Punch: Punch (50.1866)

90

[March 10, 1866,

PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

ON THE ICE.

Being Helped along a Slide by some one Elsb’s Brother, and

Being Helped along by one’s Own Brother.

THE RAILWAY DESPOTS.

We are monarchs of all we survey,

Our progress there’s none to dispute:

From the centre our lines, to the sea.

Branches new, all around, ever shoot.

0 Solitude ! where are thy charms,

If we choose, that we cannot deface,

And destroy, with discordant alarms.

The peace of a beautiful place ?

We are out of legality’s reach,

We may take land or leave it alone;

Need but fee certain lawyers for speech,

By forced sale to make it our own.

The public may not want our train,

Our railway desire not to see ;

But you ’re governed by mercantile men,

The strongest among them are we.

Society, comfort, and love,

Bestowed, in a cottage, on man;

As happy as dove is with dove,

Let people enjoy while they can.

For any fond pair from their cage,

If we want it, we drive without ruth;

Pull down the Retreat of old age,

And raze the Asylum of youth.

Extension! what treasure untold,

Resides in that oft-spoken word !

What visions of silver and gold,

Which traffic may some day afford.

Where the sound of the train-starting bell
Lone valleys and rocks never heard;

Never scented the smoke and the smell.

Or swarmed when a sabbath appeared.

Ye victims, whose rights are our sport,

Go howl on the desolate shore,

We win the Committee’s report,

And your homesteads shall know you no more.

Our friends you to Parliament send,

There many and mighty are we.

0 give us the vote of each friend,

On his legs whom we don’t want to see !

How fool we the national mind
To give up all else for quick flight!

What a trophy we reared in yon blind
Excluding St. Paul’s from the sight!

When we think of a neighbouring land,

We imagine ourselves to be there.

Would its people and Government stand
Such doings as ours, if we were ?

But we’ve upset the humble-bees’ nest;

Of a swarm round our ears we ’re aware ;

We’ve the labouring class dispossessed,

And that wrong we shall have to repair

If Tom Hughes gain his point in his place ;

But money, encouraging thought!

Gives Railway oppression a grace,

And reconciles men to—what not ?

SPEECHES BY AN OLD SMOKER.

I am almost tempted to wish, Sir, that I were as great a
fool as old Brown. He consoles himself for his narrow
circumstances by the reflection that, as he has nothing to
leave behind him, his relations will not rejoice at his death.
I should be glad if I could console myself anyhow for my
impecuniosity. But, were I a rich man, I should not care
a fig who might.rejoice at my death, supposing nobody
tried to shorten my life. And, Sir, if you wanted your
relatives to grieve instead of rejoicing at your death, you
could easily make them do so by leaving all you died
worth to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.

Money is not happiness, Sir P No, Sir; and money is
not wine. Money is ndt beauty. But, Sir, no money no
Madeira, and no money no matrimony — the state of life
which, as I trust, Sir, you daily experience, is the nearest
approximation to happiness below.