DOI issue:
January 6, 1866
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16877#0010
2
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
course of events, while to others they would, if stated, have the questionable charm
of novelty. Princes and lords, the great poet has remarked, may flourish or may
fade, but against this irrefragable axiom we may set the equally irrefutable dictum
of the philosopher that all is not gold that glitters. Humcmum est errare. While
we hail with pleasure the advance of civilisation, we are unable to close our eyes
to its retrogression, or to deny that while Paris perfumes its copper coinage,
Manchester puts its steel fork into its mouth. The temperance of Florence is
no valid excuse for the drunkenness of Glasgow, the courtesy of Madrid can scarcely
atone for the clownishness of Yorkshire, nor can we accept the theory of compen-
sation so far as to allow that because it is pleasant to praise the sweetmeats of
Constantinople we must be blind to the fact that the majority of London sugar-
plums are coarse and deleterious. Confined to these large and general views, our
analysis of European affairs may be unsatisfactory, but we hasten to assert our
belief that Europe will maintain her predominance over the other continents, so
long as she continues their superior in arts and arms, and in concluding our survey
of the world, we would add the cheering, if not exhilarating reflection, that, come
what come may, time aud the hour run through the roughest day.
[January 6, 18b6.
astronomer, the voluptuous vegetarian, the foolish fish-
monger, the prepossessing painter, the maudlin man-
milliner, and the chimerical chiropodist are all shown up
in their true characters, and we are literally brought to
their very doors. Alike for severe survey of mankind from
lofty Belgravia to low Bow, from haughty Highbury to
wulgar Walworth, from the mountainous region dominated
by Ben Primrose to the valley washed by the silver Thames,
as for extract from the waistcoat pocket during an idle
hour by the sad sea waves, we recommend Kelly’s Direc-
tory as the most wonderful work of the day, and the sine
qua non for those who believe with the great bard that the
proper study of mankind is man—for here he is by the
hundred thousand.
FITZ-D ANDO'S LAMENT.
MR. SMITH
Ye good bivalves, ye savoury molluscs,
Ye living titbits, born of Ocean’s mud,
Still toothsome when Time’s hand hath drawn our tusks,
Regenerators bland of aged blood :
I gaze on ye in fish-shops with such eye
As might poor swain view lofty maiden’s brow.
0 lovely, but alas for me too high !
Three halfpence each—so much are natives now !
Ye oysters, how is it you’ve grown so dear,
In price ascending ever more and more,
Up up aloft as year rolls after year?
Scarce are ye now, so plentiful of yore ?
An oyster famine ! What’s the cause of that ?
Of ocean foes some sages talk to me
That prey upon you and devour your spat,
Of stormy waves that wash it out to sea.
They tell me how you perish, left to freeze
In rigorous winter by an ebbing tide,
But you had always chances such as these,
When ye were cheap and common, to abide.
It is but in relation that you’ve grown
Less numerous, not absolutely few ;
There are more mouths that gape—alas ! my own
But waters—now than once there were for you.
For you, but not for you alone ; for meat,
And all besides that smokes upon the board ;
Fish, fowl, eggs, butter too: things good to eat
Exceed what moderate incomes can afford.
Increase of population must be fed ;
Our numbers with prosperity extend :
Where, if we keep on going thus ahead,
Will this prosperity, ye oysters, end ?
Will ye become as costly as the pearls
Torn by the diver from your kind, a prey
To decorate the brows of splendid girls ?
And girls, oh how expensive, too, are they !
Ah, no more natives for the frugal swain,
No possibility of married life !
Oysters are for the rich—and he’s insane
Who, rolling not in riches, takes a wife.
Having been Allowed to Go and See the Sphinx with Two old School-
fellows, has an awful Shock when he Returns at 2 a.m.
OUR ONE REVIEW.
Kelly's Directory for 1866. Old Boswell Court, St. Clement’s.
We have carefully perused every word of this remarkable work, and we exhort
all our own readers to do the same. It is as extraordinary for its wealth of diction
as for its accuracy of description. It contains thousands of words, none of which
we ever used in our lives, and yet there is no saying at what moment we may be
called upon to use any or all of them. It introduces us with much familiarity, but
with no vulgarity, to myriads of our fellow-creatures, and the terseness combined
with lucidity, with which their leading principle of life is indicated, is worthy of
all praise. There is no partiality, no coarse exclusiveness, in the author’s views of
society—in one page we are introduced to the Most Noble the Marquis of
Ararat, K.G., and to all his stately mansions, and in another we are led to
the humble shop of James Grimes, greengrocer and parties carefully attended,
while the magnificent merchant, the lugubrious lawyer, the delightful doctor, the
adored author, the carnivorous critic, the affable actor, the stolid statesman,
the melancholy musician, the pallid parson, the daring dissenter, the antibilious
STONES CRUSHED BY MACHINERY.
Local Self-Government enables us to practise an economy
which Centralisation denies. In London and England gene-
rally the ratepayers are exempt from the expense which
must be entailed on the citizens of Paris by such machines
as that of which the operation is thus described by
Galignani
“ A powerful steam-roller for crushing the macadam on the roads is
at the present moment at work on the Pont-Neuf, and passes back-
wards and forwards up and down the steep inclines at each end of
that bridge, amongst vehicles of aU kinds, without causing the least
inconvenience.”
Under our British system of Local Self-Government, the
stones in the roads are broken by the gradual agency of
horses’ hoofs and the wheels of carriages, grinding, and
ground. What would the vestrymen of England say to the
proposal of an additional highway-rate for a steam-mac-
adamiser? It might, however, answer the purpose of
horsekeepers and owners of vehicles to tax themselves
for the termination of a state of our roads, which, here
' or there, is always brutal.
I
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
course of events, while to others they would, if stated, have the questionable charm
of novelty. Princes and lords, the great poet has remarked, may flourish or may
fade, but against this irrefragable axiom we may set the equally irrefutable dictum
of the philosopher that all is not gold that glitters. Humcmum est errare. While
we hail with pleasure the advance of civilisation, we are unable to close our eyes
to its retrogression, or to deny that while Paris perfumes its copper coinage,
Manchester puts its steel fork into its mouth. The temperance of Florence is
no valid excuse for the drunkenness of Glasgow, the courtesy of Madrid can scarcely
atone for the clownishness of Yorkshire, nor can we accept the theory of compen-
sation so far as to allow that because it is pleasant to praise the sweetmeats of
Constantinople we must be blind to the fact that the majority of London sugar-
plums are coarse and deleterious. Confined to these large and general views, our
analysis of European affairs may be unsatisfactory, but we hasten to assert our
belief that Europe will maintain her predominance over the other continents, so
long as she continues their superior in arts and arms, and in concluding our survey
of the world, we would add the cheering, if not exhilarating reflection, that, come
what come may, time aud the hour run through the roughest day.
[January 6, 18b6.
astronomer, the voluptuous vegetarian, the foolish fish-
monger, the prepossessing painter, the maudlin man-
milliner, and the chimerical chiropodist are all shown up
in their true characters, and we are literally brought to
their very doors. Alike for severe survey of mankind from
lofty Belgravia to low Bow, from haughty Highbury to
wulgar Walworth, from the mountainous region dominated
by Ben Primrose to the valley washed by the silver Thames,
as for extract from the waistcoat pocket during an idle
hour by the sad sea waves, we recommend Kelly’s Direc-
tory as the most wonderful work of the day, and the sine
qua non for those who believe with the great bard that the
proper study of mankind is man—for here he is by the
hundred thousand.
FITZ-D ANDO'S LAMENT.
MR. SMITH
Ye good bivalves, ye savoury molluscs,
Ye living titbits, born of Ocean’s mud,
Still toothsome when Time’s hand hath drawn our tusks,
Regenerators bland of aged blood :
I gaze on ye in fish-shops with such eye
As might poor swain view lofty maiden’s brow.
0 lovely, but alas for me too high !
Three halfpence each—so much are natives now !
Ye oysters, how is it you’ve grown so dear,
In price ascending ever more and more,
Up up aloft as year rolls after year?
Scarce are ye now, so plentiful of yore ?
An oyster famine ! What’s the cause of that ?
Of ocean foes some sages talk to me
That prey upon you and devour your spat,
Of stormy waves that wash it out to sea.
They tell me how you perish, left to freeze
In rigorous winter by an ebbing tide,
But you had always chances such as these,
When ye were cheap and common, to abide.
It is but in relation that you’ve grown
Less numerous, not absolutely few ;
There are more mouths that gape—alas ! my own
But waters—now than once there were for you.
For you, but not for you alone ; for meat,
And all besides that smokes upon the board ;
Fish, fowl, eggs, butter too: things good to eat
Exceed what moderate incomes can afford.
Increase of population must be fed ;
Our numbers with prosperity extend :
Where, if we keep on going thus ahead,
Will this prosperity, ye oysters, end ?
Will ye become as costly as the pearls
Torn by the diver from your kind, a prey
To decorate the brows of splendid girls ?
And girls, oh how expensive, too, are they !
Ah, no more natives for the frugal swain,
No possibility of married life !
Oysters are for the rich—and he’s insane
Who, rolling not in riches, takes a wife.
Having been Allowed to Go and See the Sphinx with Two old School-
fellows, has an awful Shock when he Returns at 2 a.m.
OUR ONE REVIEW.
Kelly's Directory for 1866. Old Boswell Court, St. Clement’s.
We have carefully perused every word of this remarkable work, and we exhort
all our own readers to do the same. It is as extraordinary for its wealth of diction
as for its accuracy of description. It contains thousands of words, none of which
we ever used in our lives, and yet there is no saying at what moment we may be
called upon to use any or all of them. It introduces us with much familiarity, but
with no vulgarity, to myriads of our fellow-creatures, and the terseness combined
with lucidity, with which their leading principle of life is indicated, is worthy of
all praise. There is no partiality, no coarse exclusiveness, in the author’s views of
society—in one page we are introduced to the Most Noble the Marquis of
Ararat, K.G., and to all his stately mansions, and in another we are led to
the humble shop of James Grimes, greengrocer and parties carefully attended,
while the magnificent merchant, the lugubrious lawyer, the delightful doctor, the
adored author, the carnivorous critic, the affable actor, the stolid statesman,
the melancholy musician, the pallid parson, the daring dissenter, the antibilious
STONES CRUSHED BY MACHINERY.
Local Self-Government enables us to practise an economy
which Centralisation denies. In London and England gene-
rally the ratepayers are exempt from the expense which
must be entailed on the citizens of Paris by such machines
as that of which the operation is thus described by
Galignani
“ A powerful steam-roller for crushing the macadam on the roads is
at the present moment at work on the Pont-Neuf, and passes back-
wards and forwards up and down the steep inclines at each end of
that bridge, amongst vehicles of aU kinds, without causing the least
inconvenience.”
Under our British system of Local Self-Government, the
stones in the roads are broken by the gradual agency of
horses’ hoofs and the wheels of carriages, grinding, and
ground. What would the vestrymen of England say to the
proposal of an additional highway-rate for a steam-mac-
adamiser? It might, however, answer the purpose of
horsekeepers and owners of vehicles to tax themselves
for the termination of a state of our roads, which, here
' or there, is always brutal.
I