Punch (36.1859)

March 5, 1859.] PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. si

THE BEST SEWING-MACHINE.

The very best Sewing-Machine a man can
have is a Wife. It is one that requires but a
kind word to set it in motion, rarely gets
out of repair, makes but little noise, is seldom
the cause of a dust, and, once in motion, will
go on uninterruptedly for hours, without the
slightest trimming, or the smallest personal
supervision being necessary. It will make
shirts, darn stockings, sew on buttons, mark
pocket handkerchiefs, cut out pinafores, and
manufacture children's frocks out of any old
thing you may give it; and this it will do
behind your back just as well as before your
face. In fact, you may leave the house for
days, and it will go on working just the same.
If it does get out of order . a little, from
being overworked, it mends itself by being
left alone for a short time, after which it re-
turns to its sewing with greater vigour than
ever. Of course, sewing machines vary a
great deal. Some arc much quicker than
others. It depends in a vast measure upon
the particular pattern you select. If you are

fortunate in picking___

out the choicest pat-
tern of a Wife—one,
for instance, that
sings whdstworking,
and seems to be
never so happy as
when the husband's
linen is in hand—the
Sewing Machine may
be pronounced per-
fect of its kind ; so
much so, that there
is no make-shift in
the world that can
possibly replace it,
either for love or
money. In short, no
gentleman's esta-
blishment is complete
without one of these
Sewing Machines in

SCENE ON BOARD H. M. S.

' I say, Why am I like the Queen's Chief Cook ? Do you Give it up ?"
' Yes."

' Because I am in a High Cool-and-airy (culinary) position.'' [Astonislied Cadet nearly falls from the yard

the house ! | You Young Monkey, how dare you joke up in the air like that ? However, we look over it this time.—Pui'ch.

THE IONIAN MEMBERS' ADDRESS TO THE

THRONE.

To Her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, of Great Britain and
Ireland, fyc., Queen, Defender of the British Faith, the Candid
Petition of the Representatives of the Natives of the Ionian Islands
Plainly Sheweth:—

That your Petitioners lately presented Your Majesty with a
Memorial requesting that you would be so good as to abdicate your
authority over their Republic, and allow them to transfer their alle-
giance to the King of Greece : to which modest and reasonable
application, Your Majesty declined to accede:

That it has occurred to your Petitioners to remember that they
omitted to assign any reasons for the request which they made to
Your Majesty, and that perhaps that was why Your Majesty refused
to grant it:

Sovereign, and prefer a Popish one ; because, although Popery differs
from their own religion on some points of vital importance, it agrees
therewith in nearly everything which Protestantism calls folly and'
superstition :

That your Petitioners want to be united with Greece, because Greece
is devoted to Russia, and Russia desires to extend, with her empire,
the orthodox Greek faith over all the world, inclusive of Great Britain
and Ireland:

That the views of your Petitioners have been wholly unaffected by
the eloquence of your great Homeric Scholar. That your Petitioners
know nothing about Homer, except that he was a Heathen, and has
gone to Hades, whither they wish that all his scholars may follow
him, and they hope never to hear anything more either of him or
them :

That your Petitioners represent a nationality naturally governed,
not by cold reason, but by the passion which is uppermost in their
minds for the moment; and that they require a political government
corresponding to their moral and intellectual nature. And your

That your Petitioners now propose to repair that omission, and tell I Petitioners, when their piratical propensities are unbound, will ever
Your Majesty their motives for desiring to become the subjects of Pre}7-
King Otho instead of remaining Your Majesty's :

That accordingly your Petitioners would have Your Majesty under- OBJECTIONS TO i TITLE

stand that they do not care a straw for your British constitutional "' """ J '

liberty • but that, on the contrary, they hate it, and would much rather
live under a despotism of their own choice:

That your Petitioners abhor and detest the dull regularity of English
law,_ the plain uniformity of order, and the dead level of even-handed
justice ; that they prefer a state of facility for intrigue and corruption,
with a popular tumult occasionally by way of change; any deaths
occurring therein being passed over as accidents, no inquiries made,
and nobody called to account:

That your Petitioners are disposed to tolerate a moderate amount of
brigandage and piracy, the suppression of which, by hard police
arrangements, robs life of poetry : •
That your Petitioners dc not like to be ruled by a Protestant

We much regret to state, upon the best of all authority (we mean
of course our own) that Viscount Williams will oppose Sir H-
Cairns' Bill to Simplify the Title to Landed Estates : a measure which
we trusted, but for this, might have passed. We believe the noble
Viscount bases his objection on the ground that one of the intentions
of the Act is to " confer a Parliamentary title" on any purchaser or
holder of any real estate. The noble Viscount recollects how his more
than Spartan virtue was once tempted with a title ; and he views the
present measure with suspicion and alarm, as an insidious endeavour
on the part of the Government to seduce him into purchasing a square
foot or two of land, hi order that a title may be forced on Mm for
doing so.