Punch (37.1859)

40

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 23, 185&.

Courteous Stranger. “ Em—Would you like to see the Newspaper, Sir l ”

[Exhausted Editor, who has seen nothing but Newspapers for the last four-and-twenty
hours, looks aghast!

THE FORTIFICATION OF LONDON.

The Dutch once came up the Thames and
burnt our ships in the River. Catch anybody
serving us the same trick now, at least in such
weather as this, when the state of the Thames is
such as not only to secure it from the approach
of an invader, but also, alone, to maintain It irre-
sistibly on the offensive. Whilst the Thames
enables us to hold our own in holding our noses,
as at present, there is little fear that any enemy
will venture to show his nose in the River. That
is our ditch of defiance; our moat inaccessible.
The great Copropolitan tidal drain is a sewer-
intrenchment against all adversaries, and will lie
found an impregnable British stronghold by the
dirtiest foreigners, who have hitherto always
been supposed to be much stronger than we
are, including all the strength of our Great Un-
washed. The most powerful of strangers to
England and ablution will recoil from our over-
powering Thames.

A Trifle from the River.

At the Thames Yacht Club Meeting the other
day we observe that “ Zouave got near Vestal,
and then came Alarm.” Just what would hap-
pen, we should think, if one of the red-breeched
vauriens called Zouaves had the chance indicated.
However, “ after Zouave came on Destiny.” If
ever the situation be realised ashore, we trust
that the rigging of the last-named craft will
comprise one rope only.

A PRIZE BUTCHER.

A SRYLOCK, AND A SKYLARK.

The sign-boards of certain rural hostelries of the good old style
promise the equestrian traveller “Entertainment for Man and Horse.”
That is to say, eggs and bacon, bread and cheese, cold meat, perhaps,
and chicken, are at the service of the biped; whilst the quadruped will
find hay in his manger, and may get a feed of corn. The horse will be
entertained with water; the man with beer and pipes. The entertain-
ment of the one will differ considerably from that of the other. Until
lately, the idea of a man and a horse entertaining themselves, or being
entertained, with the same meals, would have been deemed absurd.
The subjoined testimonial, however, appended to an advertisement of
“Henri and Co.’s Patent Horse and Cattle Feed,” seems to show
that, however ridiculous it may be to imagine the superior being,
except in danger of starvation, resorting to the diet of the lower
animal, that preposterous eccentricity is nevertheless a fact

“ Dulwich.

“ I hereby certify, that in consequence of having experienced the beneficial
effects of Henri & Co.’s Cattle Feed, I have taken one cwt. more, and will continue
to use it, and also to recommend it to my friends and the public generally.

“ George Shaw, Butcher.”

A butcher, of all men, is the last one would expect to find regaling
himself upon cattle food. Is Mr. George Shaw a vegetarian? That
is possible, even as a brewer may be a teetotaller; and many brewers,
for reasons which are best known to themselves, never taste their own
beer._ What must that beer be, then, after it has undergone the mani-
pulations of the publican ? But this is a digression; ana we return to
Mr. George Shaw, with the question, now that he has taken more
than one cwt. of Henri and Co.’s Patent Horse and Cattle Feed, how
much he has_ gained in weight on that provender? Also, to what
extent he carries his vegetable feeding: whether he ever grazes on a
common ; whether he munches the furze there, and the thistles ? We
hope we shall see Mr. Shaw at the next Smithfield Club Cattle Show,
among the spectators if not in one of the stalls; and wish him, in
advance, a merry Christmas, and success to the beef which, as well as
his own carcase, he has doubtless fattened on Henri and Co.’s Horse
and Cattle Feed.

AN ITALIAN ECHO.

“ Italians ! What’s your gain by Solferino ? ”

“ Corpo di Bacco, English, bless’d if tee know.”

The Westminster Pat.ace Clock.—Since it was thought time
that this Clock should do something for its money, it has been decided
to put it at the head of Her Majesty’s Stationary Office.

It is not often we find poetry in the purlieus of a Police Court, but
the following case shows that it is sometimes to be met with there:

“ John Finney, a boy about fourteen years of age, was charged with stealing a
cage containing a skylark, the property of a foreign Jew, named Solomon Bernard
Polack, of No. 15, Mount Street, Whitechapel.

Mr. Yardley, after hearing the evidence, said, I shall sentence the prisoner to
fourteen days’ imprisonment for stealing the cage. As to the lark, it ought to be
singing in the sky.

“ The Prosecutor. It sings at my house.

“ Mr. Yardley. It ought to be singing in the air. over the fields and meadows.

Do you recollect the beautiful lines beginning ‘ Hark ! the lark at Heaven’s gate j
sings.’

'• The Prosecutor. No, I know nothing of that.

“ Mr. Yardley. Give the lark freedom ; release it.

“ The Prosecutor. I will try. It cost me money.

“ Mr. Yardley. Now, do oblige me : release the bird.

“ The Prosecutor. I ’ll tiy, I’ll try. It cost me much money—think-the money,.
Sare ! {Laughter.)”

We almost wish Mr. Yardley could have acted like the “ wise
young judge” in Shakspeare, and, like that “ Daniel come to judg-
ment,” could legally have turned the tables on the Jew. We regret
almost that skylarks are not subject to the Game Laws, and that
any one caught catching them and caging them might “ catch it.”
Larks are God’s free creatures, and pray what earthly right can
mau claim to imprison them ? Viewed as Nature’s property, they
belong to the green fields which Mr. Yardley speaks of; and stealing
them is clearly an act of petty larceny, which our Magistrates by
law should have the power to punish. Humane man as he is, it would
doubtless have rejoiced the heart of Mr. Yardley, if, after sentencing
the boy for the stealing of the cage, he could have sent the Jew to
quod for the stealing of the skylark.

A Liberal Offer.

There is a hideous French column recently erected near the house i
of the late victor of Waterloo. We all cry out for its removal. Now,
our friend L. N. of Solferino must just now want an Advertising
Column, like his Uncle’s in the Place Vendome. Will he take ours?

He shall have it so cheap, say for the value of the Italian Confederation.

Is it a bargain ? _

The Heat.—We have it upon the most reliable authority (as the
Morning Advertiser is always saying half a dozen times every day) that
the keeper of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, when he went to look at it the
other day, about dinner time, found to his astonishment that the
“mountain of light” had been turned by the excessive heat into a heap
of—the reader will never believe it—of boiled carats !—Record.