DOI issue:
November 30, 1861
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16868#0235
November 30, 1861.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
223
more and more in its intense enjoyment, and tlie whistling of the
Gallery betrayed a like delight.
“ On lesser points of interest I have little space to dwell, such for
instance as the working of the Vicious Villain’s eyes, whose whites
made ghastly contrast to his copper-coloured cheeks. But the piece is
no less interesting than it is instructive; for it throws a flood of light
upon the social life of Prance (where, judging by the names merely,
the scene seems to be laid), and reveals some highly_ curious customs
of that country, which no tourist I have met with has ever yet
described. Before my visit to the Surrey I was not at all aware that
the foreman of a jury, sitting on a case of murder, was allowed to take
a walk while the trial was proceeding, and so gain time to strike a
bargain with the daughter of the prisoner to bring her. father in ‘ Not
Guilty/ on condition of her promising to marry the said juryman, who
is the real murderer, and whom (of course) she deeply hates. Neither
was I conscious that in Prance a master blacksmith went about on
working days in full evening costume (dress coat, waistcoat, and black
trousers, clean shirt and white choker, a camellia in his button-hole
and patent leather boots), and that, being so attired, he might enter a
lady’s drawing-room an uninvited guest, and carry on dark plots with
peasant girls and pedlars, who have the privilege of making the same
lady’s house their own, and of coming in and out by the front way or
the back, and holding assignations there precisely as they please.
“ Partly on account of these queer continental customs, one finds
the intricacies of the plot grow terribly perplexing as the play proceeds.
Indeed I have to thank the ‘ spirited lessees ’ not alone for their good
acting and good mounting of the piece, but for giving me a brain-
bewildering entertainment which affords a theme for exercise of the
deepest thought. Whenever I want practice for my powers of con-
jecture, I shall turn my mind to the Idiot of the Mountain, and make an
effort to unravel its impenetrable plot. Who the Idiot is himself, I
can only feebly guess; and why the Vicious Villain stabs him, (except
to make a Tableau) I have not the least idea. But mysteries of course
are essential to a melodrama, and to me it’s the more interesting where
they are only half cleared up. The author thereby leaves the audience
a theme for meditatiom ; and in pieces where an idiot forms the central
figure, it seems quite proper that one’s mind should be left somewhat
prize-money, will be raised by the official notification above alluded to
is very credible to believers in apparitions of the departed. Probably
the majority of those ill-requitea heroes are now in their graves, whither
their journey was accelerated by the heart-sickness of hope deferred.
The intimation, how equivocal soever, that some idea of settling their
claims is entertained by Government, may be considered quite enough
to wake the dead in these days of easy communication with that once
undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller used to return,
but whence many come back again for a short trip, now that table-ways
are established between this world and the other. The Spiritualists
already talk of one War-Office Ghost, whose apparition was the means
of rectifying an official mistake. Let the War Office, between the
present aate and the second of December, look out for raps on tables,
and desks, and pigeon-hole chests of drawers, from the spirits of
deceased Indian officers, kept out of their prize-money. What medium
can make spirits rap if the circulating medium cannot ? There is, at
any rate, a spirit m the Press, which, until the shamefully wronged
claimants of Indian prize-money get their due, will never cease to give
the defaulters an occasional series of the severest raps on the knuckles.
m a maze.
Next week I shall have to speak about the Peep o’ Day.
“ One who Pays.”
DEBT TO THE DEPARTED BRAVE.
ope told a flattering tale when the
flattery of that tale turned out, like
k most other flattery, to be flam.
The tale of which Hope is the
hearer only is too often likewise as fallacious as it is flattering. Let us
hope, against hope, that the news announced in the subjoined paragraph
taken from the Army and Navy Gazette is not too good to be true
in the sense wherein our gallant contemporary understands the an-
nouncement :—
“ Indian Prize Money.—The spirits of the expectants of Indian Prize Money
will be somewhat raised by an official notification that no applications for Delhi,
Lucknow, or Pegu prize money will be received after the 1st proximo. We trust,
therefore, that the discreditable delay which has so long prevailed with reference
to the distribution of those funds may terminate.”
There cannot be the slightest difficulty in believing that no applica-
tions for the Indian prize-money, now so long due, which may be made
after the first of next month, will be received. The question is
whether any such applications, albeit made on or before that day, will
ever be complied with, or meet with the least attention? This is a very
doubtful question indeed, and experience suggests the prediction, that,
after those applications shall have been duly made and received, some
fresh excuse will be found for prolonging that delay in the distribution
of the funds claimed to the persons who are entitled to them, which the
Army and Navy Gazette justly terms discreditable.
That the spirits of many, if not most of the expectants of Indian
COPIES POP PHYSICIANS.
A Letter in the Times, from a general practitioner’s assistant;, which
appeared the other day, complains of the badness of the handwriting in
which physicians are generally accustomed to compose their prescrip-
tions. Now as the difference between 3 and 5 in point of dose would
in many cases be the difference between a remedy and a poison, because
a blot, or aberration of the pen might easily cause the former figure, a
drachm, to be mistaken for the latter, an ounce, it is obvious that
there is much reason in the Assistant’s complaint. Physicians, there-
fore, are recommended to return to those studies of penmanship which
they used to cultivate in early youth; and here are some copy-book
texts which they might employ themselves in writing out, so to speak,
for practice: —
f/hiaid ^mfudicism.
pfyLeed a& seidam a& /zassilde.
dpiLlifdnff is ecucelif fniactised.
(UpLicfs ate. deLetehaiLs.
^xajriirLe. the. tarLCLLLe.
dheei the fuiLse.
hfpOLit is kepeditatij.
.ddi LmhiLCf is iLnfzTafessiatLcd.
JPdiasLftLctALSif is mondetifiid.
dfcunes’s hojiidet is cl peLeipLCfe.
dhecuie uieLL enaLLCf/z (done.
jl/iedicuLe. Temcuies a/istcicLes.
J^atLLee cdanc cities.__
By carefully copying out the foregoing maxims, and others of a
similar nature, physicians will anyhow improve their handwriting, and
thus at least avoid killing anybody by making a clerical error in a
medical prescription.
THE OPPRESSED AT HOME.
Mr. Yancey, one of the two Southern Commissioners acting in
England, at the late dinner of the Eishmongers’ Company, in answer to
a complimentary toast, made a speech in which there was a good deal
to admire; amongst other things the subjoined quotation, applied to
the American Republic :—
“ The land of the free,
And the home of the oppressed. ”
The Confederate Republic, Mr. Yancey’s Republic, as well as the
Yankees’ Republic, may be, or at all events once more become, the
land of the free. The former is also peculiarly the home of the op-
pressed. The fres, in the Southern States, are the white population,
and the oppressed are the blacks; whose home is on their master’s
plantation, and whom fugitive slave-laws have prevented from finding
one anywhere else.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
223
more and more in its intense enjoyment, and tlie whistling of the
Gallery betrayed a like delight.
“ On lesser points of interest I have little space to dwell, such for
instance as the working of the Vicious Villain’s eyes, whose whites
made ghastly contrast to his copper-coloured cheeks. But the piece is
no less interesting than it is instructive; for it throws a flood of light
upon the social life of Prance (where, judging by the names merely,
the scene seems to be laid), and reveals some highly_ curious customs
of that country, which no tourist I have met with has ever yet
described. Before my visit to the Surrey I was not at all aware that
the foreman of a jury, sitting on a case of murder, was allowed to take
a walk while the trial was proceeding, and so gain time to strike a
bargain with the daughter of the prisoner to bring her. father in ‘ Not
Guilty/ on condition of her promising to marry the said juryman, who
is the real murderer, and whom (of course) she deeply hates. Neither
was I conscious that in Prance a master blacksmith went about on
working days in full evening costume (dress coat, waistcoat, and black
trousers, clean shirt and white choker, a camellia in his button-hole
and patent leather boots), and that, being so attired, he might enter a
lady’s drawing-room an uninvited guest, and carry on dark plots with
peasant girls and pedlars, who have the privilege of making the same
lady’s house their own, and of coming in and out by the front way or
the back, and holding assignations there precisely as they please.
“ Partly on account of these queer continental customs, one finds
the intricacies of the plot grow terribly perplexing as the play proceeds.
Indeed I have to thank the ‘ spirited lessees ’ not alone for their good
acting and good mounting of the piece, but for giving me a brain-
bewildering entertainment which affords a theme for exercise of the
deepest thought. Whenever I want practice for my powers of con-
jecture, I shall turn my mind to the Idiot of the Mountain, and make an
effort to unravel its impenetrable plot. Who the Idiot is himself, I
can only feebly guess; and why the Vicious Villain stabs him, (except
to make a Tableau) I have not the least idea. But mysteries of course
are essential to a melodrama, and to me it’s the more interesting where
they are only half cleared up. The author thereby leaves the audience
a theme for meditatiom ; and in pieces where an idiot forms the central
figure, it seems quite proper that one’s mind should be left somewhat
prize-money, will be raised by the official notification above alluded to
is very credible to believers in apparitions of the departed. Probably
the majority of those ill-requitea heroes are now in their graves, whither
their journey was accelerated by the heart-sickness of hope deferred.
The intimation, how equivocal soever, that some idea of settling their
claims is entertained by Government, may be considered quite enough
to wake the dead in these days of easy communication with that once
undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller used to return,
but whence many come back again for a short trip, now that table-ways
are established between this world and the other. The Spiritualists
already talk of one War-Office Ghost, whose apparition was the means
of rectifying an official mistake. Let the War Office, between the
present aate and the second of December, look out for raps on tables,
and desks, and pigeon-hole chests of drawers, from the spirits of
deceased Indian officers, kept out of their prize-money. What medium
can make spirits rap if the circulating medium cannot ? There is, at
any rate, a spirit m the Press, which, until the shamefully wronged
claimants of Indian prize-money get their due, will never cease to give
the defaulters an occasional series of the severest raps on the knuckles.
m a maze.
Next week I shall have to speak about the Peep o’ Day.
“ One who Pays.”
DEBT TO THE DEPARTED BRAVE.
ope told a flattering tale when the
flattery of that tale turned out, like
k most other flattery, to be flam.
The tale of which Hope is the
hearer only is too often likewise as fallacious as it is flattering. Let us
hope, against hope, that the news announced in the subjoined paragraph
taken from the Army and Navy Gazette is not too good to be true
in the sense wherein our gallant contemporary understands the an-
nouncement :—
“ Indian Prize Money.—The spirits of the expectants of Indian Prize Money
will be somewhat raised by an official notification that no applications for Delhi,
Lucknow, or Pegu prize money will be received after the 1st proximo. We trust,
therefore, that the discreditable delay which has so long prevailed with reference
to the distribution of those funds may terminate.”
There cannot be the slightest difficulty in believing that no applica-
tions for the Indian prize-money, now so long due, which may be made
after the first of next month, will be received. The question is
whether any such applications, albeit made on or before that day, will
ever be complied with, or meet with the least attention? This is a very
doubtful question indeed, and experience suggests the prediction, that,
after those applications shall have been duly made and received, some
fresh excuse will be found for prolonging that delay in the distribution
of the funds claimed to the persons who are entitled to them, which the
Army and Navy Gazette justly terms discreditable.
That the spirits of many, if not most of the expectants of Indian
COPIES POP PHYSICIANS.
A Letter in the Times, from a general practitioner’s assistant;, which
appeared the other day, complains of the badness of the handwriting in
which physicians are generally accustomed to compose their prescrip-
tions. Now as the difference between 3 and 5 in point of dose would
in many cases be the difference between a remedy and a poison, because
a blot, or aberration of the pen might easily cause the former figure, a
drachm, to be mistaken for the latter, an ounce, it is obvious that
there is much reason in the Assistant’s complaint. Physicians, there-
fore, are recommended to return to those studies of penmanship which
they used to cultivate in early youth; and here are some copy-book
texts which they might employ themselves in writing out, so to speak,
for practice: —
f/hiaid ^mfudicism.
pfyLeed a& seidam a& /zassilde.
dpiLlifdnff is ecucelif fniactised.
(UpLicfs ate. deLetehaiLs.
^xajriirLe. the. tarLCLLLe.
dheei the fuiLse.
hfpOLit is kepeditatij.
.ddi LmhiLCf is iLnfzTafessiatLcd.
JPdiasLftLctALSif is mondetifiid.
dfcunes’s hojiidet is cl peLeipLCfe.
dhecuie uieLL enaLLCf/z (done.
jl/iedicuLe. Temcuies a/istcicLes.
J^atLLee cdanc cities.__
By carefully copying out the foregoing maxims, and others of a
similar nature, physicians will anyhow improve their handwriting, and
thus at least avoid killing anybody by making a clerical error in a
medical prescription.
THE OPPRESSED AT HOME.
Mr. Yancey, one of the two Southern Commissioners acting in
England, at the late dinner of the Eishmongers’ Company, in answer to
a complimentary toast, made a speech in which there was a good deal
to admire; amongst other things the subjoined quotation, applied to
the American Republic :—
“ The land of the free,
And the home of the oppressed. ”
The Confederate Republic, Mr. Yancey’s Republic, as well as the
Yankees’ Republic, may be, or at all events once more become, the
land of the free. The former is also peculiarly the home of the op-
pressed. The fres, in the Southern States, are the white population,
and the oppressed are the blacks; whose home is on their master’s
plantation, and whom fugitive slave-laws have prevented from finding
one anywhere else.