Punch (43.1862)

November 22, 1862.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 207

THE NEW THING IN HAIR.

Lady Swell. “ Oh, yes, you know ! Quite new ! The old Nets and Beavers’
Tails getting aweully common, you know ! ”

A FRIENDLY NOTICE.

There are at least some Manchester men who have not
been backward in coming forward to relieve the terrible
distress in Lancashire caused by the Cotton Famine. “ On
the 14th of 10th month, 1862,” at a meeting held by a body
of Manchester Friends, a committee was appointed to draw
up an Appeal to Friends in general on behalf of the starv-
ing sufferers. The remark obviously suggested by this
proceeding is that a Friend in need is a Friend indeed ; but
an observation more, perhaps, to the purpose, which we
may make, is, that the Committee in question is composed
of the Friends whose names follow

“ Treasurer:—Josiah Merrick, Spring Gardens
“ Secretary Frederick Cooper, 28, Brown Street.

“ James Bryce, Oldham Street.

Joseph Buckley, St. Ann's Square.

Wilson Crewdson, South Side.

George Hanson, Cecil Street, Greenheys.
Joseph B. Forster, Cambridge Street.

James Hodgkinson, Monton Green, Ecclcs.

John King, St. Ann’s Square.

Shipley Neave, High Street.

George Robinson, St. Ann’s Square.

John Rookk, York Street, Cheetham.

Samuel Satterthwaite, Snow Hill.

Joseph Simpson, Newton Heath.

Richard H. Southall, Swan Street.

Charles Thompson, Cambridge Street.

Godfrey Woodhead, Victoria Street.”

and that each of them as well as the Treasurer, is open
to receive subscriptions.

Backwards in Coming Forwards.

According to accounts from New York, M'Clellan’s
army is in no condition to make an advance. Such, the
Federal Government will probably iind, is also the case with
their capitalists. _

LIVELY SCOTCH LAW.

The Scotch law reports call the plaintiff in Hie great
Yelverton case the Pursuer. When the history of that
affair is called to mind, that expression will perhaps be seen
to be not inapplicable to the party. Is its application a
stroke of Wut ?

BACHELORS BY CRINOLINE.

My dear Mrs. Dovecote,

Many are the objections which brutes of men have raised
against the amplitude of dress and the protuberance of petticoat which
have lately been in fashion with your charming sex. But there is one point
which has been but sparingly alluded to, and yet it clearly is the one
which, I think, would have the greatest weight with ladies like yourself.
If Crinoline were viewed as an impediment to marriage, surely it would
find but little favour in the eyes of ladies who, like you, have daughters
to dispose of. And are there not fair grounds for believing that big
petticoats have hindered many a young man from taking the bold
plunge, which would put an end to his bachelor existence ? Many a
fellow thinks he can afford to keep a wife, but finds his courage fail him
at the thought that he will also have to keep her wardrobe. When
starting for Chamounix with his alpenstock and knapsack, lie sees his
old friend Tomkins, who last Spring committed matrimony, setting
forth for a month’s travel with his wife and eighteen boxes, to say
nothing of shawls, dressing-cases, parasols and work-baskets, and other
articles of luggage which are always being lost. Fie then thinks, could
he afford a tour with such expensive luxuries ? and if a wife requires so
many dresses when she travels, how vast must be her wardrobe when
she is at home! So he lights his pipe by way of consolation for his
solitude, and as the graceful wreaths arise, he meditates on marriage as
a bliss beyond the reach of such poor devils as himself, and resolves
therefore to make his miserable life.happy as a bachelor best may.

Now, my dear Mrs. Dovecote, is not this a sad, sad picture: and
should we not in charity do what we can to help these poor benighted
bachelors, and remove the hindrance which prevents their entering the
blissful marriage state ? Crinoline itself'is not a costly article, but large
dresses require more silk or stuff than small ones; and the wider are
the dresses, the longer are the bills for them. Moreover, there is a
belief, it may be an unfounded one, that ladies with large dresses want
large houses to match; and so through press of Crinoline, men often
pay more rent than they can well afford, and sometimes get thereby
presented at the Basinghall Street Court.'

Viewing, therefore, Crinoline as being in some sort an impediment to
marriage, my dear Madam, pray exhort your matronly acquaintances
to lose no time in getting up an anti-Crinoline Society, which every
British mother should be desired to join. Some people think that
ladies will never leave off Crinoline until they are ordered by their
dressmaker to do so. But if mothers had the courage just for once to
act in defiance of their milliners, I think that marriageable daughters
might be found in more request.

I remain, my dear Madam, the ladies’ best companion and adviser,

“DON’T BOTHER ME.”

There is a capital story going round the papers touching what is
called the restoration of the power of speech to an aged person, called
Mary Dean, at a place called Oreston. The old lady had been dumb
for fifty or sixty years, but on her being at length moved to wrath by
being told to go on an errand, indignation brought back her faculty of
utterance, and she exclaimed “ Don’t bother me /” It is refreshing to
hear of a person having been silent for half a century or more, and then-
breaking silence to request that she might not be ,£ bothered.” Mr.
Punch has an idea that the statues of a good many deceased celebrities,
whose silence has been genuine, but to whose supposed beliefs, opinions,,
prophecies, and sentiments, reference is pcrseveringly made by their
descendants, wmuld if “stones were known to. speak,” open their
mouths to much the same effect as Mary Dean, in answer to the ma-
jority of appeals now made to them. Possibly Mr. Pitt and the Duke
of Wellington, after hearing Conservative orations, Mr. Fox and
Mr. Grattan, in reply to Liberal invocations, and certainly George
Washington, when buncombe sponters to an acre of mob are clamouring
to bis Shade, would be inclined, “from information received,” to say
“ Don’t bother me.” This is the only moral Mr. Punch has been able
to distil from an anecdote upon which about eleven thousand correspon
dents have desired his opinion, and he begs in conclusion to repeat the
words of Mary Dean.