DOI Heft:
March 21, 1863
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16871#0128
March 21, 1863.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
121
)
BETTER THAN BARON MUNCHAUSEN.
HE Spiritual Magazine of this month has answered Mr.
Punch's question “ How about the Rappers ? ” It refers
Mr. Punch to certain gentlemen who some time ago wit-
nessed some alleged spiritual phenomena which they
ascribe to trick. By the-bye, why can’t the Editor of the Spiritual
Magazine spell a man’s name properly P Mr. Punch knows no such per-
son as “ Mr. Leach.” Spiritualism appears to have a peculiarly preju-
dicial influence on orthography. “Was there any sperrits present ”
when our spiritual contemporary penned the name foregoing ?
A more pertinent answer to the question of Mr. Punch is, however,
given by the Spiritual Magazine in a notice of a book written by the
medium Mr. Home, and called Incidents of my Life. That article con-
tains the subjoined extract from that work. Mr. Home is relating an
incident of bis life which he alleges to have occurred at the house of a
friend near Bordeaux:—
“ The lady of the house turned to me, and said abruptly, ‘ Why are you sitting in.
the air ? ’ and on looking we found that the chair remained in its place, but that I
was elevated two or three inches above it, and my feet not touching the floor. This
may show how utterly unconscious I am at times to the sensation of levitation. As
is usual when I have not got above the level of the heads of those about me, and
when they change their position much, as they frequently do in looking wistfully
at such a phenomenon, I came down again, hut not till I had remained so raised
about half a minute from the time of its being first seen.”
The reader will too probably suspect that Mr. Home is always con-
siderably above the level of the heads of those persons who believe that
they see him standing on nothing in the air. But to proceed with his
story:—
“ t was now impressed to leave the table, and was soon carried to thelofty ceiling.
The Coont de B-left his place at the table, and coming under where I was,
■said, ‘Now, young Home, come and let me touch your feet.’ I told him I had no
volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly allow me to come down
to him. They did so, by floating me down to him, and my feet were soon in his
outstretched hands. He seized my boots, and now I was again elevated, he holding
tightly and 'pulling at my feet till the boots I wore, vjhich had elastic sides, came off and
remained in Ms hands.
Mr. Home adds, that he is in possession of a letter, verifying the
above-quoted narrative, from the Count, who, tugging against spiritual
agency, pulled his boots off. Why does he not publish it, and give the
Count’s name ? Eor some ribald will perhaps suggest that the Count,
who pulled so vigorously against the invisible party was Count he
Baker, and some other buffoon may conjecture that nobleman to have
been the Count he Bootjack.
But perhaps Mr. Home will see cause to modify an anecdote which
wants more confirmation than it is likely to receive, if he will duly con-
sider what, dexterity the Count de B. must have exerted to pull off
Mr. Home’s two boots both at once, with one hand at each boot.
In Mr. Home’s Autobiography we have the following statement:—
On some occasions the rigidity of my arms relaxes, and I have with a pencil made
letters and signs on the ceiling, some of which now exist in London.”
Where are they to be seen, and who will vouch for the fact that they
were made by Mr. Home? Litera scripta manet; marks on a ceiling
are visible to anybody, which is more than can be said of the impression,
albeit shared by five gentlemen, that a man was seen floating in the air.
Will auy credible and respectable person come forward and endorse
Mr. Home’s declaration that he has been raised by an invisible power
to the ceiling of a room, and has marked it with a pencil ? There is an
amount of testimony that would overcome the incredulity of even Mr.
Punch. He would believe Lord Palmerston, Professor Paraday,
and Proeessor Owen, if, in confirmation of the evidence of his own
eyesight, they assured him that they saw the Lion at Northumberland
House wag his tail.
DELIVERANCE EROM ERENCH EASHIONS.
“ Mr. Punch,
“ Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra has come
here to be the Princess. oe Wales just in time. She will, of course,
set the fashions for British ladies, hitherto copied from the Erench, and
thus turn the tide of absurdity in costume from the abyss into winch,
before.her seasonable arrival, it was tending to plunge them. In the
meantime the women of Pans may go their own way; and whither they
are going you will see in a description of the Vanity Eair now daily
held about four o’clock in the Bois de Boulogne, from the pen of the
Parisian Correspondent of the Post. ‘ By half-past four o’clock,’ this
gentleman tells us, ‘ every variety of equipage, three or four rows deep,
is moving slowly along the favourite promenade. There are,’ he con-
tinues, ‘ladies of most nations, but the toilettes of all are in the very
best Erench taste and of the most costly description.’ What the very
best French taste in the matter of toilettes is, he thus proceeds to
exemplify
“ A sliawl costing two or three hundred guineas, and nearly the same value of
lace, is frequently hung about the fair sex, who occasionally descend from their
carriage, and perform a very mild amount of walking on the pathway.”
“ I stop here to reflect what a humbug Spiritualism must be, since in
answer to my invocation, there comes not a rap on my desk from the
ghost of William Corbett to tell me what he would have said about
these expensive and useless women. However, expensive women
ought to be sweet creatures. Cheap is proverbially the reverse of nice.
Hear should be nice, then. But mark what follows
“ And ought not pathways to be clean and dry? The velvet and satin sweeps
them daily, and must carry home, one supposes, accidental souvenirs sometimes not
the most pleasant.”
“ Souvenirs. Eorget-me-nots, that is to say. A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet; and I suppose a souvenir or forget-me-not
from the Bois de Boulogne could not be rendered more unpleasant than
it is by any more specific denomination which might be given to it.
However, if after the ‘ promenade,’ Erench ladies dress for the evening,
of course they do not bring souvenirs into the salon. Ah! Nice things
require nice words to express them. I quote on :—
“ But such is fashion. We are living in an age when a lady's dress must sweep
and brush the earth, and everything on the face of the earth.”
“ Well, what is to be said if Erench ladies like that sort of thing?
There is no accounting for proclivities. Only one may say that ladies
who delight in sweeping up souvenirs with their dresses might be
expected to rejoice in the undernamed unwholesomenesses:—
“We have not, however-, got to the end of the ‘revivals’ of toilettes, which look
so pretty in Watteau’s pictures. Powder is gradually dawning upon us, introduced
by a sort of heraldic gold dust. We have long been accustomed to pearl-powder,
and rose O.e jouvence, and ere long I fear we shall entirely lose sight of the native
colour of the hair.”
“Eaugh! Alexandra to the rescue! The Princess oe Wales
will put a stop—not perhaps to the use of rose de jouvence and pearl-
powder by old hags—but to any attempt at the introduction of
' heraldic gold dust,’ or the revival of hair-powder to disiigure the
tresses of our English girls. Let these abominations be limited t.o those
ladies who sweep up souvenirs in the Bois de Boulogne, or from the
flag-stones of Coventry Street.
“ Yet, after all, Frenchwomen are our sisters, and therefore, ns Lord
Dundreary would say, of course Erenchmen are our brothers. Humili-
ating reflection ! Ah! Professor Huxley omits the strongest argu-
ment that he could adduce to prove mankind allied to the apes.
“ Taurus.”
theological riddle.
Why is one Swallow (permitted during Lent by S. Oxon)^unlike St.
Thomas Aquinas ? Because one Swallow doesn’t make a “ Summa.”
i
“I have been lifted in a room in Sloane Street, London, with four gas-lights
brightly burning, with five gentlemen present, who are willing to testify to what
they saw, if need be, beyond the many instances which I shall hereafter adduce.
Definition of Boulogne.—A Place for broken English.
121
)
BETTER THAN BARON MUNCHAUSEN.
HE Spiritual Magazine of this month has answered Mr.
Punch's question “ How about the Rappers ? ” It refers
Mr. Punch to certain gentlemen who some time ago wit-
nessed some alleged spiritual phenomena which they
ascribe to trick. By the-bye, why can’t the Editor of the Spiritual
Magazine spell a man’s name properly P Mr. Punch knows no such per-
son as “ Mr. Leach.” Spiritualism appears to have a peculiarly preju-
dicial influence on orthography. “Was there any sperrits present ”
when our spiritual contemporary penned the name foregoing ?
A more pertinent answer to the question of Mr. Punch is, however,
given by the Spiritual Magazine in a notice of a book written by the
medium Mr. Home, and called Incidents of my Life. That article con-
tains the subjoined extract from that work. Mr. Home is relating an
incident of bis life which he alleges to have occurred at the house of a
friend near Bordeaux:—
“ The lady of the house turned to me, and said abruptly, ‘ Why are you sitting in.
the air ? ’ and on looking we found that the chair remained in its place, but that I
was elevated two or three inches above it, and my feet not touching the floor. This
may show how utterly unconscious I am at times to the sensation of levitation. As
is usual when I have not got above the level of the heads of those about me, and
when they change their position much, as they frequently do in looking wistfully
at such a phenomenon, I came down again, hut not till I had remained so raised
about half a minute from the time of its being first seen.”
The reader will too probably suspect that Mr. Home is always con-
siderably above the level of the heads of those persons who believe that
they see him standing on nothing in the air. But to proceed with his
story:—
“ t was now impressed to leave the table, and was soon carried to thelofty ceiling.
The Coont de B-left his place at the table, and coming under where I was,
■said, ‘Now, young Home, come and let me touch your feet.’ I told him I had no
volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly allow me to come down
to him. They did so, by floating me down to him, and my feet were soon in his
outstretched hands. He seized my boots, and now I was again elevated, he holding
tightly and 'pulling at my feet till the boots I wore, vjhich had elastic sides, came off and
remained in Ms hands.
Mr. Home adds, that he is in possession of a letter, verifying the
above-quoted narrative, from the Count, who, tugging against spiritual
agency, pulled his boots off. Why does he not publish it, and give the
Count’s name ? Eor some ribald will perhaps suggest that the Count,
who pulled so vigorously against the invisible party was Count he
Baker, and some other buffoon may conjecture that nobleman to have
been the Count he Bootjack.
But perhaps Mr. Home will see cause to modify an anecdote which
wants more confirmation than it is likely to receive, if he will duly con-
sider what, dexterity the Count de B. must have exerted to pull off
Mr. Home’s two boots both at once, with one hand at each boot.
In Mr. Home’s Autobiography we have the following statement:—
On some occasions the rigidity of my arms relaxes, and I have with a pencil made
letters and signs on the ceiling, some of which now exist in London.”
Where are they to be seen, and who will vouch for the fact that they
were made by Mr. Home? Litera scripta manet; marks on a ceiling
are visible to anybody, which is more than can be said of the impression,
albeit shared by five gentlemen, that a man was seen floating in the air.
Will auy credible and respectable person come forward and endorse
Mr. Home’s declaration that he has been raised by an invisible power
to the ceiling of a room, and has marked it with a pencil ? There is an
amount of testimony that would overcome the incredulity of even Mr.
Punch. He would believe Lord Palmerston, Professor Paraday,
and Proeessor Owen, if, in confirmation of the evidence of his own
eyesight, they assured him that they saw the Lion at Northumberland
House wag his tail.
DELIVERANCE EROM ERENCH EASHIONS.
“ Mr. Punch,
“ Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra has come
here to be the Princess. oe Wales just in time. She will, of course,
set the fashions for British ladies, hitherto copied from the Erench, and
thus turn the tide of absurdity in costume from the abyss into winch,
before.her seasonable arrival, it was tending to plunge them. In the
meantime the women of Pans may go their own way; and whither they
are going you will see in a description of the Vanity Eair now daily
held about four o’clock in the Bois de Boulogne, from the pen of the
Parisian Correspondent of the Post. ‘ By half-past four o’clock,’ this
gentleman tells us, ‘ every variety of equipage, three or four rows deep,
is moving slowly along the favourite promenade. There are,’ he con-
tinues, ‘ladies of most nations, but the toilettes of all are in the very
best Erench taste and of the most costly description.’ What the very
best French taste in the matter of toilettes is, he thus proceeds to
exemplify
“ A sliawl costing two or three hundred guineas, and nearly the same value of
lace, is frequently hung about the fair sex, who occasionally descend from their
carriage, and perform a very mild amount of walking on the pathway.”
“ I stop here to reflect what a humbug Spiritualism must be, since in
answer to my invocation, there comes not a rap on my desk from the
ghost of William Corbett to tell me what he would have said about
these expensive and useless women. However, expensive women
ought to be sweet creatures. Cheap is proverbially the reverse of nice.
Hear should be nice, then. But mark what follows
“ And ought not pathways to be clean and dry? The velvet and satin sweeps
them daily, and must carry home, one supposes, accidental souvenirs sometimes not
the most pleasant.”
“ Souvenirs. Eorget-me-nots, that is to say. A rose by any other
name would smell as sweet; and I suppose a souvenir or forget-me-not
from the Bois de Boulogne could not be rendered more unpleasant than
it is by any more specific denomination which might be given to it.
However, if after the ‘ promenade,’ Erench ladies dress for the evening,
of course they do not bring souvenirs into the salon. Ah! Nice things
require nice words to express them. I quote on :—
“ But such is fashion. We are living in an age when a lady's dress must sweep
and brush the earth, and everything on the face of the earth.”
“ Well, what is to be said if Erench ladies like that sort of thing?
There is no accounting for proclivities. Only one may say that ladies
who delight in sweeping up souvenirs with their dresses might be
expected to rejoice in the undernamed unwholesomenesses:—
“We have not, however-, got to the end of the ‘revivals’ of toilettes, which look
so pretty in Watteau’s pictures. Powder is gradually dawning upon us, introduced
by a sort of heraldic gold dust. We have long been accustomed to pearl-powder,
and rose O.e jouvence, and ere long I fear we shall entirely lose sight of the native
colour of the hair.”
“Eaugh! Alexandra to the rescue! The Princess oe Wales
will put a stop—not perhaps to the use of rose de jouvence and pearl-
powder by old hags—but to any attempt at the introduction of
' heraldic gold dust,’ or the revival of hair-powder to disiigure the
tresses of our English girls. Let these abominations be limited t.o those
ladies who sweep up souvenirs in the Bois de Boulogne, or from the
flag-stones of Coventry Street.
“ Yet, after all, Frenchwomen are our sisters, and therefore, ns Lord
Dundreary would say, of course Erenchmen are our brothers. Humili-
ating reflection ! Ah! Professor Huxley omits the strongest argu-
ment that he could adduce to prove mankind allied to the apes.
“ Taurus.”
theological riddle.
Why is one Swallow (permitted during Lent by S. Oxon)^unlike St.
Thomas Aquinas ? Because one Swallow doesn’t make a “ Summa.”
i
“I have been lifted in a room in Sloane Street, London, with four gas-lights
brightly burning, with five gentlemen present, who are willing to testify to what
they saw, if need be, beyond the many instances which I shall hereafter adduce.
Definition of Boulogne.—A Place for broken English.