DOI Heft:
December 31, 1859
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16864#0275
264
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 31, 18«>3.
“ CRACKERS” FOR CHRISTMAS.
MANUFACTURED SOLELY FOR THE JUVENLLEST PARTIES.
he custom of bringing in the
Boar’s Head at Christmas still
survives at many very hospit-
able houses, where the comfort
of the guests is seriously im-
paired by the introduction of
a Bore in the shape of a rich
uncle, from whom no one but
the family has the slightest
expectations.
Snapdragons is a pastime
which originated with St.
George, who was commis-
sioned by the Government to
snap up flaming dragons.
Plum-pudding owes its origin
to an eccentric millionnaire,
who told his daughter if she
married he would give her no-
thing in the world but a plum-
pudding. Notwithstanding this
discouragement, the girl was
rash enough to marry; as
girls generally will, upon suffi-
cient provocation. Mindful of
her father’s threat, she was
not at all surprised to find
that he refused to settle any fortune on her. But the imaginative
reader may fancy her astonishment, when, at the wedding breakfast,
there was brought her a huge pudding, which, on being cut, disclosed
her eccentric parent’s cheque for a hundred thousand pounds, which
was very nearly boiled to the rags it had been made of. The old
millionnaire had strictly kept his word. He had only given his daughter
a “ plum ” pudding.
Roast beef became a standing Christmas dish in the time of Bluff
King Hal—called, in more politeness, by historians, Henry the
Eighth. This Monarch {vide portraits) used lo eat prodigious dinners,
and of course kept a jester to act as a di-gester—the exercise of
laughing being good for the digestion. This jester’s name was Beeffe,
in the spelling of the period, but would doubtless now be written
simply Beef. The King used daily to amuse himself with making fun
of this Court-jester, or, to use his’own expression, with “going in and
roasting him;” and as on Christmas Day the Monarch always dined
more heartily than usual, he used invariably, as soon as the cloth had
been removed, to cry out to his courtiers, “Now come and let’s roast
Beefe!”_
Mince-pies have been in vogue since the reign of Richard the
Eirst, who, being armed cap a-vm, made mince-meat of whoever
ventured to confront him.
Blind Man’s Buff originally was called Blind Man’s Re-buff, from
the fact that the blind man was rebuffed when guessing wrongly. It
is believed the game was played first, at the Court of King Canute,
and that Peeping Tom of Coventry was the first man who was
blinded.
It is believed that there is evidence in the old black-letter chronicles
•—only nobody, as yet, has ever had the pains to hunt for it—to prove
that the first ladies ever kissed under the mistletoe were Mrs. Page
and Mrs. Eord, the Merry Wives of Windsor, and that the operation
was severally performed on them by the Man of Ross, assisted by the
Reverend John Knox.
The first man who made Wassail was Edward the Black
Prince, and the place he chose to make it in was, it is said, the
Devil’s Punch-bowl.
It is not generally known that Christmas Trees were first discovered
growing in the Sandwich Islands, and that the fruit they bear consists
of sliced roast beef and bread-and-butter, enveloping a bit of hot plum-
pudding-stone as kernel.
CHRISTMAS WAITS.
Europe this Christmas waifs to see
What’s to be done with Italy:
Whether the despots mean to free her.
Or somewhat further first to see her.
The Pope, too, waits, with visage grim,
To learn what’s to become of him •.
Whether the fools who’ve owned his sway
His Holiness will still obey ;
Or whether, of his presence sick.
They ’ll bluntly bid him cut his stick,
And tell him that, for change of air,
To England he had best repair;
Rome being to him less safe by far
Than three-pair backs in Leicester Squarr.
In Prance they wait to see war taxes
Laid upon the people’s backses;
For nobody can there gainsay
The fact, that “L’Empire, c’est la Pay”
Germany waits, beer-cup in hand,
To hail her new-born Fatherland.
A realm, where sages, brain-bemuddled,
May at their ease sit, and get fuddled ;
Regardless what the world may think,
So long as they can have their drink.
The Czar of Russia waits to see
His nobles set their serfs more free:
A feat, wherein if he succeed,
Punch will applaud the worthy deed.
The loyal Irish wait to determine
How to crush out the priest-bred vermin.
Who, to mob-meetings late have been,
To spit their venom at our Queen.
England, meanwhile waits, all-prepared
From b'irglars her strong box to guard:
And while abroad War’s tempest rages,
And with Morocco Spain engages,
She calmly waits, secure from storm,
The coming battle of Reform.
A CONUNDRUM FOR TWELFTH NIGHT.
Why are the hop-growers of Kent a sensible race of men?
Because they put their pride in their pockets.
SPANISH LIMITATIONS.
A Letter from Madrid, probably official, in the Patrie, touching
fhe demand for payment of a long-standing debt due from the Spanish
Government to that of Great Britain represents England as—
“ Disinterring from her official archives these claims, and presenting them at a
moment when Spain is obliged to meet heavy expenses for the war in Africa.”
Very mean and shabby of England to make such a claim at such a
moment, isn’t it? Flow should we like, in case we were attacked by
France or Russia, or some other state, Holland, or Prussia, or Sweden
to take that opportunity to come down upon us witli a demand for the
repayment of £440,000, due over twenty years ? Not at all. But
suppose that we had just declared a fancy war against some other
Power, would not a nation to which we owed money naturally suppose
that we had waxed rich, take our indulgence in the luxury of warfare
as evidence of our prosperity, and think the time had at length come
to trouble us in the slightest possible degree to hand back that little
trifle ? When a gentleman sets up a carriage, may not his unpaid and
suffering tailor consider, without incurring a merited imprecation, that
the day for sending his bill in has now arrived? If we had owed Spain
£440,000, for between twenty and thirty years, on account of war-
material furnished to enable us to establish the British Constitution
by a dynastic struggle, and had now unnecessarily involved ourselves
in a conflict with a foreign enemy, and when Spain, on the strength of
that symptom of solvency, asked us for the money, if we resented the
demand, and pleaded against it the equivalent to an international
Statute of Limitations, what a Government and people of swindlers
we should be ! Shouldn’t we ?
In Pari Passu.
An English reason, half bad, half
ought not to command at Portsmouth.—Because he’s a
The Take-you Forts.—Apropos of our recent Chinese mishap, it
has been remarked, that after the great success of Mr. Fortune’s
works in relation to China, we might have been prepared for the
appearance of Miss-Fortune’s.
good, why Admiral Bowles
"pious octo-
genarian.'’
An Italian reason, altogether good, why Antonelli ought not to
command at Rome.—Because he’s a “ Pio-JYonogenarisLn.”
Aspiration.—The H-bone of Contention.
One for Pam.—Lord Palmerston said at Romford that he never
could learn shorthand. It was not often necessary to him. At least,
we never saw him at the slightest loss to “take down” an Opposition
speaker.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 31, 18«>3.
“ CRACKERS” FOR CHRISTMAS.
MANUFACTURED SOLELY FOR THE JUVENLLEST PARTIES.
he custom of bringing in the
Boar’s Head at Christmas still
survives at many very hospit-
able houses, where the comfort
of the guests is seriously im-
paired by the introduction of
a Bore in the shape of a rich
uncle, from whom no one but
the family has the slightest
expectations.
Snapdragons is a pastime
which originated with St.
George, who was commis-
sioned by the Government to
snap up flaming dragons.
Plum-pudding owes its origin
to an eccentric millionnaire,
who told his daughter if she
married he would give her no-
thing in the world but a plum-
pudding. Notwithstanding this
discouragement, the girl was
rash enough to marry; as
girls generally will, upon suffi-
cient provocation. Mindful of
her father’s threat, she was
not at all surprised to find
that he refused to settle any fortune on her. But the imaginative
reader may fancy her astonishment, when, at the wedding breakfast,
there was brought her a huge pudding, which, on being cut, disclosed
her eccentric parent’s cheque for a hundred thousand pounds, which
was very nearly boiled to the rags it had been made of. The old
millionnaire had strictly kept his word. He had only given his daughter
a “ plum ” pudding.
Roast beef became a standing Christmas dish in the time of Bluff
King Hal—called, in more politeness, by historians, Henry the
Eighth. This Monarch {vide portraits) used lo eat prodigious dinners,
and of course kept a jester to act as a di-gester—the exercise of
laughing being good for the digestion. This jester’s name was Beeffe,
in the spelling of the period, but would doubtless now be written
simply Beef. The King used daily to amuse himself with making fun
of this Court-jester, or, to use his’own expression, with “going in and
roasting him;” and as on Christmas Day the Monarch always dined
more heartily than usual, he used invariably, as soon as the cloth had
been removed, to cry out to his courtiers, “Now come and let’s roast
Beefe!”_
Mince-pies have been in vogue since the reign of Richard the
Eirst, who, being armed cap a-vm, made mince-meat of whoever
ventured to confront him.
Blind Man’s Buff originally was called Blind Man’s Re-buff, from
the fact that the blind man was rebuffed when guessing wrongly. It
is believed the game was played first, at the Court of King Canute,
and that Peeping Tom of Coventry was the first man who was
blinded.
It is believed that there is evidence in the old black-letter chronicles
•—only nobody, as yet, has ever had the pains to hunt for it—to prove
that the first ladies ever kissed under the mistletoe were Mrs. Page
and Mrs. Eord, the Merry Wives of Windsor, and that the operation
was severally performed on them by the Man of Ross, assisted by the
Reverend John Knox.
The first man who made Wassail was Edward the Black
Prince, and the place he chose to make it in was, it is said, the
Devil’s Punch-bowl.
It is not generally known that Christmas Trees were first discovered
growing in the Sandwich Islands, and that the fruit they bear consists
of sliced roast beef and bread-and-butter, enveloping a bit of hot plum-
pudding-stone as kernel.
CHRISTMAS WAITS.
Europe this Christmas waifs to see
What’s to be done with Italy:
Whether the despots mean to free her.
Or somewhat further first to see her.
The Pope, too, waits, with visage grim,
To learn what’s to become of him •.
Whether the fools who’ve owned his sway
His Holiness will still obey ;
Or whether, of his presence sick.
They ’ll bluntly bid him cut his stick,
And tell him that, for change of air,
To England he had best repair;
Rome being to him less safe by far
Than three-pair backs in Leicester Squarr.
In Prance they wait to see war taxes
Laid upon the people’s backses;
For nobody can there gainsay
The fact, that “L’Empire, c’est la Pay”
Germany waits, beer-cup in hand,
To hail her new-born Fatherland.
A realm, where sages, brain-bemuddled,
May at their ease sit, and get fuddled ;
Regardless what the world may think,
So long as they can have their drink.
The Czar of Russia waits to see
His nobles set their serfs more free:
A feat, wherein if he succeed,
Punch will applaud the worthy deed.
The loyal Irish wait to determine
How to crush out the priest-bred vermin.
Who, to mob-meetings late have been,
To spit their venom at our Queen.
England, meanwhile waits, all-prepared
From b'irglars her strong box to guard:
And while abroad War’s tempest rages,
And with Morocco Spain engages,
She calmly waits, secure from storm,
The coming battle of Reform.
A CONUNDRUM FOR TWELFTH NIGHT.
Why are the hop-growers of Kent a sensible race of men?
Because they put their pride in their pockets.
SPANISH LIMITATIONS.
A Letter from Madrid, probably official, in the Patrie, touching
fhe demand for payment of a long-standing debt due from the Spanish
Government to that of Great Britain represents England as—
“ Disinterring from her official archives these claims, and presenting them at a
moment when Spain is obliged to meet heavy expenses for the war in Africa.”
Very mean and shabby of England to make such a claim at such a
moment, isn’t it? Flow should we like, in case we were attacked by
France or Russia, or some other state, Holland, or Prussia, or Sweden
to take that opportunity to come down upon us witli a demand for the
repayment of £440,000, due over twenty years ? Not at all. But
suppose that we had just declared a fancy war against some other
Power, would not a nation to which we owed money naturally suppose
that we had waxed rich, take our indulgence in the luxury of warfare
as evidence of our prosperity, and think the time had at length come
to trouble us in the slightest possible degree to hand back that little
trifle ? When a gentleman sets up a carriage, may not his unpaid and
suffering tailor consider, without incurring a merited imprecation, that
the day for sending his bill in has now arrived? If we had owed Spain
£440,000, for between twenty and thirty years, on account of war-
material furnished to enable us to establish the British Constitution
by a dynastic struggle, and had now unnecessarily involved ourselves
in a conflict with a foreign enemy, and when Spain, on the strength of
that symptom of solvency, asked us for the money, if we resented the
demand, and pleaded against it the equivalent to an international
Statute of Limitations, what a Government and people of swindlers
we should be ! Shouldn’t we ?
In Pari Passu.
An English reason, half bad, half
ought not to command at Portsmouth.—Because he’s a
The Take-you Forts.—Apropos of our recent Chinese mishap, it
has been remarked, that after the great success of Mr. Fortune’s
works in relation to China, we might have been prepared for the
appearance of Miss-Fortune’s.
good, why Admiral Bowles
"pious octo-
genarian.'’
An Italian reason, altogether good, why Antonelli ought not to
command at Rome.—Because he’s a “ Pio-JYonogenarisLn.”
Aspiration.—The H-bone of Contention.
One for Pam.—Lord Palmerston said at Romford that he never
could learn shorthand. It was not often necessary to him. At least,
we never saw him at the slightest loss to “take down” an Opposition
speaker.