Punch: Punch (38.1860)

January 14, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

13

A CHANT TOR CHRISTMAS.

EY A POET WHO BELONGS TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

Hail, Christmas! Hail, thou season festive!

And bring thy feasts most indigestive:

Mince pies, plum pudding, and boar’s head,
Which on the stomach lie like lead.

Go, diner out, and stuff and swill.

That thou thereby may’st be made ill:

Go, eat thy pudding and thy beef,

Then come to me and buy relief.

Ye nightmares, from dyspepsia bred,

Now haunt the supper-eater’s bed,

Bid sleep his heavy eyelids flee.

Then in the morn he ’ll send for me.

Ye parents, now your children cram
With jellies, mincemeat, cakes and jam
Of pudding too be liberal givers.

And so derange their infant livers.

The poisoned sweets to them present,

Which cakes of Twelfth Night ornament:

Their palates clog with “rock” and “drops,”
And cloy their tongues with lollipops.

Come, snapdragons, a flaming brood,

Most indigestible as food:

Tempt small boys with your fiery sweets,

That he may be made ill who eats.

’Tis sweet the merry groups to see
Who throng around the Christmas Tree;

’Tis sweeter still to think that they
Will probably be ill next day.

Ilail, Christmas, then! Of all the year
To doctors thou’rt the time most dear.

The more thou temp’st to stuff and swill,

The longer grows the doctor’s bill.

Yes, 1 ’ave smoked every bounce of it, yer honour ; an’ my conviction is, as that ere
Pipe of yourn ’id take pounds afore it’s coloured anythink to speak of.”

Sparkles being asked why Romish priests were called
“Bather” Confessors, replied, because they formed a part
of the Papa-cy.

PUNCH v. BURGOYNE.

(in TIIE MATTER OE “line V. VOLUNTEERS.1’)

“Nothing like leather,” quoth the currier in the old story.

“Nothing like'Regulars,” says Sir John Burgoyne, in his paper in
the Cornhill Magazine, apropos of our Rifle Yolunteers. One of Sir
■John’s principal reasons for his rating any possible force of Volunteers
low in comparison with the regular, well set-up, well-stocked, well-
packed Linesman or Guardsman, is the way in which (according to Sir
John) the former would suffer under the hardships of campaigning, the
fatigue of the march, the miseries of the wet bivouac, the short rations,
and other creature c/z’,?comforts that real soldiering brings with it. Sir
John has in his head a certain ideal “Regular Soldier,” who can march
farther,—stand more wet and cold,—put up more cheerfully with a
thin blanket, or occasionally a wet ditch and no blanket at all,—digest
tougher beef, or go without beef altogether more cheerfully and with
less harm to himself,—than the Rifle Volunteer.

But where does Sir John find his ideal Regular?

In what way does the life of the Regular Soldier fit him to brave
'hardship and stand wear and tear better than the Volunteer ?

Are we to look for this soldierly ideal among the ill-lodged, public-
house-haunting, nursemaid-courting ranks of the Guards ? Gallant
fellows Mr. Pumh knows them to be (witness Alma, Inkermann, and
| a thousand other well-fought fields); but strong-bodied fellows, tough
fellows, wind-and-weather-and-hardship-defying fellows, they certainly
are not. Or is our ideal soldier to be sought rather in the Line ?

Mr. Punch’s answer to that question may be gathered from a number
of other questions he ventures to put.

Brom what class is the Line recruited ?

What are the habits of the average private in the Line ?

How is the Linesman lodged at home ? how abroad ? How is he
fed ? _ How is he clad ? _ What is the effect of his barrack duties,—of
his night-guards,—of his accessibility to the temptations of the can-
■ teen, the barrack -neighbouring trull-house, and beer-shop, with its
singing and dancing rooms, its atmosphere of drink and tobacco, and
its low excess ? Are these the influences likely to harden bodies, any
j more than to improve souls ? Do they particularly fit a man to face

heavy work, long marches, a wet back, and an empty belly ? What is
the fad, as indicated by the figures collected by the commission
which reported on the sanitary condition of the Army in 1858 ? Why,
this—that, comparing the death-rate of different classes at ages between
twenty and forty, seventeen Linesmen and twenty Guardsmen die
annually to eight agricultural labourers and out-door workmen in towns,
to nine printers, eight policemen, and ten miners. But our Volunteers
are not agricultural labourers at ten shillings a week; nor printers, j
shut up for long hours iu the close atmosphere of the composing-room ;
nor policemen, liable to long spells of night and day duty without
shelter in all weathers; nor miners, subject to impure air and explosive
gases in the pit, and to foul skins and dirty clothes, and too often
filthy habitations out of it. Our Volunteers are the very thews and
sinews of the population—the pick and flower of the middle class, the
young farmers and squires of our rural districts,—the tradesmen, and
merchants, and gentry, and clerks, of our cities.

If the average of life among these Volunteers could be calculated, it
would be found to give as a result, against the seventeen deaths to
one thousand of the Line, and the twenty to one thousand of the
Guards—not the eight deaths of the labourer and policeman, the nine
of the printer, and the ten of the miner,—but something like three or
four, if not even fewer.

Mr. Punch respectfully submits to Sir John Burgoyne, that for all
purposes requiring endurance of fatigue and exposure, the stamina of
the Volunteer is likely, ccderis paribus, to be to that of the regular
soldier of the Line as seventeen to four, and to that of the Guardsman
as twenty to four: in other words, more than four times as tough and
durable. It is quite true—as the Times has pointed out—that if you
take any army, winnowed of its weak elements by campaigning, you
will get an uncommonly stout residuum, capable of resisting almost
any amount cf wear and tear; but Sir John Burgoyne’s comparison
is not one between Volunteers and veterans, but between Volunteers
and Regulars. While these are the elements of comparison, Mr.
Punch must still be permitted to trust in his own corps of Volun-
teers (in all of them, he should say, being effective member of half-
a-dozen and upwards) as far better, instead of worse, fitted to bear any
amount of hard work, without breaking down, than an equal force of
Regulars—be they Linesmen or be they Guardsmen.