Punch (39.1860)

October 6, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

131

“ I say, Old Fellow, it’s not the slightest use trying to shelter there—you'll he wet
through in no time. Why don't you follow my cxa.mple ?”

OUR AUSTRIAN SYMPATHIES.

England must fraternise with Austria. Surprising as
this declaration may seem, its truth will he apparent from
the facts, that, for the last ten years the Austrian nation
has paid taxes to the amount of 800,000,000 florins more
than it did in the ten preceding; that the national debt is
1,300,000,0G0 florins larger than it was ten years ago; that
State property valued at 100,000,000 florins has had to be
sold; that the deficit expected in 1861 is 39,000,000 florins
even in case of peace; and that the people are subject to a
“ war-contribution ” of 32,000,000 florins per annum.
These circumstances are stated in the report of a financial
committee; and what Englishman that reads them can
refrain from exclaiming to his Austrian fellow sufferer,
“ Come to my arms, my brother in taxation! Let us
compare what our friend Disraeli calls fleabites.” We
are told that the war-contribution is so exceedingly onerous
that it cannot long be levied. How very like our own
Income-Tax! Perhaps, even as that impost, it is assessed
with the utmost injustice, and levied so as to inflict the
greatest possible inconvenience. Whilst, therefore, John
Bull hugs the Austrian subject of confiscation, Mr. Glad-
stone may embrace the Finance Minister of Austria!

Sir,

HE CALLS THEE, EDWIN.’

Am Havin the misfortin to be Hear Eor larsny
wich i wish to Be Tried by jury of My Countrymn as i
wold lik to now wich Way is To Be Mill or Quiets But
i ear the Gudge edwn jeames is Gone to itly to be Counsel
to Gen1 Gorbaldy, and advice Him to Shoot unfortune
Chaps as cant abear the Enmy shootin of Them wich seem
ard but May be all Wright but what Caul has gudge
jeames to itly Instead of tryng My larsny Case wich am
givn to understand is pade for wich by Publishg may caul
him to His hone spear and oblidge,

“ Your respflly,

“ Brighton Jale.” A Prisnor.”

Inscription eor the Library op the British
Museum.—“ Supported by the ln-Yoluntary Subscriptions
-—of Booksellers.”

DINNER AND THE LADY.

“Dear Mr. Punch,

“ I Did hope that we were going to hear no more of Mr. G.
H. M., the gentleman who insulted us, the Matrons of England, by
saying that we did not know how to give dinners properly, and by
offering us all sorts of advice which was not required, and if it was,
was not going to be taken from such as him. But it seems that he
cannot keep his disgusting greedy pen quiet, and that not being able
to find anything good enough to eat in England, he must go to Russia
for a dinner, and he had better stop there. I am not going to demean
myself by going through his letter of two columns long, all about his
dinner, like a Pig, and indeed I scarcely read a quarter of the rubbish;
but I shall only say that the creatures he speaks of who want a flogging
before dinner to give them an appetite, should have a precious good
one, if I had the making the laws and the choosing the beadles. Lau-
restinas, indeed! Cat o’ nine tails would be the propercr thing. And
Bohemian Girls to sing to him after dinner. Very pretty, upon my
word. An English gentleman ought to be content to come up to the
drawing-room, and hear an English girl sing “ I dreamt that I dwelt in
marble halls.” That ought to be enough of Bohemian Girl for him. I
despise G. H. M., Mr. Punch, and that’s the long and the short of
it^and it’s no use saying it isn’t, because it is.

“But what 1 meant to say to you was, that I do hope you will set
yourself against the fashion of these Russian dinners, dinners a la

Russe. H*1-;-' J1 > . t ... ■■ • ■ ■

to people,
that I caff

set fruit, and cut glass, and flowers, and French-moss before my friends,
instead of dishes of food. A dinner-table was intended to be a dinner-
table, and not a Bond Street shop-window. I wonder what Mr. G. H.
M. will stick on the table next instead of wholesome things to eat.
fountains, perhaps, and bird-cages, and selfplaying accordions, and
Punch and Judy. He is like a great schoolboy, only if one of my boys
were to put his toys on the table to amuse himself while at his meals,
he d precious soon have an introduction to Lady Gay Spanker, I can
tell him. I have no patience with such folly.

4 ^hen as to politeness. We used to be told that this was learned

at the dinner-table better than anywhere else. You were instructed to
attend to your neighbours, particularly ladies, and if you sat near the
lady of the house you were to insist on carving for her. Where are
the young men of the present day to learn manners, I should like to
know ? The table covered with flowers and figmareesses, a paper with
a list of the dishes by every guest, and all the dishes handed round one
by one. Why, Mr. Punch, nobody need speak to anybody else at all,
and I believe that’s what G. H. M. would like to come to. All sitting
like people in an omnibus, eat and drink, and go away. And this you
call having a dinner ! I don’t, if you do. I choose to talk about my
dishes to my guests, not for them to look at a paper and mumble to
my servants. What credit does the mistress of the house get for
things smuggled about like this ? After all her trouble in getting up
the dinner, the people don’t suppose that she knows a bit about, it more
than they do, and fancy it all comes in from the pastrycook’s round the
corner, which nothing ever did in my house, and never shall so long as
I am the chief of the family, and I should like to hear my husband
propose such a thing, only he knows better than to insult his wife.

“ The newspapers ought to be ashamed to publish such letters as
Mr. G. H. M.’s, and men ought to be ashamed to read them, which is
more. You ought to have other things to attend to, and the dinners
ought to be left to us to manage, as they used to be in the good old
times, when men were men, and did great things, and did not want to
be flogged for an appetite, and mew about French-moss and flowers on
the table. Dinner is a Lady’s business; and one of my boys tells me
that the word Lady is Saxon, and means the Divider of Bread, which
he says is a—something—I forget the word—elephant—equivocate—
equivalent—is that it ?—equal to saying she manages the food of the
house. To be sure, old words have lost their meaning, and Spinster
does not now mean a good industrious girl that spins her wedding-
clothes, but only a goose that wants to be married, and meantime sews
eleven millions of eyelet-holes into useless scraps of calico. But
while I am a Lady I will be the Head of the Table, and Mr. G. H. M.
and everybody that is like him, if there are any, and I hope there are
not many, may go on scribbling and beiDg flogged until they are tired
No Russian dinners, Mr. Punch, for

“Yours sincerely,

“Russell Square, Monday.” “The British Matron.”