Punch: Punch (39.1860)

September 1, 18G0. 1 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. so

M3. SPURGEON’S TOUR ON THE CONTINENT.

My dear friends and hearers, who, constant appearers
In this Tabernacle, are purposed, I trust,

Me long to sit under, whenever I thunder,

Who to build up these walls have come down with the dust,
To edification my peregrination
Would tend, if related, you seem to suppose,

I omitted to book it, rs easy I took it,

But some few rough sketches to give you—here goes!

Bor Antwerp from London, in health somewhat undone,

I started, attended by many a friend,

I say that I started, but we were soon parted,

Because my companions left me at Gravesend.

Of blessings a cargo—thereon no embargo—

Did freight the steam-packet that bore us away;

Au Essex man Captain, rich anecdote apt in.

We kept telling tales to each other all day.

At Antwerp we landed, and when we commanded
A view of the noble Cathedral, behold,

Out, came a procession—perhaps from confession—

Of peasants and priests holding candles—large mould.

The consumption of tallow intended to hallow
The festive occasion was truly immense ;

Some lamps, too, were bearing; the sun meanwhile flaring,

But when folks burn daylight their darkness is dense

ISiow Antwerp’s a city which we can but pity,

Though some for its wondrous religion extol,

Full of carved Virgin Maries ; and each of them varies
From a Queen on her throne to a little black doll.

In each street and alley presides this Aunt Sally
Over shops; and a tar of the true British type
Declared, honest Jack, he had purchased his ’backy
At a shop where the Virgin sat smoking her pipe!

Our vessel exported a gang, ill-assorted,

Of Irish, to serve in the Papal brigade,

And thanks to their sender, and skipper, I tender,

For such a lot out of the country conveyed.

Their luggage was lighter than e’er loaded lighter,

They had one pocket handkerchief—there the list stops—

The Captain well prized them—thus characterised them—

He said “ they were not fit to cut up for mops.”

Such tatterdemalions to thrash the Italians,

Oh, doesn’t the Pontiff just wish he may get ?

His guards to be guarded will have, or discarded ;

I never beheld such a beautiful set.

May Ireland’s brave nation soon find occupation
More noble than propping a rotten old throne,

Which stands but to crumble ; I pray it may tumble,

And brave Garibaldi o’erthrow the “Pope’s Own.”

Some things I can’t mention repelled my attention.

Exposed in that Catholic Antwerp for sale ;

But 1 found a strong feeling all Belgium revealing
’Gainst. Louis Napoleon ; a symptom I hail.

Our ties are more German: 1 heard a good sermon
At Brussels, although it was preached by a priest.

Men smoking, toil shirking, I saw women working:

If their husbands they whacked, they’d have my leave at least.

Cologne, so high is it. I’ll never revisit;

Such smells insupportable poison the air.

Than the eye more the nose is affected, with roses
By no means, but quite with another thing there.

Each y^rd still excelling the last in vile smelling,

As onward I travelled—1 don’t know of whal—

I had De’er before smelt it, severely I felt it,

I cannot say whether’t was Pop’ry or not.

At experience aiming, I witnessed the gaming
At Baden ; ne’er saw a more terrible sight,.

At rouge-et-noir playing, their precious souls slaying.

Why even the women there sit up all night!

Oh ! none of you gamble, for if, in the scramble,

You lose, serve you right, ’tis still worse if you’ve wort;

For iu that case Old Harry the winnings will carry
Away with the winner, as sure as a gun.

TI1E FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE OF NAPLES.

No wonder Aquila flies to his brother Eagle at Paris. Society in
Paris, we hear, is rotten—and “ where the carcase is,” there we know
“ The Eagles will be git.hered together.”

A HORSE-CARPET FOR KENSINGTON GARDENS

| The petition against the new horse-ride in Kensington Gardens has
received the signatures of so many pedestrian snobs that it extends to
the length of half a mile.. Horse Cowper—as the originator of the
equestrian improvement in question deserves to be entitled for his
chivalry—should show the wretches whose plebeiau names are affixed
to that mean parochial document at what a price he estimates them,
their opinions, and wishes, by causing it to be unrolled and laid down
along the tract of beautiful soft mud into which he is turning what
was formerly mere turf, between the Round Pond and the Palace.
The petition would be so nice for the horses’ feet; and in trampling
thereupon, by an act of graceful defiance, Mr. Cowper and the ’Ossy
party will, with a pardonable ostentation, indicate that t hey have got
the ridiculous admirers of “ beauty and repose ” under their hoots

THE GENTS OF THE PRESS.

Writers for the newspapers are called in common parlance the
Gentlemen of the Press. There are, however, some among them who,
if they had their rights, would more properly be known as the No
Gentlemen of the Press. These “parties ” care but little for their duty
to their neighbour, and can no more keep their pens from lying and
from slandering, than they can keep their ears from eavesdropping and
their eyes from keyholes. They are no respecters of persons or mahog- K
anies, and whenever they accept a private invitation, it is with the
intention to make public use of anything that happens to occur. If
their memory should fail, they have recourse to their invention, and as
they have to please the palate of a morbid class of readers, who are
without a healthy appetite for wholesome literary food, they season
what they scribble with a spice of gross impertinence, and are
rather apt to flavour it with a sprinkling of scandal, and a soupfon of
gros sel.

To show the estimation in which the labours of these literary
“gents” are held, we cite the following extract from a letter by Mr.
Cobden, who has personally had reason to complain of what they -
write

•

“ The paragraph you enclosed, giving a conversation o mine, is one of those
rascally acts of eaves-dropping for which American newspaper writers are so noto-
rious. There is a good deal of the paragraph which agrees with what I have
tkough-t; but whether I expressed it in private conversation is more than I could
swear to, as no one expects to be made responsible for private gossip. There ought
to be the punishment of the pillory or the stocks revived for those who publish in
newspapers the unguaided remarks which fall from a man in private conversation,
when he frequently speaks merely to provoke a reply and keep people from going
to sleep over too serious an interchange of views.”

If we remember rightly, Mr. Cobden used to stick up for the
Yankee press-wrights, and declare that their cheap papers were far
better than our dear ones. But Mr. Cobden has seen reason to alter
his opinion, and now acknowledges that cheapness is sometimes found
in union with that which is not niceness. In this era of refinement
there is little hope of clapping scandalmongers in the stocks; but
Mr. Punch's public pillory will always be found open for any literary
blackguard who deserves to be exposed in it.