Punch (46.1864)

February 20, 1864.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

71

I

ANECDOTE OF THE FROST.

Sly Gentleman {pretending to look at exposed thermometer). “ Quite Thirty, by
Jove ! ”

Young Lady Cousin {who has stopped by the most perfect accident). “ I’m nothing
op the kind, Sir; and the idea op your pretending not to see me.”

THE STROMNESS SCHOTTISCHE.

Some persons are said to be “too far north” to do anything foolish. Whether
this saying holds universally good may perhaps be questioned by persons of different
intelligence who may read the subjoined extract from the Orkney Herald:—

“ A- Veto upon Dancing.—The Town Council of Stromness have decided by a majority that
‘ promiscuous dancing ’ shall not be allowed within the Town Hall. Promiscuous dancing, we
suppose, means dancing engaged in at the same time by the two sexes. In these circumstances
the Council might as well have adopted Councillor Dunnet’s amendment, ‘ That no dancing
should be allowed at all,’ as a ball for ladies or gentlemen separately would be an absurdity never
heard of beyond the moral region of Strathbogie.”

The “ Spurgeon Quadrilles,” we believe, originated in a joke made, or said to
have been made, by Mr. Spurgeon in one of his sermons. A. ball for ladies
separately would be in effect a ballet, and appears not to have been prohibited, but
on the contrary to have been sanctioned by the resolution which forbids “ pro-
miscuous dancing” in the Town Hall of Stromness. That is the necessary
conclusion from the fact, that the amendment, which simply proposed that no
dancing should be allowed at all, was rejected. It does not perhaps equally
rollow that the Town Councillors of Stromness contemplate the permission, in their
Hall, of balls composed exclusively of male dancers. If, however, they are fanatics
of the Strathbogian delusion, there is no saying of what lunes they are incapable.
A. sort of balls, formed by gentlemen separately, used to be. danced in the Temple
by the learned Judges ana the Bar, in conformity with ancient custom. Perhaps
In “Pal au^01'iti?s Stromness are adclicted to some such a venerable,
though ludicrous, practice. On certain high days and holidays it may be that, as
men of business, they are in the habit of dancing ceremonial jigs in then Town
Hall with their own partners.

It may be, however, that these gentlemen, who do not object to dancing, but
only to dancing with ladies, will seriously put forth a conceivable explanation of
tnem reason for disallowing promiscuous dancing, and yet declining to disallow
aancmg as such. There is an exhibition, which our eyes have seen, performed
at certain Scottish fetes by a gigantic Sawney in plaid petticoats. It consists in
tne execution, to a fast tune on the bagpipes, of 'a pas seal between the blades of
two claymores disposed on the ground, m the form of a St. Andrew’s Cross.

1 We expect to be told that this national solemnity is regu-
larly enacted, at stated seasons, hi the Town Hall of
Stromness, and as it would have been abohshed by the
indiscriminate prohibition of dancing, the resolution against
that amusement was so worded as to allow a gentleman to
dance there by himself to his admiring countrymen.

THE ENVY OE THE WORLD.

All the nations how they hate us !

How they do vituperate us !

If they could annihilate us

Oh, how happy they would be !

What can we have done to fire them.
With the rage that doth inspire them,
Not to do what we desire them,

When we leave them all so free ?

Occupied with peaceful labour,

Ne’er do we attack a neighbour;

If we ever draw a sabre,

’Tis but to return a blow.

Never, basely acting under
Love of glory or of plunder.

Ho we launch our British thunder
Unprovoked on any foe.

All in turn attempt to use us.

Find they can’t, and then abuse us.

Being able to accuse us
Not of any act unjust ■

But it seems that we, old Ocean’s
Sons, with our peculiar notions,

In the midst of then commotions

Stand unmoved : to then disgust.

Then we won’t adopt their phrases;

Treat their theories as crazes;

Their bombast our laughter raises,

And then idols we eschew;

Don’t revere then superstitions.

And their priestly exhibitions,
Ceremonies, impositions,

As they think we ought to do;

Smile when they upbraid and chide us.
And, wherein they can’t abide us.

When they sneer at and deride us ;

Laughing at our own expense.

Then we wash our hands and faces
Not alone, like other races.

Which in Continental places,

Gives the natives great offence.

And, what vexes most the nations,

We, for all solicitations.

Out of all their complications

Keep ourselves with constant will;
Weigh then auguries as a feather;

In then spite our troubles weather;
Round us while they rage together:

Go right on, and prosper still.

THE DROP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.

Som:e objection has been raised to the alleged barbarity
of hanging seven criminals at once. The simultaneous
execution of any number of malefactors can be admitted to
be wrong only on the general ground of an acknowledgment
of the immorality of capital punishment. If it is right to
hang one man it is seven times as right to hang seven.
The execution of seven wrong-doers differs from that of one
only as a septet differs from a solo. There is no reason why
a gibbet should not be a seven-strmged instrument.
Granted, the rightfulness of the gallows, and “We are
Seven” is as good a neck-verse as any other. On the
contrary supposition a septuple execution is a sevenfold
wickedness, and the instinct that hesitates at hanging seven
people at once, whereas it would not scruple to hang one at
a time, is only a purblind moral sense, which, in order to be
enabled to see that an evil is an evil, requires it to be
magnified.


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