DOI Heft:
October 4, 1862
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16870#0144
October 4, 1862.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARTVaRI.
137
i
DIEPPE.—MOSSOO LEARNING TO FLOAT.
NEW AMERICAN PLANT.
The subjoined telegram, in the Richmond Ex-
aminer, “from an intelligent gentleman con-
nected with the Southern Press,” will be not
without its interest to the British horticul-
turist :—
“ Saturday Night, Aug. 30.—The en°my were whipped
off the field with great slaughter, and many guns were
taken. They ran so fast in some parts of the field that
Jackson, who was ordered to press them, replied that
they were too fast for him.”
At this time of year a beautifully picturesque
appearance is presented by many of our houses,
which are crimsoned over with the American
creeper. America, by the foregoing account, pro-
duces not only creepers, but also runners, which
j might likewise be acclimatised in this country.
They would doubtless readily cling to British
walls, though in their native soil they run in the
field, as fast as ever they can, from Stone-
wall Jackson.
Sensation Puff.
Talk of thrilling announcements, and say
what you think of this, extracted from a paper
“ Crystal Palace.—Blondin is announced to appear
on the high rope inside the Palace to-day, and to termi-
I nate his performance by a terrific descent to the ground,
| head-foremost.”
An immense attraction doubtless. But tlm
advertisement might have been improved. It
might have stated that Blondin would terminate
I bis existence.
OUR SPECIAL AT BRIGHTON.
“ My dear Mr. Punch,
“ I, like the excellent Harben of Haverstock Hill, have been
trying experiments with Weeds on the sea-shore. The result has not
been satisfactory, except in the case of those which I surreptitiously
obtained from your ivory box (which I don’t at all believe to be ivory—
the world is a Sham) and brought down in my cigar-case. I do not
know whether these will answer as substitute for cotton, but as I spoiled
my lunch by smoking too many, I may say that they leplaced a usually
capital twist.
“ The alchemists did not find out how to make gold, but their experi-
ments helped them to many more useful discoveries. I do not know
that I have invented anything here, except excuses for not coming back
to my work (as rather pointedly invited by yourself to do), but I have
ascertained a good many facts about Brighton, and they are entirely at
your service. Lodgings, I beg pardon, Apartments, are being let at
rates which argue that the owners think well of their residences, though
I believe that as a rule departing sojourners are not lavish in the
expression of similar opinions. But you can be very comfortably housed
in Brighton, if you like to pay about three limes as much for a couple
of rooms as yon pay for your entire house in London, and so far as my
own experience goes, I find that, content with this grand plunder, your
hostess lets your cognac and cold shoulder alone. I think, too, that
living in the vicinity of London lias tended to soften the manners of the
natives. At Hastings, and other distant places, you are robbed witli a
savage surliness, and in everything, from rent down to cigar-fusees, but
aere, though you sit, no doubt, at a rack-rent, it is taken with a smile,
And I have even found on my mantel-piece in the morning the same
number of weeds I left there over-night. Perhaps they were supposed
to be Brighton ones.
“ My chief resort—the weather has been lovely (which I am happy
to say that few of my friends who insulted me with their preparations
for Sveaborg, Switzerland, and Sicily, report as their experience)—bus
been the shingles in front of the Bedford Hotel, whence indeed I ought
to have dated, but for circumstances—but I do not reproach you. Here
is the great crowd all day, for it is here that the ladies chiefly bathe,
and in addition to the hundreds of nursemaids and thousands of children
who congregate, the male population of Brighton, especially the younger
portion, regularly and faithfully assemble, in order to be ready to lend
manly aid in rescuing any virtuous female who may be carried out to
sea by the tempestuous billows of a proverbially dangerous shore. The
untiring tenacity with which these brave gentlemen keep watch at this
point reveals united nobility and delicacy of character. But this is not
the only attraction of the Bedford plateau. I descend from the dusty
Parade, plunge through the shingle, aud in a careless but unavoidably
graceful attitude fling myself down in the shadow oi one ot the
numerous row-boats, the Here We Are, or the Jolly Larks, or the Two
Poor Feet, or some other of the playfully christened fleet, built, like the
pirate vessels of old, for plundering London Adventurers. Little thinks
that noisy crowd who is in its midst. Little think those three lovely
angels, each with her volume from Mudib, each with her blue sea-
side jacket, each with her raven or auburn locks drying in the wind,
that yon intellectual face under the semi-pumpkin hat, and yon semi-
pumpkin form—pooh, yon elegant form, to which justice is scarcely
done by the Tweed uniform, are those of your correspondent. If they
did, would Louisa laugh so wildly, would Blanche chide her Skye
with such merry petulance, would Adelaide reply so irankly to the per-
tinacious vendor of lace-collars? Why should they not? Am I one
to scare girlhood from its mirth? Alas, my darlings, I am he 1 o whom
the divine Shakspeare counsels the lover to go fur counsel—
“ Neitlaer too young nor yet unwed.”
By the way, my dear Mr. Punch, burn your blotting paper. I described
myself, truthfully, as a married man, at a certain hoarding-house, and
was subsequently informed with much maliciousness that I was known
to be nothing of the kind, the proof being that the blotting-book re-
vealed that 1 had begun a letter “ Beloved and Adored One.” Sir, I
am sorry for those who could not believe that one so addressed the w ile
of one’s cheque-book, but that is not to the purpose. Burn your
blotting-paper.
“ Stretched, Sir, beside the Here We Are, and with one of your
Havannahs between my Lips, I affect to read the Record, Bell's Life, or
some other improving periodical, but, really, I watch the ever-shitting
tableau of Brighton life. Of the bathing it does not occur to me to say
anything, except that I think three-quarters of an hour too long for
any female being, except a mermaid, to cling, almost motionless, to the
wheel of one of Widman late Bollard’s machines. But this is a
matter for the family doctor. The peripatetic salesfolk and mendicants
are a nuisance, because indiscrnmnating. Let them besiege good
nature! excursionists, tender lathers, unsuspicious countryfolk, when
they will, but why do they come to me? Do I waut boxes stuck over
with wretched shells, bad lace, peppermint lozenges, polished pebbles,
stale buns, toy windmills, dead star-fish or live Actinia, or am I likely to
bestow out of my linnted funds alms to a dirty little girl, because she
sings vilely by the side of a dirty old man who plays worse, or to a dirty
long boy because he shows me a dirty box containing nine beetles
pinned therein ? Let them go to softer folks, and take with them I he
impudent beest of a Brighton boatman, who, making it necessary for
me to tell him seven times that I will not take a splendid sail this
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARTVaRI.
137
i
DIEPPE.—MOSSOO LEARNING TO FLOAT.
NEW AMERICAN PLANT.
The subjoined telegram, in the Richmond Ex-
aminer, “from an intelligent gentleman con-
nected with the Southern Press,” will be not
without its interest to the British horticul-
turist :—
“ Saturday Night, Aug. 30.—The en°my were whipped
off the field with great slaughter, and many guns were
taken. They ran so fast in some parts of the field that
Jackson, who was ordered to press them, replied that
they were too fast for him.”
At this time of year a beautifully picturesque
appearance is presented by many of our houses,
which are crimsoned over with the American
creeper. America, by the foregoing account, pro-
duces not only creepers, but also runners, which
j might likewise be acclimatised in this country.
They would doubtless readily cling to British
walls, though in their native soil they run in the
field, as fast as ever they can, from Stone-
wall Jackson.
Sensation Puff.
Talk of thrilling announcements, and say
what you think of this, extracted from a paper
“ Crystal Palace.—Blondin is announced to appear
on the high rope inside the Palace to-day, and to termi-
I nate his performance by a terrific descent to the ground,
| head-foremost.”
An immense attraction doubtless. But tlm
advertisement might have been improved. It
might have stated that Blondin would terminate
I bis existence.
OUR SPECIAL AT BRIGHTON.
“ My dear Mr. Punch,
“ I, like the excellent Harben of Haverstock Hill, have been
trying experiments with Weeds on the sea-shore. The result has not
been satisfactory, except in the case of those which I surreptitiously
obtained from your ivory box (which I don’t at all believe to be ivory—
the world is a Sham) and brought down in my cigar-case. I do not
know whether these will answer as substitute for cotton, but as I spoiled
my lunch by smoking too many, I may say that they leplaced a usually
capital twist.
“ The alchemists did not find out how to make gold, but their experi-
ments helped them to many more useful discoveries. I do not know
that I have invented anything here, except excuses for not coming back
to my work (as rather pointedly invited by yourself to do), but I have
ascertained a good many facts about Brighton, and they are entirely at
your service. Lodgings, I beg pardon, Apartments, are being let at
rates which argue that the owners think well of their residences, though
I believe that as a rule departing sojourners are not lavish in the
expression of similar opinions. But you can be very comfortably housed
in Brighton, if you like to pay about three limes as much for a couple
of rooms as yon pay for your entire house in London, and so far as my
own experience goes, I find that, content with this grand plunder, your
hostess lets your cognac and cold shoulder alone. I think, too, that
living in the vicinity of London lias tended to soften the manners of the
natives. At Hastings, and other distant places, you are robbed witli a
savage surliness, and in everything, from rent down to cigar-fusees, but
aere, though you sit, no doubt, at a rack-rent, it is taken with a smile,
And I have even found on my mantel-piece in the morning the same
number of weeds I left there over-night. Perhaps they were supposed
to be Brighton ones.
“ My chief resort—the weather has been lovely (which I am happy
to say that few of my friends who insulted me with their preparations
for Sveaborg, Switzerland, and Sicily, report as their experience)—bus
been the shingles in front of the Bedford Hotel, whence indeed I ought
to have dated, but for circumstances—but I do not reproach you. Here
is the great crowd all day, for it is here that the ladies chiefly bathe,
and in addition to the hundreds of nursemaids and thousands of children
who congregate, the male population of Brighton, especially the younger
portion, regularly and faithfully assemble, in order to be ready to lend
manly aid in rescuing any virtuous female who may be carried out to
sea by the tempestuous billows of a proverbially dangerous shore. The
untiring tenacity with which these brave gentlemen keep watch at this
point reveals united nobility and delicacy of character. But this is not
the only attraction of the Bedford plateau. I descend from the dusty
Parade, plunge through the shingle, aud in a careless but unavoidably
graceful attitude fling myself down in the shadow oi one ot the
numerous row-boats, the Here We Are, or the Jolly Larks, or the Two
Poor Feet, or some other of the playfully christened fleet, built, like the
pirate vessels of old, for plundering London Adventurers. Little thinks
that noisy crowd who is in its midst. Little think those three lovely
angels, each with her volume from Mudib, each with her blue sea-
side jacket, each with her raven or auburn locks drying in the wind,
that yon intellectual face under the semi-pumpkin hat, and yon semi-
pumpkin form—pooh, yon elegant form, to which justice is scarcely
done by the Tweed uniform, are those of your correspondent. If they
did, would Louisa laugh so wildly, would Blanche chide her Skye
with such merry petulance, would Adelaide reply so irankly to the per-
tinacious vendor of lace-collars? Why should they not? Am I one
to scare girlhood from its mirth? Alas, my darlings, I am he 1 o whom
the divine Shakspeare counsels the lover to go fur counsel—
“ Neitlaer too young nor yet unwed.”
By the way, my dear Mr. Punch, burn your blotting paper. I described
myself, truthfully, as a married man, at a certain hoarding-house, and
was subsequently informed with much maliciousness that I was known
to be nothing of the kind, the proof being that the blotting-book re-
vealed that 1 had begun a letter “ Beloved and Adored One.” Sir, I
am sorry for those who could not believe that one so addressed the w ile
of one’s cheque-book, but that is not to the purpose. Burn your
blotting-paper.
“ Stretched, Sir, beside the Here We Are, and with one of your
Havannahs between my Lips, I affect to read the Record, Bell's Life, or
some other improving periodical, but, really, I watch the ever-shitting
tableau of Brighton life. Of the bathing it does not occur to me to say
anything, except that I think three-quarters of an hour too long for
any female being, except a mermaid, to cling, almost motionless, to the
wheel of one of Widman late Bollard’s machines. But this is a
matter for the family doctor. The peripatetic salesfolk and mendicants
are a nuisance, because indiscrnmnating. Let them besiege good
nature! excursionists, tender lathers, unsuspicious countryfolk, when
they will, but why do they come to me? Do I waut boxes stuck over
with wretched shells, bad lace, peppermint lozenges, polished pebbles,
stale buns, toy windmills, dead star-fish or live Actinia, or am I likely to
bestow out of my linnted funds alms to a dirty little girl, because she
sings vilely by the side of a dirty old man who plays worse, or to a dirty
long boy because he shows me a dirty box containing nine beetles
pinned therein ? Let them go to softer folks, and take with them I he
impudent beest of a Brighton boatman, who, making it necessary for
me to tell him seven times that I will not take a splendid sail this