DOI issue:
November 7, 1863
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16872#0204
November 7, 1863.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
193
out his note-book, and commences a letter to the Times. _ Poison? A
pint of very dirty lukewarm soap and water, with a nail-brush in it.
Tourist, be careful where thou dost in future wash thy hands.
A SHOT FROM A STERN-CHASER.
“ He would like to take the old Mother by the hair and give her a good shaking.”
—See Mr. Secretary Chase’s Stump-speech at Cincinnati.
Lo, rowdy young America,
Loud stumpin’, rantin’, ravin’,
Renews his bills at ninety days
To make Rebellion cave in.
Enlarging debt, contracting rights,
Suspending habeas-corpus,
Blind flound’ring, nose in air, just like
The late-lamented Porpoise.
And Chase, on Southern necks prepared
To rivet yokes and collars,
If only for his neat green-backs
The North will change her dollars,
Utters a threat, that in her shoes
May well set England quaking,
To “ Take the old Mother by the hair,
And give her a good shaking! ”
With Lee's head-quarters pushed within
Two short days’ march of Washington,
If you can’t strike a swashing blow.
You’d best talk in a swashing tone !
With Rosecrans whipped, and Burnside checked,
And Dahlgren’s guns stopped shooting,
And gold gone up to fifty-two,
It’s time for high-faluting !
COSTERMONGERS AND ORGAN-GRINDERS.
My dear Sir Richard,
The gallant Blues of Scotland Yard, of whose tartanless clan
you are the chief, I suppose have some arrangement made for enabling
them, once a week, when off duty, to acknowledge that they have left
undone those things which they ought to have done, and have done
those things which they ought not to have done. Now, the whole of a
Policeman’s life, equally with that of any other man, ought to be spent
in trying to be able to make that acknowledgment with as little truth as
possible. But the Police have either a special proclivity, or else special
orders, in one particular at least, not to do that which they ought to
do by all means, and to do that which they ought not to do on any
account. They drive British costermongers from the pavement of a
locality where they are wanted, and allow Italian organ-grinders in
the streets. On the pavement the costermongers are earning their
subsistence by useful industry. In the streets the organ-grinders extort
pence from the lovers of peace and quietness by making a worse than
useless noise. The barrows of the costermongers create no obstruction.
The organs of the organ-grinders constitute a great nuisance. To many
people the disturbance of organ-grinding is insufferable, to some ruinous,
and it gives nobody any but. the very slightest pleasure. The coster-
mongers give no one any but the least inconvenience; and they are the
greengrocers and fishmongers of the poor. Why, then, do your con-
stables compel the British costermongers to move on, and leave the
Italian organ-grinders to be paid by those whom they annoy for doing so ?
Why do they thus molest the doves whilst they spare the crows ?
I am afraid that the Bobbies, as they are termed by the lower orders,
who I suppose call you the Bob major, cherish a certain sympathy with
those villainous foreign organ-grinding vagabonds. They have them-
selves taken what they suppose to be a musical turn lately, have formed
bands, and misemploy their leisure in practising tunes, which they
murder, with the same effect, I am credibly informed, as that of killing
a pig; excruciating the ears, distracting the mind, and arresting lite-
rary and scientific pursuits; not a fit amusement for those whose busi-
ness is that of taking up offenders. The Police themselves have become
organised banditti; is that why they connive at Italian organ-grinders ?
As long as costermongers pursue a quiet occupation, let them alone.
Silence them, if you like, when they cry sparrergrass, watercreases, and
other vegetables about the streets, because then they practise an offen-
sive calling. Yet they have at least watercress and asparagus to offer
in excuse for their yells; but the grinding-organist yields no vegetable,
fruit, or good ot any kind to atone for making much more horrible
noises. Spare the inoffensive vendor of greens, but send the organ-
grinder, who persists in the offence of organ-grinding, to grind, with
somewhat more muscular exertion, and less noise, a few days at the
crank. You will thus oblige the most valuable members of society
known to
*** The little thieves collect round the costermongers’ barrows, do
they ? So much the better I should say, if I wore a blue uniform, and
a list bracelet, and had to catch them.
Well—the old Mother’s much obliged
To her Columbian daughter,
And notes the filial sentiments
Expressed across the water.
But taking people by the hair
Is not her style of clinching ;
She leaves that game to fighters trained
Eor scalping, gouging, Lynching,
Or to viragos of the slums,
Billingsgate and such places,
Who first claw caps and then clutch hair,
And end by scratching faces.
Spat.t’ring each other with foul speech.
Or mud, when speech grows weaker,
In style that Beecher Ward might teach.
Or set up a stump-speaker.
Beware, lest if you stir a hand
The old Mother’s hair for lifting,
In smiting, you find her more smart
Than even you in shifting.
The Mother may be old, the Child
That threatens her be young;
But there are youthful limbs ill-knit,
And old ones firmly strung.
She held you once across her knee
When you’d outgrown chastising :
You floored the old dame and taught her truths
She suffered for despising.
That lesson, “ El ever take the whip
To lads too big for whipping,”
She now commends to those she sees
O’er the same stone a-tripping.
If once the old Mother from her child
To a back-fall submitted.
It was the cause that made her weak,
Her offsprings’ sinews knitted;
Think upon that, you who’d coerce
Four millions of your equals—
Chaw up the South, and then chaw up
England and France for sequels 1
Birkenhead and So ithdown Bams.
An Agricultural Gentleman, stan ling on the top of a hill among the
downs on one side of the River It nen, in Hampshire, shouted across
the valley to another agricultural gentleman on the summit of a cor-
responding eminence on the otb ,r side of it;—“ What sort o’ things be
them as the peeapers talks so uuch about, them there Iron-clad Sr,earn
Rams in the Mersey ? ” In answer, the opposite agriculturist hollaed,
“ I dunnow; but I spose they be a kind o’ Ship ! ”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
193
out his note-book, and commences a letter to the Times. _ Poison? A
pint of very dirty lukewarm soap and water, with a nail-brush in it.
Tourist, be careful where thou dost in future wash thy hands.
A SHOT FROM A STERN-CHASER.
“ He would like to take the old Mother by the hair and give her a good shaking.”
—See Mr. Secretary Chase’s Stump-speech at Cincinnati.
Lo, rowdy young America,
Loud stumpin’, rantin’, ravin’,
Renews his bills at ninety days
To make Rebellion cave in.
Enlarging debt, contracting rights,
Suspending habeas-corpus,
Blind flound’ring, nose in air, just like
The late-lamented Porpoise.
And Chase, on Southern necks prepared
To rivet yokes and collars,
If only for his neat green-backs
The North will change her dollars,
Utters a threat, that in her shoes
May well set England quaking,
To “ Take the old Mother by the hair,
And give her a good shaking! ”
With Lee's head-quarters pushed within
Two short days’ march of Washington,
If you can’t strike a swashing blow.
You’d best talk in a swashing tone !
With Rosecrans whipped, and Burnside checked,
And Dahlgren’s guns stopped shooting,
And gold gone up to fifty-two,
It’s time for high-faluting !
COSTERMONGERS AND ORGAN-GRINDERS.
My dear Sir Richard,
The gallant Blues of Scotland Yard, of whose tartanless clan
you are the chief, I suppose have some arrangement made for enabling
them, once a week, when off duty, to acknowledge that they have left
undone those things which they ought to have done, and have done
those things which they ought not to have done. Now, the whole of a
Policeman’s life, equally with that of any other man, ought to be spent
in trying to be able to make that acknowledgment with as little truth as
possible. But the Police have either a special proclivity, or else special
orders, in one particular at least, not to do that which they ought to
do by all means, and to do that which they ought not to do on any
account. They drive British costermongers from the pavement of a
locality where they are wanted, and allow Italian organ-grinders in
the streets. On the pavement the costermongers are earning their
subsistence by useful industry. In the streets the organ-grinders extort
pence from the lovers of peace and quietness by making a worse than
useless noise. The barrows of the costermongers create no obstruction.
The organs of the organ-grinders constitute a great nuisance. To many
people the disturbance of organ-grinding is insufferable, to some ruinous,
and it gives nobody any but. the very slightest pleasure. The coster-
mongers give no one any but the least inconvenience; and they are the
greengrocers and fishmongers of the poor. Why, then, do your con-
stables compel the British costermongers to move on, and leave the
Italian organ-grinders to be paid by those whom they annoy for doing so ?
Why do they thus molest the doves whilst they spare the crows ?
I am afraid that the Bobbies, as they are termed by the lower orders,
who I suppose call you the Bob major, cherish a certain sympathy with
those villainous foreign organ-grinding vagabonds. They have them-
selves taken what they suppose to be a musical turn lately, have formed
bands, and misemploy their leisure in practising tunes, which they
murder, with the same effect, I am credibly informed, as that of killing
a pig; excruciating the ears, distracting the mind, and arresting lite-
rary and scientific pursuits; not a fit amusement for those whose busi-
ness is that of taking up offenders. The Police themselves have become
organised banditti; is that why they connive at Italian organ-grinders ?
As long as costermongers pursue a quiet occupation, let them alone.
Silence them, if you like, when they cry sparrergrass, watercreases, and
other vegetables about the streets, because then they practise an offen-
sive calling. Yet they have at least watercress and asparagus to offer
in excuse for their yells; but the grinding-organist yields no vegetable,
fruit, or good ot any kind to atone for making much more horrible
noises. Spare the inoffensive vendor of greens, but send the organ-
grinder, who persists in the offence of organ-grinding, to grind, with
somewhat more muscular exertion, and less noise, a few days at the
crank. You will thus oblige the most valuable members of society
known to
*** The little thieves collect round the costermongers’ barrows, do
they ? So much the better I should say, if I wore a blue uniform, and
a list bracelet, and had to catch them.
Well—the old Mother’s much obliged
To her Columbian daughter,
And notes the filial sentiments
Expressed across the water.
But taking people by the hair
Is not her style of clinching ;
She leaves that game to fighters trained
Eor scalping, gouging, Lynching,
Or to viragos of the slums,
Billingsgate and such places,
Who first claw caps and then clutch hair,
And end by scratching faces.
Spat.t’ring each other with foul speech.
Or mud, when speech grows weaker,
In style that Beecher Ward might teach.
Or set up a stump-speaker.
Beware, lest if you stir a hand
The old Mother’s hair for lifting,
In smiting, you find her more smart
Than even you in shifting.
The Mother may be old, the Child
That threatens her be young;
But there are youthful limbs ill-knit,
And old ones firmly strung.
She held you once across her knee
When you’d outgrown chastising :
You floored the old dame and taught her truths
She suffered for despising.
That lesson, “ El ever take the whip
To lads too big for whipping,”
She now commends to those she sees
O’er the same stone a-tripping.
If once the old Mother from her child
To a back-fall submitted.
It was the cause that made her weak,
Her offsprings’ sinews knitted;
Think upon that, you who’d coerce
Four millions of your equals—
Chaw up the South, and then chaw up
England and France for sequels 1
Birkenhead and So ithdown Bams.
An Agricultural Gentleman, stan ling on the top of a hill among the
downs on one side of the River It nen, in Hampshire, shouted across
the valley to another agricultural gentleman on the summit of a cor-
responding eminence on the otb ,r side of it;—“ What sort o’ things be
them as the peeapers talks so uuch about, them there Iron-clad Sr,earn
Rams in the Mersey ? ” In answer, the opposite agriculturist hollaed,
“ I dunnow; but I spose they be a kind o’ Ship ! ”