Punch (41.1861)

10

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 6, 1861.

TRIP OP ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

The flash of electricity that courses along the telegraphic wire occa-
sionally makes a shocking mistake. There are reasons for trusting
that a grave blunder is involved in the subjoined telegrams despatched,
the other day, from the Eternal City:—

“ No improvement has taken place in the health of the Pope

“ Reactionary agents have been sent to Umbria and the Marches.”

If the former of the two announcements above quoted stood alone, it
would afford too much reason to apprehend that Ins Holiness the Pope
was seriously ill. _ But it assumes the character of a mistatement when
taken in connection with the latter. Put this and that together, and
you will then see good, cause for supposing that to be a blunder. The
information that reactionary agents have been sent to Umbria and the
Marches is rather inconsistent than otherwise with the news of the
implied illness of the Pope ; for, if it is true, there is fair ground for
hoping that the Sovereign Pontiff is at least well enough to attend to
business.. At the same time, the mission of reactionary agents to
foment disturbance in the newly-constituted Kingdom of Italy, is, on
the other hand, a fact which not only agrees with, but confirms, the
telegram relative to Pio Nono, corrected m accordance with reasonable
conjecture. “No improvement has taken place in the ideas of the
Pope.” Such,, no doubt, is what the message would have been if
rightly transmitted. Let us, therefore, rejoice in concluding that his
Holiness is bodily in good case, and, barring infatuation and obstinacy,
has nothing the matter with him, but is all alive and kicking.

“ A SOUND CONSCIENCE PRODUCES SOUND 8LEEP.”—M. F. Tupper.

We are told that, “as a man makes his bed, so he must lie in it.”
It is so with a bankrupt • for we find that, when his balance-sheet is
not drawn up all straight, there is generally awful lying in it.

HORSE VEAL.

In the subjoined passage touching a certain one out of a number of
young racehorses, that amusing and instructive sporting writer,
“ Argus,” has probably afforded some cause of misunderstanding to
France : —

“ But Brother to Summerside, by West Australian out of Bllivgton, is the gem of
the lot, and without exception the very finest yearling I ever beheld in my life, and
will make many a poor man’s mouth water.”

A little further on our author tells us that the Falmyra colt “ will
make as nice an animal as a man would like to look at.” We, of
course, understand what is meant by a horse that will make a poor
man’s mouth water, and by one that is as nice an animal as a man
would wish to look at. But how will M. de St. Hilaire and the
Societe Hippophagique of Paris construe such language in application
to horseflesh ? Surely they will conclude it to imply that we are
accustomed to look at horses with eyes like their own, with eyes such
as those which, at the Fat Cattle Show, carnivorous citizens may be
observed contemplating the prize oxen. Perhaps the Parisian Dogsmeat
Association will be induced, by the information above quoted, to send
an agent over here with a commission to purchase the animals which,
to their apprehension, it will have represented in a savoury character.
The Society of Horseaters will doubtless be willing to pay the price
that may be demanded for the colts which they would want to convert
into equine veal, if they can possibly afford it, which is not certain; for
although they may have more money than brains, it does not therefore
follow that they are very rich.

“ All Alive, Oh ! ’’—Friendship, it must be confessed, is of a far
more cannibalistic turn than Enmity. Men are merely bitten by their
enemies, but they are eaten up by their friends.

A SERIOUS DRAWBACK.

Hideous Old Lady of Fashion {with Plain Daughter). “ Charming Ball at Sir Charles’s last night ! Everybody there—Good
Rooms, not overcrowded—Capital Supper ! Dearest Barbara enjoyed herself prodigiously ! I don’t see, however, how I can
well avoid asking IIis Sister and Niece to Mr Ball, next week, he is so fond of them ; and yet you know that they are
people who do not go out nearly as much as we do, and are not at all in our position in Society ! ”