Punch: Punch (38.1860)

March 17, 18G0.]

PUNCH, CI1 TIIE LONDON CHARIVARI.

107


ART TREASURES.

Reginald (who has a fine taste, and is very fond <>J curious old Glass). “ Now, Uncle, help yourself, and

pass the Bottle ! ”

THE CURRENCY OF THE
CHEVELURE.

Truefitt, upon being asked
wliat hair was the richest, replied
quite in an off-hand manner: “The
plain Golden, Sir; in every sense,
Sir, there’s none so rich as
the plain Golden.” His inquirer
nodded assent, and said: “Perhaps
you ’re right, Truefitt. It stands
to reason, you know, that hair
which is plain gold must be richer
than any hair which is simply
plaited.” Truefitt acquiesced,
but was evidently puzzled with the
abstruseness of the proposition.
He retired into his studio to
ponder over it.

Counter-Orders of Valour.

The Times, in a recent leader,
speaks of “crosses and ribands
hanging from breasts that have
never been presented to an enemy,”
adding, “ and we might say even
more than this.” No doubt; and
if all those heroes of whom more
| can be said than that their breasts
i had never been presented to an
enemy were appropriately deco-
rated, their ribands and crosses
i would hang from that side of the
body which they presented to every
I enemy from whom they escaped.

LA HAUTE POLITIQUE DE LTNDUSTME.

(As Sung by that eminent Comedian, Louis Napoleon, on the great

theatre of Europe).

All kinds of Sovereigns the world has seen,

The bad ones—the good ones—the class between:

Never a hobby mankind hath known,

But a rider to mount it has left a throne.

Some have loved arms, and some have loved arts -.

Some winning kingdoms, some winning hearts :

Some'have been mad for fun and frolic;

Some mad for fancies melancholic:

Some all for religion, some all for raking;

A few mad for giving, and more for taking:

Some who as shop-boards their thrones put to use.

The bird on their sceptres a tailor’s goose;

Some whose hands were aye on their hilts,

Some who never got off ceremonial’s stilts :

Wise Kings and weak Kings; coward and brave—

Lazy, laborious; honest and knave:

But one distinction belongeth to me,

Of all the Kings that have been, or that be,

TJafsburg, or Romanoff, Bourbon or Guelph—

1 ’m the first King that e’er rigged the market himself!

So well the tricks of the Bourse I know,

So well each dodge of the finished escroc,

Knight of the Garter though I be,

My true rank is “ Chevalier d'Industrie.”

The arts that have hitherto been confined
For floating a bubble to raise the wind—

The puff direct and the puff oblique,

The thumb o’er the left, and the tongue in the cheek ;

The “ buying in ” and the “ buying out; ”

The “rig” and the “run,” the “tip” and the “tout,”

Those happy arts to which Capel Court,

And my own Coulisses with effect resort,

To play the game of bulls and bears ;

To lift or depress the price of shares,—

The arts, in short, by which Fould or De Morny,

Thread the Bourse’s labyrinths dark and thorny.

These self-same arts the first am I

To the work of “ La Eaute Politique ” to apply !

Is there a public opinion to muzzle ?

A monarch to gull, or a people to chuzzle?

A patriot nation to rouse to war ?

A Kaiser’s good humour to restore?

A Cobden to buy with a free-trade dole ?

A John Bull to soft-sawder, disarm, or cajole ?

A neighbour’s property to annex?

A Sardinian sovereign to perplex ?

A Czar to bribe, or a Pope to bully—

(In defiance of Bowyer and Vincent Scully) ?

An Italy to be kept in hot water ?

An army en permanence there to quarter ?

A Lesseps canal scheme to keep afloat
Without risking too much in so leaky a boat ?

A Spain to set fighting; and if she falter,

To arouse by whispering “ Gibraltar ? ”

A Mediterranean Sea to make

By hook or by crook a mere French lake,

Without the brute force of Napoleon the Big?

Trust Napoleon the Little the market to rig.

Not that I’m averse to fighting too, _

(But it must be when nothing save fighting will do).

Why fight, when your end cau be got by flying?

Or with blows buy what’s to be won by lying?

’Tis better to purchase a journalist’s pen
Than to pay a reg’ment of fighting men :

To launch a pamphlet as I know bow,

Than to launch a fleet of frigates, I trow;

To use a Walewskl’s washable brains,

Than a sword, where dishonour leaves its stains ;

In short, ’tis better brute force to forswear,

And carry one’s ends a la- Robert Macaire ;

To rig each market of public opinion,

French, German, English, Sclavonic, Sardinian ;

To use England’s strength for weakening Russia,
Checkmate Prussia with Austria, and Austria with Prussia,
So sowing dissension ’twixt, each and all,

'Till each in turn ’neath my influence fall;

Oh, this is the style invented by me—

La Haute Politique de VLndustne!

Ground Rents.—The effects of an earthquake.