Punch (50.1866)

March 31. 1866.]

PUNCH OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

129


THE SLANG OF THE STAGE.

Wonderful are the wants one
every day sees advertised, and
of all none are more wondrous
than the wants theatrical!
For example, do just look at
t.his strange catalogue of some
of them:—

WANTED, an ENTIRE
DRAMATIC COMPANY, at
the close of the present Equestrian
Season, for the Summer, including
Leading GentlemaD, Heavy ditto.
Juvenile ditto, First and Second
Singing Low Comedians, Old Men,
Walking Gents, <&e., &c. ; Leading
Lady, Heavy and Old ditto, Walk-
ing ditto, Singing Chambermaid,
Lady Dancer, and Scenic Artist
(BOTH TO ACT), Leader of
Orchestra, and oth ers. Also several
Utility Ladies and Gentlemen,
Wardrobe-keeper, and a Carpenter
and Property Man, both to com-
bine Bill Posting and delivering.
Stamps not required, as silence
must be considered a negative.

It would appear from this
announcement that a leadin
man upon the stage is
garded as a gentleman, while
walking men are merely con-
sidered to be “ gents.” Of
the grounds for this distinc-
tion we are not at all aware,
nor do we know how long an
actor continues to be “juve-
nile,” nor at what age he is
treated as one of the “old
men.” Then, how many
pounds, we wonder, is a man
required to weigh before he
can procure an engagement as
a “heavy” one? and what
amount of salary could mollify
a lady after the gross insult, of
calling her an “ old ditto P ”

We are not exactly certain who the two persons may be. who are in such big
letters wanted “both to act-.” but, from the great stress which is laid upon their
doing so, we are led to think that acting is not so much required of the remainder
of the company, and that the walking gentleman and lady may perhaps be walking-
sticks. Though common on the stage, perhaps, “utility ladies ” are not abundant
off it: and we could wish that ladies generally would try to earn the epithet better
than they do. As for a “ property man ” being wanted in this company, we should
like to know the company that a property man—we mean a man of property—would
not be asked to join. It is not everywhere, however, that a man of property

O

re-

would be asked to act as bill-poster, as in the above an-
nouncement is the case. But there are things done on
the stage which never would be dreamed of being done in
real life: indeed, the things done on the stage are often
quite as puzzling as the slang of stage advertisements,
whereof what we have quoted is a tolerable dose.

THE PILOT THAT ’S NEARING THE
ROCK.

I Wished to praise the Budget
By Gladstone framed, my nation,

Still further, as I judge it.

To lighten of taxation;

And fondly I expected
To sing, for London’s pleasure,

Of Commons, well protected
By Cowper’s pending measure.

The hope I had contracted
To laud, in verses polished,

Yet more good laws enacted,

And more bad Acts abolished.

But oh, what sad delusion
Shall I have laboured under,

If impotent conclusion
Result from grievous blunder.

Why, Russell, didst thou, heeding
The Demagogue’s sole worry,

No haste when there was needing,

A crude Reform Bill hurry ?

Plump on yon rock, appearing
So plain, in calmest weather.

With open eyes you’re steering:

Confound it altogether !

But, you to wreck thus tending.

Obey no Maelstrom suction :

No, you yourself are sending
Your good ship to destruction.

No iron fate has bound her,

But only choice demented.

Ah ! wherefore should she founder
When that might be prevented ?

What, O thou, prone the twaddle,

To quote, of Whig tradition !

Would Mr. Fox, thy model,

Have done in thy position?

Self-sacrifice, from weeping
Hope’s shipwreck, might insure us.

Then overboard by leaping
Oblige us, Palinurus !


A NATIONAL DEBT OE HONOUR.

You are occasionally informed by the newspapers that a meeting has
been held by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt. The next time these gentlemen meet they will perhaps take into
consideration, and report upon, a debt of about £6,100 which the nation
owes to the surviving relatives of the late Admiral Fitzroy.

The sum above stated, and rather more, was so much money person-
ally expended by Admiral Fitzroy on the public service, and never
repaid to him. In particular, now some thirty years ago, “this con-
scientious surveyor, unwilling to quit his South American station
without rendering his services in every way complete, had hired two
additional vessels at his own cost to finish off the examination of the
coasts of the Falkland Islands, and subsequently purchased a third,
besides fitting out the Beagle to a great extent at his own expense.”
Was not this statement made by Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, at
the Royal Geographical Society, in his anniversary address to that
scientific body, delivered May 22, 1863? And did not the eminent
speaker on that occasion also relate how, so long ago as 1829, “young
Fitzroy ” gained credit by his discovery of the Otway Water in the
Straits of Magellan, insomuch that his commanding officer, Captain
Philip King, very much applauding what he had done, named one of
the chief sea passages Fitzroy Strait ?

Everybody knows the work that Fitzroy did as chief of the Weather
Office; a capacity wherein, having saved a multitude of lives, he finally,
from over-exertion, lost his own. He died morally worth millions;
fiscally worth less than nothing: in debt £3000. The late First Minister
of the Crown promised to confer a pension on Mrs. Fitzroy, a promise

which was more than he found himself able to perform. Government can
do no more than ask authority from the House of Commons for a grant
sufficient to liquidate the debt which was all that the Admiral left
behind him. The times are so bad; the nation is so poor, and is
indebted to so many benefactors who had spent more than their all
upon their country before they died !

The progress of a magnificent structure in course of erection by a
grateful country in Hyde Park, shows, however, that Englishmen can
contribute something out of their poverty in acknowledgment of true
merit, even when its claims are not enforced by necessity.

In behalf of the late Admiral Fitzroy’s widow and children, the
Liverpool Chamber of Commerce has formed a fund to be called “The
Admiral Fitzroy Testimonial Fund,” to whose Committee the Hono-
rary Secretary in London is Charles Shaw, Esq., 55, Charing Cross ;
the Secretary and Treasurer in Liverpool is William Ferguson, Esq.,
Liverpool and London Chambers; and their London Bankers are
Messrs. Coutts & Co.

Troublesome Things.

There are several varieties of a powder, said to be made of a species
of camomile, sold under the name of Insecticide, or Insect-killer, as the
Insecticide Yicat, Insecticide Dumont, Persian Insect-Powder, aud so
on, to destroy parasitical, bed-besetting, and other odious animalcules.
But there is no powder, and, if there is any power, it is, to the disgrace
of the police who possess it, not exerted, to get rid of those abominable
and dangerous Crawlers, by which the streets are infested, the empty
Cabs that creep along the curbstone.

Vol. 50.

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