cry out, " Send
for the Doctor :" and yet we rarely think of calling in his services till
the very last moment ourselves! Isn't it pretty much the same
with Philosophy ?__

Politeness between Old Friends.

Just as the Comet was wagging its tail for the last time in the
presence of this earth, John Cooper respectfully took off his hat,
and, with the greatest solemnity, said, saUitingly, "An Revoir/"

A Message to be Whispered in the Ear of the Electric
Telegraph.—" It's Never too late to Mend."

6—2