Punch (37.1859)

17

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

(October

99

1859.

MOST OFFENSIVE.

Railway Porter. “ If you please, Sir, was this your’n ? ”

POISON TOR BREAKFAST.

The enormous gooseberries and gigantic strawberries of
journalism are now over, and in come the monster turnips
and prodigious mushrooms. _ To notices of these last-named
productions are often adjoined tales of horror, calculated
to terrify their consumers, under the head of “ Caution to
Mushroom-eaters.” These warnings would be much more
elFectual if they contained some explanation of the nature
of the danger to which mushroom-eaters expose themselves.
We read of death from eating “horse-mushrooms.” The
horse-mushroom has a bad name, and not a very good cha-
racter; it is said to disagree with those who eat it, and to
occasion colic, and symptoms of that sort; but we find it
represented in the newspapers as producing the effects of
a virulent poison, such, almost, as those of deadly night-
shade or monkshood. Many people, however, eat it with
perfect impunity. It is largely used in making ketchup.
Botanists call it Jgaricus exquisites, as if it were peculiarly
choice. The horse-mushroom, by some accounts, is gene-
rally preferred to the common mushroom in France. The
French, indeed, eat horse, but that would be no reason
why they should eat horse-mushroom, if it were poisonous.
Therefore, if anybody wishes to commit suicide, he will
experience a disappointment should he take horse-mushroom
by way of substitute for prussic acid.

“Caution to Mushroom-eaters” should be taken to be
addressed to all eaters of mushrooms, and, observe, of com-
mon mushrooms, and not of toadstools. There is no poi-
sonous toadstool so like a common mushroom as to be
liable to be mistaken for it by anybody but a maid-of-all-
work destitute of perceptive organs. Let Mushroom-
eaters beware of stale mushrooms. Mushrooms are very
like meat, particularly in being subject to putrefaction, and,
when putrid, in being noxious. They are often exposed for
sale in a state which, if they were meat, would subject
them to se zure and confiscation, and their vendors to line.
If anybody wishes to kill himself, let him eat those mush-
rooms ; but hydrocyanic acid is preferable.

The Right Max in the Right Place.—The mes-
senger who brought the news of the noble Schamyl’s
capture to the Emperor of Russia, was Lieutenant-
Colonel Grabbe!

OFF WITH HIS HEAD !—SO MUCH FOR
QUACKING ’EM !

A Good Story has been told of an Eastern executioner, who was so
expert in the handling of his scimetar that he could cut a culprit’s
head off without the victim’s knowing it. As a proof of his dexterity,
it is said that some unfortunates, on whom he had been operating,
could not be persuaded that their necks were really severed until, at
his suggestion, they tried to shake their heads, when, much to their
discomfiture, their heads all toppled off.

It certainly sounds startling to hear of persons living after they have
been beheaded ; and although wrhen we were young we heard it stated
of King Charles that he “ was seen to walk and talk half an hour
after his head was cut off,” still we hardly think the statement esta-
blishes the fact. Yet that persons do exist who have had their heads
off, has been stated, not indeed on medical authority, but on such
authority as is conceded to a quack. Merely altering a name, which
we have no desire to puff, we quote this narrative verbatim from the
I Morning Chronicle:—

“ Gullaavay’s Tills.—Remedy for Disorders in the Head—Mr. Newton’
druggist, Hull, st-itcs, in a letter to Professor Gullaway, that Mu. John Ware’
residing in Stubbs’ Buildings, WTest Street, Hull, had been afflicted with giddiness
in the head, off and on, for the last twenty years. Though lie tried many- supposed
remedies during that long period, he f- und little or no relief from them. At last he was
induced to t>y Gullawa y’s Pills, from hearing so many encomiums passed on their
; virtues ; and the consequence is, that he is now' perfectly cured, and enjoys better
j health than ever he did before.”

Marvellous as are the stories—in more than one sense stories—
which have been told of the effects of these wonder-working pills, we
think that this surprising statement beats them by long.chalks. At
the same time, however, we must own that, to onr thinking, there is
more marvel in the malady than in the working of the cure. That a
man should have existed with his head “off and on” for a period
extending so long as twenty years, seems to our mind more astounding
than that he should now be having “better health ” at its conclusion
than, as we are told, he has ever had before. What manner of health
a man could possiblv enjoy throughout the twenty vears that his head

was “off and on,” it surpasses our imaginative power to conjecture;
and we look upon the statement that the patient has been cured as an
assertion which is far less difficult to swallow. Indeed, the story is
like that of the much-advertised bad leg of “more than thirty-five years’
standing,” which the same “ Professor ” professes to have cured. In
this case, as in the other, the quack has weakened his narration by
coming it too strong.

That quack treatment should cure anything is incredible enough,
but the statement of the cure is not a tenth part so surprising as the
assertion that the leg had l'or so long a time been kept standing. The
| best of legs would not bear standing longer than a _ day; and that a
bad one should have stood for five-and-thirty years is a statement so
preposterous that we doubt if even those who patronise the quack’s
pills could have swallowed it.

Whether the gentleman who has been living with his head off and
on be one of those “ whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,”
we leave to more inquiring minds than ours to determine. In the
Travels of one Gulliver, the natives of Laput.a are said to wear their
beads disconnected from their bodies, and to use them as their footballs
without, impairing their vitality. Readers give what credit to this
narrative they please; but for ourselves, we must confess, we place
quite as strong a faith in the tales of Mr. Gulliver, as we do in the
assertions of the story-telling quack, whom, as we don’t wish to be
personal, we choose to nickname Mr. Gullaway.

The Austrian Curb.

The races, which for years were prohibited under the Austrian rule,
have been resumed in Lombardy. We do not wonder at this pro-
hibition. The Austrians, if they had had the power, would like to have
suppressed the whole Italian race.

A NOTE AND QUERY.

“Paris, Wednesday, Oct. 12—Lord Cowley and Count Kenei.eff dined with
Walewbki.”—Times.

When will Keneleff and Walewski dine with Cowley ? ? ?