Punch (37.1859)

186

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[November 5, 1859.

(A very vulgar subject indeed—so, if you are painfully genteel, you had better pass it over.)

Boys. “On, ain’t he Mops and Brooms, neither!”

Baker. “ Why don’t they take iiim to the Station ? ”

Tender Female. “He’s ill, poor Gentleman, iie siiolld go to the Hospital!”

Cabby (contemptuously). “Hill! Orsepital Indeed!—I osy wish I’d got arf his Complaint ! ”

PITY THE POOR LAWYERS.

If a cat have nine lives, how many lias a lawyer ?

This is not a riddle, reader, although you may think it reads like one.
On the contrary, indeed it is a question of grave import, and to
those whom it concerns it is confessedly no joke. The reason why we
ask it is to help to solve the problem as to how much longer the lawyers
will continue to exist: a problem which, according to a high legal
authority, appears to have alarmingly disturbed the legal mind. At the
meeting of the Law Association held last week, the chairman spoke
most piteously on this distressing subject, and described in touching
terms the lowness of the ebb to which, financially regarded, the pro-
fession was reduced. He said that fees were so cut down, that the
lawyers, as a body, were thoroughly cut up; and the only means by
which they might continue to exist was by ekeing out the scanty and
quite insufficient pittance which remained of their small savings ere
they were so oppressed.

Said the Chairman, Mr. Beaumont,—

“ I admit tliat it is wonderful, all things considered, yet somehow or other, chiefly
tlirough the practice of great abstinence, we still exist.”

So, according to this orator, a lawyer is in fact a marvel of vitality;
and may, without untruth in this respect, be likened to a cat. There
is moreover this yet further similarity between them, namely, that both
creatures are gifted with remarkable tenacity of claw, and keep firm
hold of whatever may come within their clutch. When, therefore, we
are told that the lawyers are distressed, we do not feel quite unmixed
pity for their plight. _ Protest as they may, that they have nothing left
to live upon, we believe that they have still some mice left in their
larders, to whom, for all that Mr. Beaumont may talk about their
“abstinence,” we are convinced, when they feel hungry, they still pay
their devours.

THE PRESENT POWDER DUTY.

The Ladies’ Own Journal informs our gallant Riflemen that, by the
44th George III., cap. 54, sec. 11, all members of a Rifle Corps are
entitled to wear hair-powder free of duty. The only powder, however,
that Riflemen are now interested in is gunpowder, which would be
unsuitable, in an ornamental point of view, to any hair, except the
coarse and woolly crop of a nigger, and would be applicable to that
only with the effect of gilding refined gold, not to say of painting the
lily, or of adding fresh perfume to the violet. In the use of gun-
powder, moreover, it is confidently hoped that our bold Riflemen will
always hold themselves under the obligation of duty.

' i

TO THE NEWSPAPER-READING WORLD.

It may not be generally known that a translation of the Moniteur
appears every morning in London. It is written, we regret to say, in
English, and is published under the name of the Morning Chronicle. It
strikes us to be a tolerably fair translation, but of course there are no
signatures to the articles, as in the original, which otherwise it follows
very closely in other respects. Notwithstanding the omission of names, 1
however, we fancy we can detect the tone of some of the most brazen
trumpeters of the'' Tuileries that are allowed to have their bray in the r
columns of the Moniteur. We are sorry that an English newspaper
should have lost all animal spirit so far as to echo such braying.

Gentleness or the Sex.—After all, Woman’s Forte is her Piano.—
Lord Palmerston,

How to get up a Good Appetite.—Dine at Balmoral with the
British Association next year.