Punch: Punch (38.1860)

March 3, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

93

iourney is counted, and a commercial traveller may be 100 in the above
number, while Mr. Tennyson’s clerk that went out of town, and
dreamed, may be 2. Well, knock off about half for women, whose
opinion is not wanted on a tobacco question, or any other. There are
j twelve millions of passengers. Knock off a million of the Five sove-
reigns for people who take tobacco but don’t travel, and you have four
millions of sovereigns paid for tobacco by railway travellers. Now,
Mr. Punch requests the Directors’ attention. They assume that most
passengers don’t like baccy ? Do they mean to say that a lesser number
than Sis millions of passengers contribute the enormous sum of four
millions for their weeds ? Bosh, bother, bah, bo, bee ! Are we mad—
is the world mad? If figures mean anything, they prove, in an extra-
Gladstonian and irrefragable manner, that at least S out of every
10 railway travellers hunger and thirst for the Weed. As for the
smell that is left in carriages where people have smoked, he does not
deny that it is disagreeable for the moment, but if the Directors had
the carriages properly aired, and a few pastries or some of Piesse and
j Lubin’s fumigating ribbon burned in them every morning, the incon-
; venience would be scarcely perceptible. So we go on again

<• The Directors invite the co-operation of Passengers, in discountenancing
Smoking in the Carriages, and they trust that any who have without due consider-
ation for others, evaded the Regulations of the Company, will abstain from a
\ practice which interferes with the general comfort, and thus relieve the Directors
from the necessity of protecting the travelling Public from inconvenience, byresort-
ing to any other course than this appeal to the good feeling and sense of propriety
nfliiose to whom it is addressed.”

As regards the Short Time plea in the penultimate paragraph, the
Brighton line has certainly more right to make it than any other Com-
pany, for the time is short, and the travelling is exceedingly rapid and

creditably regular. But even the flying express makes an hour of it,
and who can go without a cigar for a whole hour ? If the Directors
of one of the very best lines in the world find it impossible to prevent
passengers from resorting to the Nicotian Consoler, is not the case
very strong against the prohibitory movement ? If one cannot do
without a weed while the Brighton engine is tearing away with one
like a fiery dragon mad with terror at being threatened with having
Proverbial Philosophy read to him, how can one exist without the baccy,
while the Eastern Counties is drawling away into the fens, or the
Great Western is taking about three hours, on Sundays, to do about
thirty miles. Therefore the courteous Directors need not hint at
“any other course” than courtesy. They might as well attempt to
put down sneezing, by a bye-law, as smoking. Especially will not
English people be dictated to in a matter which should be one of free
will, and the more it is sought to prevent smoking, the more will the
carriages be found unpleasantly odorous.

Therefore, recognising the extreme politeness and good taste of the
Brighton Directors’ Appeal, and admitting that it does credit to a
Board of Gentlemen, who look on the public as their friends to be con-
veyed, not as their victims to be fleeced, Mr. Punch is compelled to say
that even this meritorious attempt to please low-cburcb parsons, old
fogies, and women, will not do. The real remedy is

A SMOKING SALOON.

When this is established, Mr. Punch himself will be the first to spy
out, inform on, and if need, collar and kick anybody who even mentions
tobacco in an ordinary carriage. Till then, Fumus, Gloria Mundi,
wherever a fellow-passenger raises no objection.

LEGAL STREET-SHOWS.

reflects the greatest credit on him, and we
very much applaud him for that which he has

ENTIMENTALISTS who
sigh for the departed
“ good old times,”
and grieve that Eng-
land is not now the
“ merry England ”
that it used to he,
may derive some con-
solation from perusal
of _ the following,
which describes a
scene at Appleby
on the morning of
Shrove Tuesday:—

“ The ordinary routine
and parade which, accom-
pany the judges as part
of the high sheriffs office
and duty in providing
j avelin men as escort and
to keep order in Court,
and trumpeters to an-
nounce the coming of
the judges, were here
enlivened by the high
sheriff, Mb. Matthew
Benson Harrison, hav-
ing dressed his javelin
men and trumpeters in
the costume of Charles
thi? First. The men
appeared dressed in
leathern doublets with
blue velvet sleeves
slashed with white silk,
blue velvet breeches,high
buff buckskin turnover

boots, sombrero hats buttoned up at one side, and ornamented each with a long blue and white feather, and
•crossbelts with large buckles suspending old-fashioned large-handled swords ; a red sash round the waist com-
pleted their costume. The trumpeters wore grey hats looped up ; in other respects the same dress. The
javelins also were veiy formidable, antique-looking weapons. Most of the men were handsome, tall young
fellows : and so decked out, as they marched before the judges down the old-fashioned street of the town on a
'bright frosty morning, the tops of their javelins glittering in the sunshine, and the gay long feathers in their
hats waving in the wind, they carried back the mind to the days of the cavaliers, and certainly formed a very
.picturesque and, in these days of unadorned utility in dress, a very unusual sight.”

done, Street-shows are in general most melan-
choly failures, but that at Appleby was certainly
a very marked success; and the High Sheriff is
deserving of the highest commendation for the
way in which he catered to entertain the public.
Any one who anyhow does anything to dissipate
the dulness of a country town has a claim to be
esteemed a benefactor to his species, and if the
town of Appleby do not erect a statue to him,
we shall consider Mr. Harrison has been bilked
of his deserts.

A Grand Transformation Scene.

At Christmas time, every Theatre has its
Grand Transformation Scene. This year they
have been grander, more beautiful, than usual.

But, without exception, the most startling, if
not precisely the grandest, Transformation Scene
this year has been that of turning the theatres
into churches and chapels! The Beadle’s Staff
has achieved a greater wonder than Harlequin’s
Wand.

Colouring the Truth.

We are told on one hand, that Truth lies at
a well. On the other hand, the
informs us, that there is “In
Probably the contradiction may
by supposing that the Wine
Truth in it, has been largely
mixed -with water drawn from the Well that is
the fixed abode of Veritas. We should not
mind if wine merchants never put. anything
worse into their wine. We only wish that all
adulteration were as harmless.

the bottom of
Latin proverb
Vino Veritas
be reconciled,
when there

is

XX-Chequers.

The inhabitants of Appleby (and. those in petticoats especially) ought certainly to pass a
•vote of thanks to their high sheriff for giving them this glimpse into the ancient books of
fashion, and allowing them the privilege of seeing, gratis, such a show. Decked out as they
were, the “handsome tall young fellows ” must have found especial favour in the female eyes
which gazed on them, and their quaint and antique dresses must have formed a pleasing
■contrast to the “unadorned utility” of modern masculine apparel. The turnover buff boots
doubtless quite took the shine out of the blacked kigklow called “ Balmoral; ” and the
sombrero hats with feathers must have made all the bystanders who wore the chimney-pot
chapeau groan with mingled agonies of jealousy and grief.

Judging from the taste which Mr. Matthew Benson Harrison displayed in the selection
of the costumes of his corps, we can’t help thinking him related to his operatic namesake, from
whose wardrobe the dresses may have come. But be this so or not, we think that his costumerie

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has
yielded to the pressure of the Great Brewers as
represented by the London publicans, and with-
drawn the licenses to Eating-house keepers.
Surely the vendor of “ One o’ mutton thoroughly
done ” is more of a Victualler than the retailer
of Thick and Slad’s Entire?

Why should any one afflicted with defective
legs turn clergyman ?

Because he would cease to be a layman (lame
’un).