Punch (42.1862)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

203

May 24, 1862.]

“GOING OUT A-SHOOTING.”

The Lo rd Chan cello r, for the House of Lords, has accepted
a challenge from the Speaker, on behalf of the House of
Commons, to shoot a rifle-match on July 5th, at Wimble-
don, ten against ten.

In ancient times with good yew-bows,

Our ancestors contended.

And Agincourt displayed the sport,

When cloth-yard shafts descended.

But now the rifle takes its range,

From Wimbledon to Tooting,

And everybody, high and low.

Is going out a-shooting.

The Scotch and Irish have their corps ;

The Devil’s Own enrolled are;

Shoolbred’s and Swan and Edgar’s men
For measures Enfields shoulder;

Each Civil Service Clerk turns out,

A military suit in,

The Artists fling their maulsticks down
For ramrods, to go shooting.

Where matches are on carpets thrown.

Of course the fire it catches,

Now, “ on the tapis ” everywhere.

We’ve nought but rifle-matches;

Of companies and regiments.

The champions are disputing,

And soon Britannia’s going out
With Caledonia shooting.

No wonder that the flame should spread,

Nor, as all fire keeps rising,

That it should reach the “Upper Ten,”

Can it be thought surprising ;

Nor, howsoe’er old fogeydom
Such contest vote unsuiting,

That Lords and Commons like the rest,

Are going out a-shooting.

Sharp Shoeblack (loq.). “ Yes, Sir, I knows, Sir, Cooks IS wery pertic’lar.”

ENGLISH MANNERS TO THE FRENCH MIND.

Thanks to the polite attention of some of our lively visitors, correspondents of
certain Parisian journals, we enjoy the advantage, which Robert Burns desired,
of seeing ourselves as others see us. We may acknowledge the favour in enabling
them to see us as we see ourselves.

They say that we all look sad, and are wholly absorbed in an eager and incessant
endeavour to get money. To the sordid anxiety by which we are thus actuated they
ascribe our dull and miserable looks. There is some truth in this. It is not, how-
ever, that we are avaricious, like some people who are always talking about fifty-
thousand francs. We are melancholy precisely for the reason that we are com-
pelled, against our will, to devote our whole souls to acquiring wealth; a pursuit
which is repugnant to our noble natures. We are obliged to make all the money
we can, in order to live decently and educate our children under the pressure of a
crushing Income-Tax. All this load of taxation we have to bear from the necessity
of providing no end of national defences, imposed upon us by those neighbours
who persist in maintaining immense armaments, not only military but also naval,
which can only be intended against ourselves.

Our French critics are amused in remarking the taciturnity of English fellow-
passengers and travellers who are mutual strangers, associated in railway-carriages
and hotels. One of these writers says that Englishmen, waiting about in a coffee-
room, all seem trying to get away from each other. That is no doubt their wish;
and it is a proof of our politeness. Thinking men have all some trouble, present
or prospective, and don’t want to inflict their dulness upon other people with
whom they have no right to take such a liberty. We converse fast enough when
ave are all friends, and can grumble one with another. The fact that we are thinking
men is just that which the Frenchman overlooks. He cannot conceive a number
of people meeting together without instantly indulging the gregarious impulse to
ehjitter. It does not oeeur to him that a man’s mind may possibly be occupied
with other things than the present moment and surrounding circumstances. Nor
has he any idea that men can be silent because of not liking to talk unless they
have something to say, beyond that which, if said to themselves, they would think
not worth hearing. No doubt a monkey, if he possessed the gift of speech, would
exercise it instinctively without reflection, and, when he came to find that we do not
do likewise, would feel just the same astonishment at our silence as that which is
expressed by the French journalist.

To see the Speaker, velvet shorts,

And fair full-bottomed wig in,

Arrayed against Lord Westbury,

His Chancellor’s full-fig in !

“ Take me that bauble lienee ! ” cries D.,
For rifle mace commuting.

While on the wool-sack taking sights,
Lord Westb’ry dreams of shooting.

Let’s hope like youthful spouse, immersed
In his new match’s blisses,

That Denison for “ Ayes ” and “ Noes,”
Mayn’t read off “ Hits ” and “ Misses.”
Nor when the tellers near his chair,
Respectfully saluting,

Cry, “Here’s the markers with the score,”
As men do out a-shooting.

Let’s pray that Westb’ry, that great gun,
May not get overheated.

When, hit or miss, he takes to prove
Their Ludships not defeated;

But if they can’t bear off the bell.

Some point ingenious mooting
He ’ll in a wrangle end the match,

And out-talk Commons’ shooting.

Held in Anything but Esteem.

A Correspondent writes to the Times, complaining of
the scanty supply of steam at the Exhibition. We should
have thought that they could have got any supply of it
with the Brompton Boilers so close at hand. We must
say that the Commissioners have been most dreadfully back-
ward all through their management of the Exhibition in
keeping the steam up to the high point of the Exhibition
of 1851.

A CON FOR NATURALISTS.

What would be the most profitable Tax of all.—A Tax on Donkeys.

What creatures may be said to live on their relations ?
Why, the Aunt-eaters, to be sure !