Punch: Punch (36.1859)

January i, 1859.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

ROEBUCK IN FRENCH.

ne would have been

MORE POINTS TO THE CHARTER.

peal of M. de Monta
lembert. Says the
Times' Correspondent:

" He read a passage from
trie speech of Mr. Roebuck
(whose name, by the way,
he made several attempts
to pronounce, and at last
gave it up in despair)."

What a Frenchman
would make of the
name of the Hon.
Member for Sheffield it
is difficult to imagine.
Rebuke is, perhaps,
the nearest approach
to its pronunciation
that could be made
by Trench organs of
speech; and, consider-
ing the tone which
characterises Mr. Roebuck's oratory, most people will allow that version of his
name to be a not very inappropriate perversion of it.

What do people expect to get by Universal Suffrage ?
amused in hearing M. i being a frequent question, the following points may be
Chaix d' Est Ange named as the principal objects which are contemplated by
speak against the ap-1 its consistent advocates:—

1. Abolition of the National Debt.

2. No Taxation of Working Men.

3. Expenses of Government to be exclusively sus-
tained by Capital and Landed Property.

4. Sympathy _ with Insurgent Populations, and
Nationalities, and War with Despots.

5. No Standing Armv.

6. No*Channel Eleet."

7. No Militia.

8. No Aristocracy.

9. No Compulsory Payment of Debts.

10. No Paupers.

11. No Police.

12. No Punishment.

Real Honesty.

The extreme candour of the following announcement
has greatly pleased Mr. Punch. We all know that cigars
are made of dock-leaves; but few manufacturers have the
courage to announce, as an advertiser did the other day,—

" havannah cigars direct prom the dock."

THE CONVENTIONALITIES OF THE STAGE.

THE LEGITIMATE DRAMA.

" I Don't exactly know, Mr. Punch, how the Legitimate Drama would
suit Furzebrake; but nevertheless I wiU tax my imagination, and see
what we should be likely to do, if events, which are familiar to us on
the stage, were to occur amongst us in our rural village.

" I was at? the Shakspeare Theatre last winter, and saw Othello most
admirably performed, and on my return home sat up far into the night
with my friend young Lively discoursing on the moral good wnich the
excellent lessee had effected by clearing a dirty suburban theatre of a
noisy rabble who were only contented with such pieces as The 'Death's
Head and Cross Bones, or The Lonely Occttpation Road and the Murder
at Bellows Farm, and supplanting them with a quiet and respect-
able audience who could appreciate the works of our immortal
bard. 1 remember, moreover, that I indulged in that savage triumph
which is peculiar to fogeys, and which counterbalances the incon-
venience of incipient grey hair (I am ten years older then Lively),
by remarking, ' Ah ! Lively, my boy, you should have seen Madame
Yestris and Mrs. Nisbet in The Merry Wives of Windsor, that was
acting.'

" Well, Mr. Pmich, to return to Othello. In the first act, where
Roderigo calls out ' Thieves! Thieves! Look to your house, your
daughter, and your bags !' Brabantio came to the window of a three
storied house, which was only fifteen feet high at a liberal computation,
and when he put his head out of the first-floor, he almost barked his
chin against the top of Roderigo's head. Now, I fear, if this had
occurred at Eurzebrake some wag would have oried out, ' Take your
legs out of the coal-cellar, old fellow •' and again, when Roderigo says
in a measured tone—

'' ' Straight satisfy yourself;
If she be in her chamber, or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the State
For thus defrauding you.'

" The same wag would have said, ' If she has not made a clean bolt
of it, I'll eat my hat.' I must own, Mr. Punch, that Shakspeare's is
the most elegant way of expressing it, though our homely manners at
Eurzebrake would convey the same message in fewer words. To
which Brabantio replied very solemnly:—

" ' Strike on the tinder, ho !
Give me a taper ; call up all my people :
This accident is not unlike my dream.
Belief of it oppresses me already :—
Light! i say, light !'

It so happens t liat I can draw a comparison between what occurred
to Mr. Brabantio, and an incident which took place at Eurzebrake.
Diana Rattlebones, whom we all remember as the celebrated cross-
country beauty, fell in love with Charley Dasher, of the Rifles, and
flitted by moonlight. Tom Soft, a neighbour of Mr. Rattlebones
who was sweet on Diana, got wind of the affair, and gave the alarm—
and I will tell you what he did—he rushed up to Rattlebones' Hall
and ran? the alarm-bell. Instead of holding a long consultation at the

first-floor window, and telling his people to ' strike on the tinder, ho !'
the Squire jumped out of bed, lit a lucifer match, 'looked to liis bags,'
for he instantly put them on, seized his revolver, and rushed down-
stairs. Tom Soft told his story in half-a-dozen words, and instead oi
wasting time, Mr. Rattlebones saddled his horse, galloped to the
Cross Roads Railway Station, and telegraphed to London, Liverpool,
and Southampton. As it turned out, it was no-go, as by the afternoon
train next day a parcel arrived, containing the marriage certificate.
Eor the benefit of your Lady readers, who I know will be curious, 1
may add that the old gentleman forgave them, and asked them to
Rattlebones Hall, where Charley enjoyed his honeymoon and the
pheasant-shooting, and what is better still, sent me a brace of phea-
sants. But this wouldn't do for the stage, Mr. Punch; such rapid
action as this would finish a play in ten minutes, whereas our old
Legitimate, bless its conventionalities, is so jolly slow, that we can
enjoy it for three hours ai a time, and I hope to go again, and hear
Mr. Brabantio talk out of the first-floor window, this winter.

" You see, Mr. Punch, there is nothing like bringing the case
home to parallel cases in domestic life, to get at the real view of the
case. If, for instance, I was to play Macbeth, I should like to be sure
that the man who takes the part of Seyton felt his part. True it
is, that Seyton's part is not a very onerous one, but still he has to
announce the death of Lady Macbeth, immediately preceding that
wonderful soliloquy, ' She should have died hereafter,' &c, and I can
assure you that I have had the announcement of her Ladyship's
demise "in every tone by a walking gentleman—sometimes after the
style in which Jeames calls out, 'Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robin-
son ' at an evening-party— and sometimes after the maimer of a sea
Captain speaking through a trumpet; though I once remember at a
Country Theatre, a most worthy gentleman, a theatrical wax-chandler,
delivered the message with such a startling effect, that he brought the
house down, and made a part of it, and bowed his acknowledgment;
in the midst of which a vulgar man in the gallery cried out, in allusion
to Ids every-day calling, ' Whose candle's out, old boy!'

" Now, let me address the Legitimate Drama as if it were an indi-
vidual. Sir, I would say, you are a most excellent gentleman, I admire
you vastly, though I fancy I see a mole on your nose, and a wart under
your left eye.

" To this remark he probably would answer, Take the beam out of
your own eye, and look to the conventionalities in your domestic life,
of which you boast the reality. When you wrote to your former
friend, Nobbs; this morning, a letter which you knew would terminate
your friendship, did you not si°;n yourself, 'Yours, my dear Nobbs,
very faithfully, Charles Muff.' And when Nobbs replied, repudi-
ating vour further friendship, and signed himself, ' Your very obedient
servant, Tobias Nobbs ' did not he mean, instead of being ' your very
obedient servant,' he should like to kick you—and when you went to
Lady Kickshaw's soiree, and she addressed you as ' My dear Mr.
Stooks,' having forgotten your very name, did not you smile and bow,
at the same time feeling a desire to pull off her wig and throw it on
the fire. Look at home, Sir, look at home, and consider whether all
the bows, and smiles, and pretty speeches in your real life, are not as
unreal as some of our little misinterpretations. Nous verrons, Monsieur
Punch!"

Vol. 38.

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