Punch (43.1862)

PIC-NICING UNDER THE NEW POACHING ACT,

Rural Policeman. “Hullo! I say—I say—What’s them Birds in that there Pie!"

THE JOLLY JURISTS OF GERMANY.

According to “ honest logo,” England is the country “ where
indeed they are most potent in potting/’ Although “ your Dane, your
German, and your swag-bellied Hollander” excel most other nations in
that accomplishment, they “ are nothing to your English.” Whatever
may have been the relative capacity of this and those other nations
for drinking in the time of Shakspeare, and whether or no “your
English,” at the present day, retain their former superiority in strength
to tope over " your Dane,” and “ your swag-bellied Hollander,” there
is ’■eason to believe that now at any rate there is nobody better able
to stand a considerable quantity of liquor than “ your German.”
The United Kingdom Alliance, established to obtain a law prohibiting
the sale of fermented drinks, is a body which, being accustomed to
mind other people’s business, will be naturally interested in the infor-
mation afforded by the following paragraph, relative to foreigners, and
illustrating Teutonic prowess in potation :—

“ Eleven hundred German jurists are now in Vienna. In the evening of Sunday
they and 700 Austrian jurists sat down to a supper given by the municipality of'the
city, and the 1,800 persons managed to dispose of 80 casks of beer, 3,600 bottles of
red and white wine of the country, and 1,050 bottles of first-rate champagne. The
supper with music, cigars, &c., cost the city no less than 40,000 florins (£4,000).”

Certainly “ your German,” as represented by these sages of the law,
is at least as potent in his potting as any modem Englishman. The
achievement above narrated could not have been surpassed by a sym-
posium of British judges. Eor of course the jolly jurists did not get
drunk, because it was Sunday, and besides any symptoms of intoxication
exhibited by them would have been noted, for fun. No doubt they
were as sober as judges, as we say, meaning by the sobriety of a judge
the state of self-possession which a judge retains after having taken
wine enough to make several ordinary men drunk. If they had talked
nonsense, the Press would have published it; but we are only told that,
after having consumed nearly £4,000 of wine and beer

“ The Germans learned in the law have talked much since they have been in
Vienna, but nothing worth repeating is reported.”

The soberest legal disquisitions may be not worth repeating. We
may safely conclude that the speech of the German jurists, during their
carouse, consisted in utterances of the prosaic wisdom and weighty
jocosities characteristic of and suitable to personages of their ponderous
nation, and dignified profession, over their cups. No doubt they held
a solemn supper, and drank an enormous quantity of wine, every one
of them with a profound gravity, the centre of which never at any time
became vertical to a point outside of the base of support or chair which
maintained each erudite jurist in the position of an upright judge.

The Health of the Potatoes.

Exaggerated statements have been made of the reappearance of
the Potato Disease. Under the signature of A Tuber, a correspondent
thus writes:—“They say that the blight has attacked some of us, but
few are affected with anything worse than the mildest form of ophthal-
mia. At least, as far as I am concerned, I may venture to say that the
potato-disease is all my eye,”

Papal Shortcomings.

The Pope mistakes and so disdains
The impatience Rome is showing;
Of no Short Coming she complains,
No but of his Long Going.

ETHIOPIAN BLOOM!,,

Under the head of exports is included a quantity of walnut-ketchup,
to St. Domingo. This article, for which a great demand exists in
Hayti, is destined to be employed as a cosmetic by the ladies.

Joking in a Circle.—We have the authority of Mr. Batty for
saying that “the first horse-laugh must certainly have proceeded from
an Os humerus.”