Punch: Punch (36.1859)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [January 1, 1859.

tinned and bobbed at the other ladies, they retired. I subsided into my own thoughts, and
_ didn't like them at all. My eldest hope being deprived of bis smoke, slept the sleep of
indigestion, accompanied by night-mare, and MNagger began one of his stories which lasted
till tea-time.

" Sophia, my nephew Charles not being of the party, sulked in corners for the remainder
of the evening, and my son eventually retired into his apartment with a view to the enjoy-
ment of tobacco.

" My guests shortly afterwards departed in dudgeon; this was the melancholy end of my
Christmas dinner.

" To what am I to attribute this failure ? I don't know, I am sure, as my other dinner-
parties are cheerful, and indeed convivial. Christmas Day is the only ' sell.' I believe, the
fact is, that we try to be too demonstratively jolly on that dny? and that if we were only to
let ourselves alone, and not overdo and force the hilarity and joviality quite so much as we try
to do, we should get on much better, and Christmas Day would be socially, as it ought
to be and naturally is, the happiest and most blessed day in all the vear.

" I write this under the influence of several forms of illness, which, I trust, will excuse
any shortcomings on the part of

" Yours, indigestibly,

" The Growlery, Qrufton." " Crusty Grumbler,

5,

A SHORT PHRENOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF A HEAD

(Commonly known as Sir Francis).

-his Head is extremely
bumptious. It is unlike
all other heads. Vanity
is extremely developed.
Self-esteem unusually
large. The organ of
facts and dates propor-
tionately small. Caus-
ality altogether want-
ing. Combativeness not
bad, but rather inclined
to be on the wrong side.
There is one organ that
is extremely prononce
and forward, and as it
is not an English organ,
we lean to the belief
that it must be a French
one. For the want of
a name, we will call it
the Moniteur. This or-
gan is so overlaid with
matter, not of the
healthiest description,
r^that it has usurped the
place of nearly all the
intellectual faculties. It
is said that" two Heads
are better than one;"

but we can only say, from a cursory inspection of the curious specimen before us, that we
decidedly prefer the head we have on our own shoulders.

THE PITH OF THE PRESIDENT'S

MESSAGE.

Towards almost all foreign nations

Ou^outlooks ain't no ways fust-rate;
There's most of our foreign relations

In an unsatisfactory state.
With the Britishers, through our high-mettled

Diplomacy, guess we have got
The Right of Search Question well settled,

The Central American, not.

With Sp ain we 're in a condition,

Of which we hante nothin' to brag;
Her folks in official position

Has insulted our national flag,
Done our citizens one wrong and t 'other

In their persons and property too;
And she won't pay our Cuban Claims, nuther,

Which is now fourteen year overdue.

Peculiar I reckon the natur'

Of the sort of relations we bear
To Mexico—not wuth a 'tatur

Can't pay if they would—them coons there.
I can only lay one plan afore ye, •

By our own from them critturs to come;
To drop down upon their territory,

And seize, for a pledge, on a some.

Then there's that air Panama's Isthmus,

We must there clear the transit, in course,
And, if not exactly this Christmas,

Still, sooner or later, by force,
New Granada, Nicaragua,

Costa Rica, have all got to pay
For damages done, more or fewer,

And I 'spects we must whip Paraguay.

Pacific as is all our labours,

I'm consarned for to mention how ill
Is the tarms we are on with our neighbours,

Pretty nigh the whole world but Brazil.
As a pattern of peace, cotton-spinners

In the old country quote us ; but now
I expect we 're a caution to sinners,

With a'most all the airth in a row.

Boxing Day.

Spiritualist. Who is that rapping at the door,
James?

James. Can't say, Sir. They've been a rap-
ping, Sir, ever so long. If you ask me, Sir, I
think it's the Spirit's Medium, Sir, that's called
for a Christmas-Box!

THE GREEN MEN OF THE CHURCH.

The Bishop of London condemns with much propriety the practice
of wearing green vestments by the Puseyites, as being a departure
from the habits of the Church. Nevertheless, we would not have the
usage discontinued; because, on second thoughts, we think there is
some use in it. Being on the brink of departure from the Church, the
Puseyites are of course fast departing from its practices. Now, their
wearing of green garments is a very harmless nabit, and it serves by
way of signpost to point the road they are going. Clergymen who
have a Romeing disposition show us where they are bound for when
they put on their travelling suit. We see them in their true colours
when they are thus " With Verdure Clad."

Many regard the Puseyites as wolves in sheep's clothing, and are
naturally on the look-out for the marks whereby to know them. This
knowledge the colour of their cloth would supply, supposing them
indued with peculiarly dyed vestments. Rome is not reached in a
day; and perhaps the reverend travellers may be in need of some
refreshment to sustain them on the way. There ought to be esta-
blished a half-way nouse of call for them; and we suggest in all humility
that "The Green Man" be the sign of it. The man who would
exchange a living here in England for a priestship under Rome can in
no light be regarded as otherwise than green; and we think, if he be
clad m it, the state of mind of those who listen to him will be most cor-
ectly typified, inasmuch as it will be impossible for any to look up to
him, without their having, in coarse phrase, a little green in their eye.

3ei

THE EXTREME ANIMAL
My dear Bright, ,

Why do you abuse the aristocracy with so much violenc _
There are more than fools enough among them, Wisdom knows; but
so there are in every degree. Old Squire Boots-and-Breeches
abuses you in just the same spirit as that in which you vituperate the
squires and the nobility. He calls you Cotton-spinner, and other such
names, preceded by epithets unquotable in these columns. Boots-
and-Breeches is an old fool, an extreme fool, a fool at the remote end
of that line of which Reason is fixed in the middle. There is Boot s-
and-Breeches out at the right end of the line, there is Reason in the
middle and where are you ? How far on the other side of Reason.
how near to the left end of the line? Pray, Johnny, please to
moderate the rancour of your tongue, and begin your reform by reforming
your own eloquence; if but to please your sincere well-wisher,

P.S Read Horace; 1 think you know what I mean.

Fragment of a Witty Conversation.

(Overheard in the Presence of Colonel Phipps.)

" I say, what capital English Louis Blanc: writes ?" . ,

" Yes, and if his prose is so good, it is but fair to conclude that nis
Blanc verse would be even better !" r>„™,™
[Roars of laughter, only checked by the entrance of the i muck.