Punch (45.1863)

136

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 3, 1863

FROM OUR BILIOUS CONTRIBUTOR.

To Mr. Punch.

ir, My last letter
brought me to Glas-
gow. Now, I am far
away in the High-
lands. I have not
seen your talented
and widely-spread
periodical for two
weeks, and though
I cannot*, say that I
feel muck the worse
for the deprivation,
I should have liked
to know whether
you inserted that
letter, as if not, I
might have been
smoking in peace,
instead of preparing
superfluous manu-
script. But if the
absent are not al-
ways wrong, as those
French say, they are
always wronged, and
nobodv sends me a
Punch. Editors
think of nothing
except how they can
spoil a fellow’s most
elegant sentence by
sticking in notwitk-
standings and how-
evers to make para-
graphs ‘ fit in ’ with
pictures, or for some
such typographical
triviality. ~W hy can’t
you saw off a slice
of the picture instead of mutilating me? Why is literature to be
trampled under the hoofs of (so called) Art?

“ I have often visited Glasgow. I consider it the capital of England.
Lang’s luncheon place, where there are three hundred and sixty-five
pleasant ways of spoiling your dinner, is an institution to which London
can show no parallel. You get everything, from bawbee cookies to turtle
soup, and you need not speak a word—you take the article, which has
its price marked, you do your own reckoning, and you hand the money
to a smiling young lady. To a silent and shy man like myself, this
system is very pleasing. They trust in your honesty, but I suppose
they do not tempt it too far, and that some sort of eye is kept on you.
But the man must be a mean wretch who would cheat where the articles
are so good that he is not cheated. Then there’s the Exchange. They
have been spoiling its handsome pillars by painting them in a ludicrous
manner, and making the hall look like a music saloon, but the courtesy
of Glasgow jn providing all the newspapers in the world for the accom-
modation of visitors and the military is beyond praise. Where can an
officer and a gentleman, or either, see the papers for nothing, in
London? St. Rollox’s Chimney, whence I dated my last, is twice as
high as the Monument, and Mr. Tennant’s is taller still, and there is
no three-pence to pay for going to the top of either, because there is no
way to the top, a great advantage over the London erection. Then you
can’t wash yourself in London. I declare I never wash to speak of.
In Glasgow there is a bath-room in every house, and the lovely water
of-(the lovely lake, Loch Katrine, is laid on to the very top of every
dwelling. This water you may see mentioned in your Times every week,
as only an infinitesimal fraction less pure than distilled water. It is soft,
and the ladies say saves a third of the expense of washing garments, but
1 never knew any reform extend to details, and shirts are four-pence, as
in London. I do not like it as drink so much as I could wish, but with
an equal quantity of whiskey it is a satisfactory preventive of the des-
truction of tissue. The marmalade is excellent, so are the baps, so
are the Glasgow magistrates (fresh herrings), and so, 1 believe, are the
sermons, or some of them. The Cathedral is not Westminster Abbey ;
how could it be? But it is a grand thing, though it would be as well
il the heraldry in the new painted windows were right instead of false,
as the Lord Lyon King-at-Arms pathetically says it is. The monument
to old Alexander, the manager, is sweet, much better than that to old
Ducrow in Kensal Green, and represents the proscenium of a theatre,
with the curtain down, and as every Scotch friend who shows it you,
tells you some capital story about “ Old Alec,” there is immense fun
enacted before this memorandum of the lamented hstrio. Sir Archi-


bald Holystone—I pretermit question of his historical writings—is a
genial and virtuous dispenser of justice, and the organ in the City Hall,
when played upon by Mr. Lambert, a quarter in which I see you (for
once) bestowed deserved compliment, roars delectable music. I repeat
that the superiority of Glasgow over London is indisputable, and I
should certainly adopt the former as my residence, only that I am too
old to acquire a foreign language, and I do not like to be taken to a
police cell for sneezing in the street on a Sunday.

“ Sir John Moore, of whom you may have heard, was born in a place
called Donald’s Land, in Glasgow. This was an old fashioned tene-
ment, now demolished, which stood nearly opposite Tron Steeple, on
the north side of Trongate. The information may have interest for you,
though it has hitherto failed to excite me very much. There is, how-
ever, a fine poem on his burial, the recitation whereof by anybody except
myself, excites me very much indeed, by reason of its exceeding badness.
I think I have heard you attempt it, late in the evening. Friends at a
distance will please accept this intimation.

“ Taking a drive in the country, I heard something which I may as well
repeat. My friend pointed with his cigar (if it was as good as one he
had given me, he was to be congratulated), to an open place which he
said had been the spot where a couple of Irishmen, whose names I have
no reason to remember, were dismissed from this world in testimony of
the recognition, by law, of their having, unlawfully, performed similar
service to a compatriot. All were of the railway-navigating persuasion.
There being some thousands of other Irishry in the neighbourhood, and
the distaste of that race for the formalities which Englishmen and
Scotchmen call justice being known, an attempt at rescue, or at all
events at riot, was expected, or had been menaced. Certain military
provision for keeping things serene was made, but it occurred to me
that the serenity of the last minister of law had not been so. completely
considered. For a couple of guns, loaded with grape, were so laid that
on the first rush at the scaffold, the discharge would have swept away
the entire tableau, haugman, criminals, rescuers, and gallows. The
presence of the arguments, however, sufficed, and it was not necessary
to employ them. Hibernia fuerunt.

“ I head another and a cognate story. Two Scottish judges having
tried a man for some atrocious offence, one of them performed the duty
of sentencing him. The evidence that had convinced the jury curiously
failed to convince the culprit, who grumbled that ‘ there was no getting
justice.’ ‘ 1 beg your pardon, my man,’ said the other judge, ‘ye’ll
just get justice on Wednesday morning, July the tenth, at eleven
o’clock.’ 1 doubt whether our late learned friend, who was thought to
have burned Paper Buildings, Temple, could have retorted with more
pleasing and affable neatness.

“ If you are going to protest against my retailing what I heard, in-
stead of describing what I saw, protest and- go home, as Lord

Ellenborough said to the witness.. I am out for a holiday, after
nearly ruining my originally fine constitution in your service, and my
writing at all is one of those works of supererogation which ought not
to be criticised. You must not look a gift letter in the anecdote. Of
course, you can omit the paragraphs. Do, and see how many more 1
will send you, in a registered letter, by the very next post after I detect
the outrage. If you say that my two stories are of a grim character, I
admit it. I feel grim. I feel like Giant Grim, in the Pilgrim!s Progress.
1 am sitting in face of a mountain, which 1 can’t see for the mist, and it
is raining violently, and I am full dressed, with my new patent leather
boots on, and the hour has come for a dinner to which 1 am invited (on
my private worth and merit, and not at all because I happen to amuse
myself occasionally by throwing off sparkling little things for Mr.
Punch) and no vehicle, or as they call it here, machine, can be got for
love or money. My friend who is going with me is a Highlander, and
wears ‘the garb of old Gaul,’ and has brought ‘the fire of old Rome’
into my cheeks by a most disreputable proposition, compliance with
which would involve my walking three-quarters of an hour without
those things in respect whereof we appeal to gods and little fishes to
say what man is who lacks such protection. He says I can put them
on upon the stairs at the mansion we are going to. I do not like the
picture. There ought to be a cab-stand at every mountain in Scotland,
and I shall write to the Lord Advocate about it. You might do some-
thing, only I cannot make you see things from a right point of view,
and I suppose none of your artists ever saw a mountain, except in a
romantic opera. I must go to this dinner, though, for I have thought
over some very smart things to say, and they have local application,
and will not do elsewhere. I have rehearsed them with my Highland
friend, and he is going to lead up to me, so that I may play my diamonds.
This is true loyalty—how different from the conduct of some London
men 1 could name, who always try to spoil a friend’s jeux d?esprit. Two
can play that game, however, and I am oue of them, and that’s a
comfort in this kindly world. I do not know whether my wit, (which
is, I am aware, subtle almost to imperscrutability) is always appre-
ciated here, but my intention to be delightful is, and is recognised in
the warmest manner, but then Highlanders are gentlemen and ladies,
and not spiteful Bohemians or envious Pumps. 1 express myself
mildly, and make no allusions, but your conscience will remind you of
the social murder of my epigram about the Frenchman and the mutton