Punch (44.1863)

March 7, 1863.]

99

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE NYMPH AND THE DEMON.

Among the Curiosities of Courtship, the following interesting record,
from the Worship Street Police Court, ought to be preserved.

The parties to the little love-drama are, first, an ardent lover, named
Moses Mendoza, described as a swarthy-visaged and peculiar-looking
person (sic), about 38 years of age (and a very good age too) ; secondly,
“ Miss Rosetta Barnett, a very fine grown girl, with handsome rather
than pretty features, and a profusion of dark hair crowned with a hat;5’
and thirdly. Miss Rosetta’s stern parient, Mr. Barnett Barnett.
The lover is a tailor, who has evidently a violent stitch in his left side ;
and the father is a furrier, who, as will be seen, was inclined to carr-y
things very fur.

Papa said that Mr. Mendoza had wooed Miss Rosetta in July last,
but that the match was deemed objectionable by the parient, seeing
that Miss Rosetta was under fifteen. The lover, however, persevered.

“ Me. Barnett said, ‘ On Saturday last I saw him in Whitechapel, and asked what
ho meant by pursuing my child.’ He replied, ‘ I ’ll have the girl in defiance of you ;
you know that I am a Demon, and she shall bo my wife with or without your
win.’”

The father is a truly brave man. He is not the least afraid of the
Demon, but very properly afraid to break the laws of earth.

“ I was excited at this, and told him that hut for the law I would strangle him.”

The cowed Demon replied—

" I am at your mercy, and you can do as you please.”

Pour days later Miss Rosetta walks off, unbeknown to ber parents,
and goes t.o the house of a lady in Bevis Marks, where the Demon
resided. The latter had not risen from his sulphurous couch, so it
would seem that lie does not get up at the break of day, like his relative
mentioned by Coleridge. But be did appear, and stated that he had
given notice to a registrar that the venturous young lady intended "to
be a Demoness. This is her own testimony in the Court, to which
Mr. B. Barnett had invited Mr. Mendoza, to explain his conduct,
and she—

“ Frequently looked across the Court, and smiled at the prisoner in the dock.”

Happy Demon ! Mr. Cooke evidently sympathised with the heroic
maiden, and dismissed the case, and the Piend was discharged

“ Amid the acclamations of some hundreds of people within the Court.”

As the names of the parties indicate, nationality partly accounts for
the Oriental character of the story. But it is very touching, and the
sternness of the parent, the fire of the lover, and the devoted courage
of the maiden, make a sweet little romance. Punch has not the honour
ot knowing the parties, but if there be no other objection to Mr.
Mendoza than that he is dark, and a Demon (for reasons of our own
we hold the 38 years to be rather a point in bis favour than not) we
hope that matters will be pleasantly arranged, and that though he may
be the Demon in the street he will be the Angel in the House, as Mr.
Patmore would say. He may only have meant that he was the Devil
among the Tailors, at least we will trust so, for the sake of the rather
iiandsome than pretty Rosetta, the issue of whose preternatural court-

ship will be, we hope, like that of Lady Alice, in Sir Walter’s
ballad:—

“ She crossed him once, she crossed him twice.

That Lady was so brave :

The fouler grew his Demon hue,

The darker grew the cave,

She crossed him thrice, that Lady mild.

And he rose to shape restored,

The smartest. Snip that ever smiled
Cross-legged upon a board.”

ENGLAND’S WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA.

Wedded life its gate uncloses.

Pond and fair, towards it move.

O’er a pathway strewed with roses,

In the light of youth and love !

Prayers of those that lose thee blending
With our welcome-cheers ascending,—

Gracious as thou art —

England’s loyalty upholds thee,

England’s hope and heir enfolds thee
To a husband’s heart.

Nor only living loves, oh Prince, entwine,—

The Queen’s, the People’s—round this act of thine:
The father, lost to us and ber and thee
Blesses the day he should have lived to see,

And bending from the heaven where he is now.

Breathes a new radiance o’er thy virgin brow.

Pair Princess, that across the Northern mam,

Com’st to reknit crown’d wedlock’s broken chain.

In their Valhalla lo ! the Vikingr dead,

Drain the deep mead-horns to the Danish Maid.
Thinking to song of shield and dance of glaive.

How those sea-dragons* bore them o’er the wave.

That now convoy this Northern rose-bud’s charms
Prom Denmark’s partmg-clasp to England’s arms.

The while their High-Scald sweeps the golden string,
The Maid of Denmark’s bridal voyage to sing

The Vikingr of old
Swept o’er the salt spray,

With the black raven flying,

To swoop on the prey ;

The grange lay in ashes,

And empty the fold,

On the war-wasted path
Of the Vikingr of old !

The Viking sea-dragons
Seek England again,

But far other the freight

That they bear o’er the main;

A Dove is their ensign.

And, ’neath its white fold,

Comes the golden-haired child
Of the Vikingr of old.

* The Norse metaphor for ships.

The Trench Hoop Nuisance.

In the Rolls Court, the other day, an injunction was moved for to
prevent the infringement of a patent for the manufacture of a particu-
larly preposterous kind of Crinoline, of which the description thus
concludes :—

“ The steel circles or hoops, are made of such a circumference that, when the
hand is placed round the body, the whole structure assumes a conical appearance.”

For “ conical” we should surely read “ comical.”

YANKEE TACTICS.

The Army of the Potomac seems to be fast going to the first syllable j

of the name of that famous river. Its operations against Richmond
have only wasted blood and treasure in the vain attempt to gain a little
political capital. _

Command issued to the Very Light Brigade of Volunteers.
—The duty of keeping Fleet Street up to the mark is allotted to a File
of Punch.

Art.—Jewellery.—Novel design for the Season. A young Lady has
set her heart on a gold bracelet. The effect must be charming.