Punch (45.1863)

July 4, 1863.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE DRAWING-ROOM AND THE DINNER TABLE.

E read on Monday
morning last,
nearly three co-
lumnsof Mi eMorn-
ingPost filled with
descriptions of
the dresses worn
by the ladies
who attended the
Queen’s Draw-
ing-Room on the
preceding Satur-
day. Of course
the particulars of
every dress were
furnished by the
wearer to the
Post for publica-
tion. To what end
is this done by
ladies of fashion ?
In order that un-
fashionable la-
dies, the wives
and daughters of
mercantile and
professional men,
may be enabled
the more accu-
rately to imitate
their costume P

If so, this condescension is very kind and considerate of the fashionable
ladies to those who benefit by it, whose husbands, however, may take
another view of the suggestion of expensive finery.

It might be supposed that the object of ladies who think it proper to
inform the world how they were dressed when they went to Court is to
advertise themselves. Eut the number of those among them who are
married is at least equal to that of the single. The latter only can have
any need to be puffed, the former having already gone off—some of
them very much so.

The persons who really want the advertisement which the details in
question afford fine ladies, are the milliners who make their Court
dresses. Handsome is that handsome does; and if the beauties who
figure before the world bedizened in type wished to do the handsome
thing, they would affix, for publication, to the account of their clothing,
the name of the milliner by whom they were supplied with it. At the
end of every catalogue of dresses worn at a Court Drawing-Room, it
is also desirable that the Morning Post should publish a list of the
killed and prostrated; namely, the dressmakers and needlewomen who
have been worked or stifled to death almost or quite, in the task of
getting up all that elegant apparel against time.

Some men have a notion that the enumeration of the particulars of
ladies’ dresses worn on any grand occasion is intended, and serves,
merely to gratify a peculiar female propensity delighting in such details;
the tas'f'in dress. This may be. On the same principle, perhaps, at
Lord Mayors’ feasts, and other grand dinners, the bill of fare is pub-
lished by the newspapers, in order to afford gratification to a taste
supposed to be more characteristically masculine; the appetite for food.
The analogy, however, is imperfectly carried out by the Press. A list
of ladies’ dresses would be exactly paralleled by an account of the dishes
which the gentlemen had individually eaten; each gentleman furnishing
a specification of the viands whereon he had regaled himself. As for
instance

“ Mr. Deputy Gutch. Turtle, claire and purie. Salmon and lobster sauce, with
cucumber; stewed and spitchcocked eels, turbot a la crime, flounders, water-sowc/irf,
j soles a la to.rtare, mackerel a la maitre d' hdtel, rissoles of rabbit, oyster-patties, roast
! and hashed venison, boiled turkey poult, capon a I'estragnn, roast peacock, ditto
swan, mutton cutlets and sauce piquante, stewed breast of veal and mushrooms,
ducklings, toad-in-the-hole, gooseberry pie and custard, sweet and savoury omelettes,
soufflt of’rice cream. Charlotte Russe, Maraschino and Curapoa jelly, blancmange,
leveret, salad, bread-and-cheese. Iced punch, sherry, hock, champagne, ale, half-
and-half, stout, port, and claret.”

Many old gentlemen, perhaps, would gloat over a registration of
gluttony, like the foregoing, just as ladies, old and young, love to pore
over the records of fiddle-faddle. There is certainly some difference
between such gentlemen and such ladies. So there is between butter-
flies and pigs.

Art Terms.

A Lady Artist, who had been for some time abusing the make of a
certain tall gentleman’s cranium, on seeing him suddenly stoop as he
passed under a very low doorway7, quickly changed her mind, and
exclaimed that it was “ a duck of a head.” Varium et mutabile semper
fcemina.

OMITTED PRESENTATIONS.

We have again to rectify the blunders of that most unsatisfactory
periodical, the Court Circular. Here is a list of ladies of whose presen-
tation at the last Drawing-room the Court Circular omits all mention,
but who had quite as good reason for going to Court as numbers whose
attendance is duly registered.

Mrs. Eitz-Obit, on paying her milliners’ bills of four years standing,
by Mrs. Giles Overreach.

Mrs. De Name!, on being painted to look Beautiful for Ever, by
Mrs. Jessy Bell.

Mrs. Bolsover Clipstone, on wearing her new ear-ring% for the first
time, by Mrs. Carburton Cissiter.

Mrs. Whyte Armley, on recovery from her vaccination, by Mrs.
M‘Pustule.

Mrs. Dunshunner, on giving up her opera-box in order to pay her
children’s school bills, by Mrs. Strong Mynderville.

Mrs. Roseleaf, on becoming a Fellow of the Botanical Society, by
Lady Rodde O’Dendron.

Mrs. Naggleton, on making it up with Mr. Naggleton, by Mrs.
Punch.

Mrs. Gamble, on receiving the gloves she won at Ascot, by Lady Bet
O’ Blivious.

Mrs. Scraggleby, on taking to high-necked dresses, by Mrs. Shoulders.

Mrs. Pagan, on taking to going to Church instead of lying in bed till
twelve or one o’clock on Sundays, by Mrs. A. Waykenor.

Mrs. Driver, on baviug kept a servant two whole months, by the wife
of the Slaveownian Ambassador.

Mrs. Neediman, on having gone to two parties in the same dress, by
Mrs Yak Mantle.

Mrs. Muffe, on having discovered that the American war is not
between North and South America, by Mrs. Owley Pumpe.

Miss Wiseman, on her accepting old Mr. Globular, by Mrs. Joyn-
ture.

Miss Sapientia Wiseman, on her rejecting young Mr. Rattlecash, by
Mrs. Jo.vnture.

Miss Yerdigreese, on her learning to sing an English ballad, by Mrs.
Dibdin.

Miss Jenny Flexion, on her conversion from Puseyism, by Lady
Exeter Hall.

Miss Froggs, on her having taken a five-bar gate, by Mrs. Jumping-
powder.

Miss Phooley, on renouncing her belief in the Guards, by Lady Hero
Waresheep.

Miss Bloomer, on having allowed her papa to bring her away from a
dance before two o’clock by Lady Beautysleep.

Miss Blimber, on having successfully coached her stupid brother lor
his little-go, by the Hon. Mrs. Feeder.

Miss Ankles on having croque’d and accepted Captain Spoonbill, by
Mrs. Balmoral Boots.

Miss Wyld-Bore, on burning her album, by Mrs. Pesterwit.

Miss Sparkles, on having sent Mr. Punch some clever verses, which
he inserted, by Lady Judina Punch.

Mrs. Rarey Aviss, on having refused to drive her horses more than
forty miles in one day, by Lady Killnagger.

Mrs. Wrashonal, on having enforced the No Crinoline law among her
domestics, by Mrs. Brainer Cleverby.

Mrs. D’lstray, on having listened to her husband while he read a
whole paragraph in a newspaper, by Mrs. Purr Light.

Mrs. Twangles, on having allowed that Elijah was almost as grand a
work of art as the Trovatore, by Mrs. Keye Board.

Mrs. Dordler, on having been in time for the beginning of Finesse,
by Lady Thyme Peace. .

Mrs. Darby, on having worked a pair of slippers lor Her Own
Husband, by Mrs. Jone. .

Mrs. Martyr, on her leaving Christendom and going to live in Bedford
Square, by Mrs. Yyctym.

Miss Clackington, on not having talked once about the Princess ot
Wales during an entire morning, by Mrs. Gusbington.

Mrs. Hook Rnowes, on having admitted that a photograph did her
justice, by Mrs. Squabb.

Mrs. Slapper, on having taught her child its alphabet, by Mrs.
Whippingham. .

Mrs. De Bathinggown, on having assented to go to Scarborough
instead of Switzerland this year, by the Hon. Mrs. Plunger.

Mrs Perfect, on having refused to begin reading a sensation novel
until she had finished Knight’s England, by Lady Chrysolite Opal.

An Important Fact for Oculists.

Mr. Punch was asked whether it was possible to cure a blind-alley;
when that mighty genius readily replied, “ Certainly ; I should firs*
i begin by improving its site.”

Vol. 45.

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