Punch (42.1862)

ISO

tfUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 22, 1862.

TOO BAD.

Professor Pumper. “ May I ask. Miss Blank, why You ahe making those little
Pellets ?”

Miss B. ‘‘Well, I don’t know. It is a habit I have. I always make Bread Pills

WHEN I FEEL BORED AT DINNER ! ’’

CURIOSITIES OF COMMERCE.

In Thursday’s intelligence from India, we
read:—

c< Grey shirtings dull and unchanged.”

No wonder that their shirtings are dull, if
they never change them ! Eancy, too, in a hot
climate like India ! We always said that there
was dreadfully wanted a change for the better
in India.

In the same paper we read:—

“ Water twists firm.”

The deuce it does ! Then all we can say is, if
water twists at all, that it must be extremely
soft water. With such a facility, however, it
would be the easiest matter, when one was
thirsty, to take a “pull of water.” We have
heard. of “ ropes of sand,” but it would seem
that in India they would be able to show us
cables made of aquapura. It would be the very
stuff, we should think, for making tea with, as
necessarily it stands to reason that the water
that twists firm would be the best adapted for
“ drawing.”

“ The Coming Man.”

"We fancy the Coming Man must be that
New Zealander who, at some future day, (may
it be as distant as the repeal of the Income-
Tax!) is, from one of the broken arches of
London Bridge, (sole remaining Judge of the
Arches Court) to pronounce sentence on the
ruins of this “ little village.” We are so bored
with the promised advent of this foreign gen-
tleman, that we feel inclined to push even
further the celebrated caution once forcibly laid
down by. Talleyrand, and most emphatically
to exclaim to all future writers : “Messieurs,
surtout Point de Zele-ander ! ”



LETTER EROM MR. BRIGHT.

“ My dear Punch, “ House of Commons. Saturday.

“ You have always been my good friend, that is to say, yon
have kept me before the Public as a Power, and you have never made
me ridiculous by sycophantio puffing. I wish I could say as much for
my own organs.

“ I should have published that remarkable letter, which has caused
so much excitement, in your columns, for which indeed I feel with you
that it was most fitted. But time pressed, and therefore a communi-
cation which would have appropriately appeared in Punch, was given
to the world through a provincial newspaper. Pray believe me when I
say, that I am more than sorry that such a document came out except
in your pages.

“ Now, show that you have forgiven me, by doing me a service. The
letter, which demonstrates the utter worthlessness of all our institu-
tions, and the hideous wickedness of those who administer them, has
brought down a storm of incivility, as I might have expected, but for
this I do not greatly care. I am anxiously careful, myself, never to
drop a syllable that can give pain to any one else, but I cannot expect
all the world to be as fastidiously particular. I have been called names,
but this is nothing. I was not called names by a parson at the earliest
period of life, and the parsons and their friends have been making up
| for that omission ever since. I defy and disdain the impudent and
| truculent wretches, but I should be ashamed of replying to them in an
j un-Christian or impolite way.

“But I do pray you, my dear Punch, to save me from my so-called
I friends. Have you seen the style in which my Organ attempts to
answer the complaint that I have not made my attack in Parliament ?
By Castor—was he not the god of large Hats—if I were not a Friend,
I would have made that advocate look nine ways for First Day, and
then not see it.

“ ‘ What right,’ says my blessed advocate (you know what I mean
by blessed) ‘ has any one to expect a Senator to humiliate himself.by
speaking, night after night, to an audience that has made up its mind
against him ? ’

“ My dear Punch, do announce to the world that I am innocent of
prompting or approving such maudlin and dastardly stuff, and that
what Pitt, Fox, Wllberforce, Peel, John Russell, and I myself

have done, in years gone by, I am ready to do again. Afraid to fight
a hostile audience ? It was left to his own organ to be the first who
ever charged John Bright with cowardice.

“ My letter may or may not have been a foolish affair, but I am not
such a fool as to put out a plea like that of the Morning Star.

“ Say this for me, old brick. I am ready to fight anybody, even you,
if desired.

“ Thine respectfully,

“ To PunchP “ John Bright.”

THE DESPOTISM OF DRESS.

Not all the powers of ridicule, nor the appeals of common sense, nor
the remonstrances of affection have been able to beat down that in-
flated absurdity, called Crinoline! It is a living institution, which
nothing seemingly can crush, nor compress. Even sensible women j
have been dragged into, this silly vortex of Fashion. "W e know a classical
Blue-stocking, who resisted it ever so long, but who at last has been |
drawn malgre elle into the midst of its hollow fascinations. Every j
morning, as she puts on this despotic cage, in which La Mode, like a {
cruel mother, delights in shutting up her most dutiful children, she says
to herself, with a sigh, “ Nulla dies sine Crinolined/”

A New Specimen of Parliamentary Natural History.

It has been wisely suggested that the new Member for Longford
should, truthfully to represent the class he properly belongs to change
his name. To give an idea of his true classification, it should be not
O’Reilly, but G’O’Reilly, which, in course of time, would be beau-
tifully softened down to Gorilla. In sober sadness, is not the new
Irish M.P. the Pope’s Gorilla? We think the above is a Major which
no Irishman even will be illogical enough to deny.

A Cardinal Virtue (« whisper to the Pope).—Resignation.

What 13 the American Soil.—Chiefly A-rabble.