DOI issue:
March 5, 1864
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16873#0101
March 5, 1864.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
93
SHAKSPEARE AND HIS ASSAILANTS.
__ v . , T, - N poor dear Shakspeare
N ' • i -- .. tJie designs are as plen-
tiful as pick pockets.
Here is one suggested
by a writer in that influ-
ential print the West
London Observer:—
“ As regards the Stratford-
on-Avon Memorial, let it by
all means, be a startling
object to iook upon. Sup-
posing then—in these sen-
sation loving times, when
any novel design is sure to
attract the supi 'ort of a pub-
lic that never weary of new
patterns, from Great East-
erns to self-threadingneedles
—supposing, then, X say, the
suggestion be made to enli-
ven the scenery of the birth-
place of the sweet Swan of
Avon, ‘ England’s highest
pride,’ by erecting there a
porcelain tower, say of at
least one hundred feet high,
built with a solid core of
brickwork; the exterior
could be decorated inimi-
tably with designs in por-
celain from the tragedies
and plays and poems of the
bard, and with enriched gal-
leries from base to top, and
stairs giving access thereto
—it would, I imagine, be
the neplus ultra of enriched
design. ”
Horace called his works a monument more durable than brass, and
we really think that Shakspeare’s are more durable than crockery. A
porcelain tower doubtless might be made a pretty thing to look at—
while it lasted: but we fear that little boys would soon be tempted
to throw stones at it, and we know the best of crockery in such cases
will crack.
THE STATE COLLEGE.
Dear Punch,
I have been a month reading for the next Staff College
Entrance Examination, but the subjects are so numerous that I am
quite bewildered, and want you to advise me what to do. The following
is the style of information I have already succeeded in picking up:—
“ The Angie A is a right angle, and equal to ninety degrees of Fahren-
heit, measured on a scale showing a hundred and twenty-seven Spanish
kilometres to the square inch, multiplied by twice xy into the cube root
of the ravelin in Cormontaigne’s fifteenth system, divided by decimal
000000 of a megalosaurus, completely upset the calculations of Arch-
duke Charles, who, with his army in a highly spheroidal state, was
endeavouring, at Marengo, on the Northern frontier of Spain, to turn
the flank of the Old Red Sandstone dissolved in bi-proto-carburetted
hydrogen; the sandstone escapes, and the hydrogen forms a military
road across Mont Cenis, at a distance from Wellington’s head-quarters,
and three aneroid barometers, doing as much work as seventeen tailors
working twenty-six hours a day, and protected by trous de loup from the
vertical fire of three sapgabions ranged along the shoulder angle of a
plane of defilade erected on the hachilre of a rhombic dodecahedron.”
Ever yours.
A Bewildered Candidate for the Stafp.
HARRY VERSUS HARRIS.
Lord Malmesbury having in the debate on tne Royal Arcade Bill,
thrown out, alluded to Mr. Harry Emanuel, the jeweller, of Brook
Street, as “ a gentleman of the Hebrew faith,” Mr. Emanuel writes a
letter to the Times, wherein, after answering the noble Earl’s statement
connecting him with “the perpetuation of the deficient width in Bond
Street,” he makes the ensuing remark:—
“ I, of course, very much regret that my ‘faith’ and the fact of my intended
removal should be obnoxious to the noble Lord, but am really at a loss to know
what either of these subjects can have had to do with the matter under discussion,
or why Lord Malmesbury should have obtruded them into a Parliamentary debate. *’
It is a curious coincidence that whilst the plaintiff in this case names
himself Harry Emanuel, the defendant is named James Howard
Harris. Harry against Harris ! Such an antagonism would incline
us to say, with a certain variation, “When Greek meets Greek,” &c.,
if we did not know that Harris in this instance is a Christian surname,
knowing as we do that Harry is only the semblance of a Christian
name.
We here see young Harry, as it were, with his beaver up, and asking
Harris what he means by dragging his “ faith ” and his transference
of shop into the House of Lords. It is remarkable that Harry puts
the word “ faith ” in inverts, which seem to imply a smile at the impu-
tation it conveys. Harris ought to have better known what Eaitli is
than to employ the speciality of Christianity as a synonym for the creed
acknowledged by a gentleman in Harry’s theological position. But
there is a difference between the Earl of Malmesbury, and the
philosopher of that ilk, or any other. Mammy will be Mammy !
WHO WILL SAY A WORD LOR THEM?
My dear Punch,
That was a good letter which you put in your last number,
written by a ballet-girl—I beg your pardon, Miss, I mean to say, ot
course, a “Lady of the Ballet.” I hope she and her sisterhood will
reap some good in consequence, and now the public know how little
these hard-working girls are paid, and what great expense they are put
to in the matter of theft wardrobe, which the people who engage them
by rights ought to supply, I hope the public will at any rate regard
them with more charity, even if that charity be not allowed in case of
need to take substantial shape. Of course the public is too virtuous
to dream of founding an asylum for them, to which they might retire
when their dancing days are over, and where, in the event of accident
or illness, they might be nursed and tended at the public’s own expense.
I can conceive the many obstacles there are to such a scheme, and how,
even were a Home for Ballet-girls established, it would be next door to
impossible to get trustees to manage it. What father of a family could
undertake the office, without continual torments in his domestic life F
Only just imagine the black looks he would be greeted with, on the
days when he returned from an inspection of the Home! Just conceive
the pious horror wherewith his wife would shrink and shudder at his
mention of that terribly contaminating place! Aid supposing there
should be some slight festivity at Christmas time, as is the custom now
at most Asylums, I believe, only think if he confessed that, as one of the
M.C.’s there, he had danced with a live ballet-girl, even though she was
past sixty, what an earthquake of domestic ties and friendships would
result! What matron would receive such a Pariah in her drawing
room ? "W hat wife would not seek refuge in Sir J. P. Wilde, his
court ?
So the notion of a N ational Asylum for Old Ballet-girls, I put aside
as quite preposterous in this our moral Christian land. Yet I suppose,
like other mortals, ballet-dancers do grow old, and they can’t save much
to live on in their possible old age out of their twelve or fifteen shilling's
salary per week. What becomes then of our Columbines, our Fairies
and our Sylphs, when they are over fifty, or are weakened in their legs F
Do their Managers provide them with some rural Bowers of Bliss, where
they may live in idle ease and happy freedom from the call-boy, until
the final call that summons them away? I fear me this conjecture is scarce
borne out by the fact that their Managers require them to buy their
satin shoes and silk tights and other costly clothing out of their twelve
shillings a-week. Yet even ballet-girls must live, even when they are
past work, though where and how they do so is a mystery to me. Were
a Home for them established, that mystery would be solved: for
although it might be difficult to get a building big enough to hold the
many applicants who doubtless soon would flock to it, still at the Home
funds might be furnished for those who could not live in it to be lodged
and fed elsewhere.
I just throw out the suggestion, but of course I don’t expect that
any one will act on it, for I know that most rich people have far too
much morality to think of doing anything for such people as poor ballet-
girls, who are supposed to be descended from some of the Lost Tribes.
Of course Polite Society can never be expected to take anything like an
interest in persons of tliis sort. Still although Polite _ Society may not
feel disposed to help to keep poor ballet-girls alive, I think Polite Society
would not be altogether pleased were ballet-girls extinct. When Mrs.
Overr Wrightbouse gets her annual Christmas box and takes her
children to a morning performance of a pantomime (which everybody
knows is far more moral than an evening one), I doubt if she or they
would like to find the part of Columbine omitted, and to be told that all
the fairies had retired from scenic life for fear of being destitute and
starved in their old age. So if the ballet-girls be needful to the plea-
sure of Society, I think Society might stretch a hand to help them in
their need.
With a million of apologies to the million of your moral readers for
intruding on their notice a subject of this highly objectionable sort, I
will only in conclusion add, that if my hint be taken and a subscription
fairly started for the purpose I iiave advocated, I shall be happy to sub-
scribe myself (at the bottom of a cheque, mind)
One who will Pay.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
93
SHAKSPEARE AND HIS ASSAILANTS.
__ v . , T, - N poor dear Shakspeare
N ' • i -- .. tJie designs are as plen-
tiful as pick pockets.
Here is one suggested
by a writer in that influ-
ential print the West
London Observer:—
“ As regards the Stratford-
on-Avon Memorial, let it by
all means, be a startling
object to iook upon. Sup-
posing then—in these sen-
sation loving times, when
any novel design is sure to
attract the supi 'ort of a pub-
lic that never weary of new
patterns, from Great East-
erns to self-threadingneedles
—supposing, then, X say, the
suggestion be made to enli-
ven the scenery of the birth-
place of the sweet Swan of
Avon, ‘ England’s highest
pride,’ by erecting there a
porcelain tower, say of at
least one hundred feet high,
built with a solid core of
brickwork; the exterior
could be decorated inimi-
tably with designs in por-
celain from the tragedies
and plays and poems of the
bard, and with enriched gal-
leries from base to top, and
stairs giving access thereto
—it would, I imagine, be
the neplus ultra of enriched
design. ”
Horace called his works a monument more durable than brass, and
we really think that Shakspeare’s are more durable than crockery. A
porcelain tower doubtless might be made a pretty thing to look at—
while it lasted: but we fear that little boys would soon be tempted
to throw stones at it, and we know the best of crockery in such cases
will crack.
THE STATE COLLEGE.
Dear Punch,
I have been a month reading for the next Staff College
Entrance Examination, but the subjects are so numerous that I am
quite bewildered, and want you to advise me what to do. The following
is the style of information I have already succeeded in picking up:—
“ The Angie A is a right angle, and equal to ninety degrees of Fahren-
heit, measured on a scale showing a hundred and twenty-seven Spanish
kilometres to the square inch, multiplied by twice xy into the cube root
of the ravelin in Cormontaigne’s fifteenth system, divided by decimal
000000 of a megalosaurus, completely upset the calculations of Arch-
duke Charles, who, with his army in a highly spheroidal state, was
endeavouring, at Marengo, on the Northern frontier of Spain, to turn
the flank of the Old Red Sandstone dissolved in bi-proto-carburetted
hydrogen; the sandstone escapes, and the hydrogen forms a military
road across Mont Cenis, at a distance from Wellington’s head-quarters,
and three aneroid barometers, doing as much work as seventeen tailors
working twenty-six hours a day, and protected by trous de loup from the
vertical fire of three sapgabions ranged along the shoulder angle of a
plane of defilade erected on the hachilre of a rhombic dodecahedron.”
Ever yours.
A Bewildered Candidate for the Stafp.
HARRY VERSUS HARRIS.
Lord Malmesbury having in the debate on tne Royal Arcade Bill,
thrown out, alluded to Mr. Harry Emanuel, the jeweller, of Brook
Street, as “ a gentleman of the Hebrew faith,” Mr. Emanuel writes a
letter to the Times, wherein, after answering the noble Earl’s statement
connecting him with “the perpetuation of the deficient width in Bond
Street,” he makes the ensuing remark:—
“ I, of course, very much regret that my ‘faith’ and the fact of my intended
removal should be obnoxious to the noble Lord, but am really at a loss to know
what either of these subjects can have had to do with the matter under discussion,
or why Lord Malmesbury should have obtruded them into a Parliamentary debate. *’
It is a curious coincidence that whilst the plaintiff in this case names
himself Harry Emanuel, the defendant is named James Howard
Harris. Harry against Harris ! Such an antagonism would incline
us to say, with a certain variation, “When Greek meets Greek,” &c.,
if we did not know that Harris in this instance is a Christian surname,
knowing as we do that Harry is only the semblance of a Christian
name.
We here see young Harry, as it were, with his beaver up, and asking
Harris what he means by dragging his “ faith ” and his transference
of shop into the House of Lords. It is remarkable that Harry puts
the word “ faith ” in inverts, which seem to imply a smile at the impu-
tation it conveys. Harris ought to have better known what Eaitli is
than to employ the speciality of Christianity as a synonym for the creed
acknowledged by a gentleman in Harry’s theological position. But
there is a difference between the Earl of Malmesbury, and the
philosopher of that ilk, or any other. Mammy will be Mammy !
WHO WILL SAY A WORD LOR THEM?
My dear Punch,
That was a good letter which you put in your last number,
written by a ballet-girl—I beg your pardon, Miss, I mean to say, ot
course, a “Lady of the Ballet.” I hope she and her sisterhood will
reap some good in consequence, and now the public know how little
these hard-working girls are paid, and what great expense they are put
to in the matter of theft wardrobe, which the people who engage them
by rights ought to supply, I hope the public will at any rate regard
them with more charity, even if that charity be not allowed in case of
need to take substantial shape. Of course the public is too virtuous
to dream of founding an asylum for them, to which they might retire
when their dancing days are over, and where, in the event of accident
or illness, they might be nursed and tended at the public’s own expense.
I can conceive the many obstacles there are to such a scheme, and how,
even were a Home for Ballet-girls established, it would be next door to
impossible to get trustees to manage it. What father of a family could
undertake the office, without continual torments in his domestic life F
Only just imagine the black looks he would be greeted with, on the
days when he returned from an inspection of the Home! Just conceive
the pious horror wherewith his wife would shrink and shudder at his
mention of that terribly contaminating place! Aid supposing there
should be some slight festivity at Christmas time, as is the custom now
at most Asylums, I believe, only think if he confessed that, as one of the
M.C.’s there, he had danced with a live ballet-girl, even though she was
past sixty, what an earthquake of domestic ties and friendships would
result! What matron would receive such a Pariah in her drawing
room ? "W hat wife would not seek refuge in Sir J. P. Wilde, his
court ?
So the notion of a N ational Asylum for Old Ballet-girls, I put aside
as quite preposterous in this our moral Christian land. Yet I suppose,
like other mortals, ballet-dancers do grow old, and they can’t save much
to live on in their possible old age out of their twelve or fifteen shilling's
salary per week. What becomes then of our Columbines, our Fairies
and our Sylphs, when they are over fifty, or are weakened in their legs F
Do their Managers provide them with some rural Bowers of Bliss, where
they may live in idle ease and happy freedom from the call-boy, until
the final call that summons them away? I fear me this conjecture is scarce
borne out by the fact that their Managers require them to buy their
satin shoes and silk tights and other costly clothing out of their twelve
shillings a-week. Yet even ballet-girls must live, even when they are
past work, though where and how they do so is a mystery to me. Were
a Home for them established, that mystery would be solved: for
although it might be difficult to get a building big enough to hold the
many applicants who doubtless soon would flock to it, still at the Home
funds might be furnished for those who could not live in it to be lodged
and fed elsewhere.
I just throw out the suggestion, but of course I don’t expect that
any one will act on it, for I know that most rich people have far too
much morality to think of doing anything for such people as poor ballet-
girls, who are supposed to be descended from some of the Lost Tribes.
Of course Polite Society can never be expected to take anything like an
interest in persons of tliis sort. Still although Polite _ Society may not
feel disposed to help to keep poor ballet-girls alive, I think Polite Society
would not be altogether pleased were ballet-girls extinct. When Mrs.
Overr Wrightbouse gets her annual Christmas box and takes her
children to a morning performance of a pantomime (which everybody
knows is far more moral than an evening one), I doubt if she or they
would like to find the part of Columbine omitted, and to be told that all
the fairies had retired from scenic life for fear of being destitute and
starved in their old age. So if the ballet-girls be needful to the plea-
sure of Society, I think Society might stretch a hand to help them in
their need.
With a million of apologies to the million of your moral readers for
intruding on their notice a subject of this highly objectionable sort, I
will only in conclusion add, that if my hint be taken and a subscription
fairly started for the purpose I iiave advocated, I shall be happy to sub-
scribe myself (at the bottom of a cheque, mind)
One who will Pay.