DOI Heft:
August 27, 1864
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16874#0089
August 27, 1864.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
81
!
DANGER OF CRINOLINE.
Emily. “ Oh, Laura, dear ! Do turn round and look at Aunty !
THE WAY TO MEET THE TIMES.
{To an Old Croaker.)
My Poor-spirited Priend,
What fun it is to hear a small man like you, grumble, as you
do, at being forced to contribute to that general prosperity which you
are invited to share ! You are out of keeping with the time—behind
your age. Since you are forced to contribute to the general prosperity,
why do you not accept the invitation to share it ?
You complain, forsooth, that the Income-Tax deprives you of the
savings which, against old age and loss of employment, you ought to
hoard out of your slender and precarious income. Poor petty miser !
flow much would sixpence in the pound be to save out of an income
which is slender and precarious ? You ought not to have a precarious
and slender income. You should make a fortune. Why don’t you
speculate and be rich? Invest in several of those numerous joint-stock
companies that will yield you twenty per cent, for your money. If you
have no money to invest, borrow it at five per cent. Who will lend it
to you ? Nobody, while you live in such a hole and so shabbily as you
do. Take a large house in a good district, give parties, and live up
to the means which you should determine to get.
The very basis of the country’s present prosperity, which you call in-
flated, is our fiscal system. There is something pitifully laughable in your
objection to direct taxation! You say that the State confiscates a large
part of your little income, and offers you compensation by encouraging
you to spend the remainder. Well, why don’t you take the compen-
sation? You don’t want it, you say; don’t want the cheapened lux-
uries which the facility of purchasing is the boon conferred on you by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer in return for taking away your
money. But you ought to want them. And you ought to make money
to enable yourself to enjoy them. Make money, and make others make
money. The price of butcher’s meat, and of many other things, is
ruinously high ? Pooh ! Make the more money, and enrich your butcher,
and others. Produce and consume more. You are not half either
of a producer or a consumer, liaise your consumption to the social
standard, and increase your production, that is to say acquisition, with
all your might. Don’t talk of frugality, husbandry, thrift. Those very
words are obsolete. Be as covetous as you please ; but no parsimony!
Don’t be a narrow niggard; be a lavish screw. Sumptuous avarice is
the fashion of the day, instead of cheeseparing economy.
Probably, if you were living in a district where turnpike tolls have
been abolished, you would complain of having to contribute, as a rate-
payer, to the maintenance of the roads in more than a just proportion
to your use of them, whereas what would be your proper course in such
a case would be to indemnify yourself by using them more, and keeping
horses and a carriage. I dare say, now, if any one were to leave yon
£1000, you would go and invest it in the Three-per-cents, as an old
woman or a country curate would have done formerly. What would
be the use of £30 of yearly dividend to you ? You would be better
without it, inside the workhouse. Risk a £1000 for £200 a-year, and
then risk that at the same rate, and so on. Nothing venture nothing
have. What if you fail ? You fail. You must fail somewhen. Any-
how death is a sure smash for everybody. Failure need not come first.
If it come, and is intolerable, why—there is chloroform.
Are you subjected to cruel grinding, little sufferer ? Don’t groan
under it, like a weak idle fool. Endure the grinding, and reimburse
yourself by grasping with redoubled energy. The harder you are
ground, grasp the wider. Never think of the end. It may be opulence,
may be pauperism, may be penal servitude. At the worst there is
always—chloroform. The life to come ? Oh, bother ! you must jump
that, and not stand in the way of this world with your galoches and old
umbrella. Who are you that you should have a way of your own which
is not the world’s ? Go with the majmity, sacrifice, or you will be
sacrificed to Mammon, as some dyslogistically call the Spirit of the
Age. I prefer the name of Plutus.
An Old Story Spoiled.
A Contemporary relates a wonderful anecdote about a hen, that
flew at a cow in defence of her chickens, and killed the cow with one
blow of her bill. This statement is not quite correct. To make the
story perfectly genuine the hen should be a cock, and the cow a bull.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
81
!
DANGER OF CRINOLINE.
Emily. “ Oh, Laura, dear ! Do turn round and look at Aunty !
THE WAY TO MEET THE TIMES.
{To an Old Croaker.)
My Poor-spirited Priend,
What fun it is to hear a small man like you, grumble, as you
do, at being forced to contribute to that general prosperity which you
are invited to share ! You are out of keeping with the time—behind
your age. Since you are forced to contribute to the general prosperity,
why do you not accept the invitation to share it ?
You complain, forsooth, that the Income-Tax deprives you of the
savings which, against old age and loss of employment, you ought to
hoard out of your slender and precarious income. Poor petty miser !
flow much would sixpence in the pound be to save out of an income
which is slender and precarious ? You ought not to have a precarious
and slender income. You should make a fortune. Why don’t you
speculate and be rich? Invest in several of those numerous joint-stock
companies that will yield you twenty per cent, for your money. If you
have no money to invest, borrow it at five per cent. Who will lend it
to you ? Nobody, while you live in such a hole and so shabbily as you
do. Take a large house in a good district, give parties, and live up
to the means which you should determine to get.
The very basis of the country’s present prosperity, which you call in-
flated, is our fiscal system. There is something pitifully laughable in your
objection to direct taxation! You say that the State confiscates a large
part of your little income, and offers you compensation by encouraging
you to spend the remainder. Well, why don’t you take the compen-
sation? You don’t want it, you say; don’t want the cheapened lux-
uries which the facility of purchasing is the boon conferred on you by
the Chancellor of the Exchequer in return for taking away your
money. But you ought to want them. And you ought to make money
to enable yourself to enjoy them. Make money, and make others make
money. The price of butcher’s meat, and of many other things, is
ruinously high ? Pooh ! Make the more money, and enrich your butcher,
and others. Produce and consume more. You are not half either
of a producer or a consumer, liaise your consumption to the social
standard, and increase your production, that is to say acquisition, with
all your might. Don’t talk of frugality, husbandry, thrift. Those very
words are obsolete. Be as covetous as you please ; but no parsimony!
Don’t be a narrow niggard; be a lavish screw. Sumptuous avarice is
the fashion of the day, instead of cheeseparing economy.
Probably, if you were living in a district where turnpike tolls have
been abolished, you would complain of having to contribute, as a rate-
payer, to the maintenance of the roads in more than a just proportion
to your use of them, whereas what would be your proper course in such
a case would be to indemnify yourself by using them more, and keeping
horses and a carriage. I dare say, now, if any one were to leave yon
£1000, you would go and invest it in the Three-per-cents, as an old
woman or a country curate would have done formerly. What would
be the use of £30 of yearly dividend to you ? You would be better
without it, inside the workhouse. Risk a £1000 for £200 a-year, and
then risk that at the same rate, and so on. Nothing venture nothing
have. What if you fail ? You fail. You must fail somewhen. Any-
how death is a sure smash for everybody. Failure need not come first.
If it come, and is intolerable, why—there is chloroform.
Are you subjected to cruel grinding, little sufferer ? Don’t groan
under it, like a weak idle fool. Endure the grinding, and reimburse
yourself by grasping with redoubled energy. The harder you are
ground, grasp the wider. Never think of the end. It may be opulence,
may be pauperism, may be penal servitude. At the worst there is
always—chloroform. The life to come ? Oh, bother ! you must jump
that, and not stand in the way of this world with your galoches and old
umbrella. Who are you that you should have a way of your own which
is not the world’s ? Go with the majmity, sacrifice, or you will be
sacrificed to Mammon, as some dyslogistically call the Spirit of the
Age. I prefer the name of Plutus.
An Old Story Spoiled.
A Contemporary relates a wonderful anecdote about a hen, that
flew at a cow in defence of her chickens, and killed the cow with one
blow of her bill. This statement is not quite correct. To make the
story perfectly genuine the hen should be a cock, and the cow a bull.