DOI Heft:
September 22, 1866
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16878#0135
September 22, 1866.!
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
127
THE VETERAN IN WOODSTOCK WORKHOUSE.
Y Hercules, Mr. Punch,
Nil admirari is no motto of
mine. I could only adopt
it by construing your friend
“ Q. H. F.” iu a very literal
sense. Could, one admire
nothing, as girls and babies
laugh at nothing, that,
indeed, would be something
to make and keep one happy.
Nay, it is not easy to con-
ceive greater happiness than
that of being constantly in
a state of admiration with
nothing at all to admire.
This would be like a per-
petual enjoyment of all the
pleasures of the table with-
out turtle, or venison, or
tripe. It would correspond,
to an everlasting state of
beer minus beer, and apart
from anything else like
Chateau d’ Yquem. But man
cannot enjoy empty dishes.
Nonentity won’t do for
mutton. As I want some-
thing to eat, so I want
something to admire. 1
■esteem the capability of admiring answerable to a good appetite.
Therefore, I systematically admire everything that I can. I am always
finding some fresh object of admiration, and what l now see chiefly to
■admire is the condition of the British Army and Navy in general, but
particularly, (with a letter I have recently read in the Times before
me), the self-sacrifice of the British soldier.
Even you, Sir, were once a baby; so was Du. Johnson. Well,
Mr. Punch, in early days, both of you were perhaps occasionally ex-
asperated by nursemaids reciting, in the thought that they were
[diverting you- certain doggerel amoebceics beginning with—
x “ Who comes here? ”
“ A Grenadier.”
“ What do you want?”
“ A pot of beer. ’
Experience, however, sometimes discovers a pertinence in the
Idiotisms of the nursery which may afford delight. There is, Sir, now
a soldier in the Woodstock Union Workhouse, one Joseph Oliver,
whose case appears to have been contemplated by the prophetic bara
that originally composed the lines above quoted, doubtless in a state of
•clairvoyance. The Chaplain of that Union, who is also Master of the
Woodstock Grammar School, gives us, in the Times, a short speech,
■of the sort which the military pauper, an old Waterloo man, is in the
habit of delivering to those who sympathise with him under the cir-
cumstances in which he has been suffered, in his destitute old age, to
place himself by a grateful country. According to the reverend
•gentleman :—-
He says, “ I feel I am fast going down bill, but I could eat better and suffer less
pain if I could have something lighter to eat. I don’t think I’ve eat an allowance
■of cheese these three weeks. If I could but have half-a-pint of beer a day it would
be everything to me. I could do with that and my bread, and should be contented.
I hope I am as happy as anybody can be in a workhouse, but I sever knowed any-
body stop in as could got out. Oh, ho w glad should I be to have liberty once more 1 ”
This old soldier, it is true, was not a grenadier in the limited mean-
ing of the word. He fought at Waterloo in the 95th Rifles, now the
Rifle Brigade. But a Rifleman, is, to all intents and purposes a
British Grenadier, as contemplated in the song which asserts the
incomparabilitv of Conon, Lysander, and all the other valiant heroes
to that one. Nor does this veteran in the grey uniform demand a pot
■of beer in the pot-house sense of the word. That, as you and I, and
Morley, and Sam Pope, and Lawson know, is a quart. The British
Grenadier in the workhouse limits his request to a pot of beer in what
we will call the workhouse sense of the word. He asks for only half-
a-pint of beer a-dqy; a pot so named rhetorically, part for the whole, a
parochial pot, a union pot of beer. If the old man who in youth adven-
tured to pour out his blood like water at Waterloo, could now get a
small measure of beer poured out for himself, “ it would be everything
to him.” He was ever a good soldier. At Waterloo he “ followed Lord
Hill up three times within pistol-shot of Boney’s platform;” and
after the fight was over he saved two. fives. He is now aged 74
years, the last six of which he has spent in the workhouse, an example
to its other inmates. After seven years’ service, he had left the Army, and
remained in his native village, working in the Stonesfield slate-quarries
till he was nearly blind. The parish then allowed him out-door relief
to the amount of half-a-crown and a loaf' a week; but, since this
allowance, however generous for the needy people of Woodstock, was
one “ as I couldn’t,” he said, “ five honest on,” lie was obliged to enter
the institution wherein he now abides, sighing, “ Oh, how glad I should
be to have liberty once more ! ” and vainly craving half-a-pint of beer.
Small beer indeed, Mr. Punch, ought not that country to think of
itself which permits its veterans to implore half-a-pint of swipes in vain ?
But now, don’t you admire, like me, the self-sacrifice performed by
the British soldier in entering the service of a country that will let him
want half-a-pint, of beer in his old age ? Don’t you, Sir, also admire
this treatment of British soldiers, and don’t you unspeakably admire
the magnitude of our Army, which, notwithstanding such usage, is
kept up to a strength not less, perhaps, than one-fifth of the force that
would be necessary for any serious attempt to resist invasion ? All
this is very admirable, certainly. Of course, we cannot, for one
moment, entertain the fear that too hard trial of the self-sacrificing
spirit of our voluntary soldiers will one day end in the alternative of a
conscription, or no Army at all. There is one thing more, Mr. Punch,
that cannot but greatly excite your admiration, as it does mine. That is
the vast military expenditure of a nation so frugal that it cannot afford
an old soldier half-a-pint of beer. “ For Heaven’s sake a pot of your
smallest ale ! ” How much longer shall Joseph Oliver be permitted
to remain ineffectually uttering that piteous entreaty of
Christophero Sly ?
GOOD AND SAFE WOMEN
Mr. Punch,
I’ve no patience with the fuss that is being made by those
stupid papers about bribery. Of course, if a man really thinks he
ought to vote on one side, and takes money to go and vote on the
other, he doesn’t do what is quite right, unless he has claims upon him
that lie ought to consider before everything ; but how often is it the
case that he has any idea which is the right side and which is the wrong ?
I ’ll be bound to say not ninety-nine times in a hundred, nor so much,
scarcely ever. Nobody knows what a woman has to go through with
a large family, and for a man in that situation, unless he is very, well
off, not to vote for whoever wdl pay the most, I think it positively
wicked. It’s a shame that women have no votes. Why not Woman-
hood Suffrage as well as Manhood Suffrage ? I know what I would
do with a suffrage I could get a hundred and fifty pounds by, or even ten.
But whether women have votes or no there is one thing I know,
they could do much better than men, I mean managing the bribery,
winch I am sure there is no wrong in, or why do men laugh and joke
about it, if they think it serious ? I have heard them talk of a great
briber years ago—I mean the briber lived many years ago—whose
name was Frail. Who was it said “ frailty thy name is woman ” ?
meaning to be satirical, but I’m confident any woman would be
much better than Frail at electioneering. We should be able to
coax the voters in a way men can’t, and get their votes at a much
more reasonable rate, which would be a great save. What was that
story of the butcher, 1 think, who let the beautiful Duchess of
Whereabouts have his vote in favour of her candidate for a lass P
Only if the butcher’s wife had known, she would have taken care that
her husband shouldn’t have been such a fool.
And besides, the women could do all.the bribery among themselves,
and that would prevent the money being spent at the public-house
instead of in new dresses for the children, and paying the bills which
run up in no time to a degree which is perfectly dreadful, and I’m sure
it’s always best to pay all the tradesmen as soon as you can, or else
they put down all sorts of things you never had, and as to giving
evidence before Commissions like Great Yarmouth, I should like to
see how much they would get out of one who would only just like to be
The Woman in the Moon.
P.S. It’s the best plan always to send the money to the voter’s wife,
like the four sovereigns at Reigate done up in the starch.
THE LESSON OF THE LEGER.
What Reform of the House were so thorough,
Could, we manage with man as with horse ;
And do in each county and borough,
What’s been done on the Doncaster Course.
Our M.P. ’s we might safely rely on.
And e’en household suffrage might bolt.
Could our polls show the famed British Lion,
Always beating the Bribery * Colt!
* The name under which Savernake first ran.
Telegrams (from Leicester Square).
The Mutilated Statue is as well as can be expected.
In consequence of the inclemency of the weather at night, another
coat of paint has been ordered for him.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
127
THE VETERAN IN WOODSTOCK WORKHOUSE.
Y Hercules, Mr. Punch,
Nil admirari is no motto of
mine. I could only adopt
it by construing your friend
“ Q. H. F.” iu a very literal
sense. Could, one admire
nothing, as girls and babies
laugh at nothing, that,
indeed, would be something
to make and keep one happy.
Nay, it is not easy to con-
ceive greater happiness than
that of being constantly in
a state of admiration with
nothing at all to admire.
This would be like a per-
petual enjoyment of all the
pleasures of the table with-
out turtle, or venison, or
tripe. It would correspond,
to an everlasting state of
beer minus beer, and apart
from anything else like
Chateau d’ Yquem. But man
cannot enjoy empty dishes.
Nonentity won’t do for
mutton. As I want some-
thing to eat, so I want
something to admire. 1
■esteem the capability of admiring answerable to a good appetite.
Therefore, I systematically admire everything that I can. I am always
finding some fresh object of admiration, and what l now see chiefly to
■admire is the condition of the British Army and Navy in general, but
particularly, (with a letter I have recently read in the Times before
me), the self-sacrifice of the British soldier.
Even you, Sir, were once a baby; so was Du. Johnson. Well,
Mr. Punch, in early days, both of you were perhaps occasionally ex-
asperated by nursemaids reciting, in the thought that they were
[diverting you- certain doggerel amoebceics beginning with—
x “ Who comes here? ”
“ A Grenadier.”
“ What do you want?”
“ A pot of beer. ’
Experience, however, sometimes discovers a pertinence in the
Idiotisms of the nursery which may afford delight. There is, Sir, now
a soldier in the Woodstock Union Workhouse, one Joseph Oliver,
whose case appears to have been contemplated by the prophetic bara
that originally composed the lines above quoted, doubtless in a state of
•clairvoyance. The Chaplain of that Union, who is also Master of the
Woodstock Grammar School, gives us, in the Times, a short speech,
■of the sort which the military pauper, an old Waterloo man, is in the
habit of delivering to those who sympathise with him under the cir-
cumstances in which he has been suffered, in his destitute old age, to
place himself by a grateful country. According to the reverend
•gentleman :—-
He says, “ I feel I am fast going down bill, but I could eat better and suffer less
pain if I could have something lighter to eat. I don’t think I’ve eat an allowance
■of cheese these three weeks. If I could but have half-a-pint of beer a day it would
be everything to me. I could do with that and my bread, and should be contented.
I hope I am as happy as anybody can be in a workhouse, but I sever knowed any-
body stop in as could got out. Oh, ho w glad should I be to have liberty once more 1 ”
This old soldier, it is true, was not a grenadier in the limited mean-
ing of the word. He fought at Waterloo in the 95th Rifles, now the
Rifle Brigade. But a Rifleman, is, to all intents and purposes a
British Grenadier, as contemplated in the song which asserts the
incomparabilitv of Conon, Lysander, and all the other valiant heroes
to that one. Nor does this veteran in the grey uniform demand a pot
■of beer in the pot-house sense of the word. That, as you and I, and
Morley, and Sam Pope, and Lawson know, is a quart. The British
Grenadier in the workhouse limits his request to a pot of beer in what
we will call the workhouse sense of the word. He asks for only half-
a-pint of beer a-dqy; a pot so named rhetorically, part for the whole, a
parochial pot, a union pot of beer. If the old man who in youth adven-
tured to pour out his blood like water at Waterloo, could now get a
small measure of beer poured out for himself, “ it would be everything
to him.” He was ever a good soldier. At Waterloo he “ followed Lord
Hill up three times within pistol-shot of Boney’s platform;” and
after the fight was over he saved two. fives. He is now aged 74
years, the last six of which he has spent in the workhouse, an example
to its other inmates. After seven years’ service, he had left the Army, and
remained in his native village, working in the Stonesfield slate-quarries
till he was nearly blind. The parish then allowed him out-door relief
to the amount of half-a-crown and a loaf' a week; but, since this
allowance, however generous for the needy people of Woodstock, was
one “ as I couldn’t,” he said, “ five honest on,” lie was obliged to enter
the institution wherein he now abides, sighing, “ Oh, how glad I should
be to have liberty once more ! ” and vainly craving half-a-pint of beer.
Small beer indeed, Mr. Punch, ought not that country to think of
itself which permits its veterans to implore half-a-pint of swipes in vain ?
But now, don’t you admire, like me, the self-sacrifice performed by
the British soldier in entering the service of a country that will let him
want half-a-pint, of beer in his old age ? Don’t you, Sir, also admire
this treatment of British soldiers, and don’t you unspeakably admire
the magnitude of our Army, which, notwithstanding such usage, is
kept up to a strength not less, perhaps, than one-fifth of the force that
would be necessary for any serious attempt to resist invasion ? All
this is very admirable, certainly. Of course, we cannot, for one
moment, entertain the fear that too hard trial of the self-sacrificing
spirit of our voluntary soldiers will one day end in the alternative of a
conscription, or no Army at all. There is one thing more, Mr. Punch,
that cannot but greatly excite your admiration, as it does mine. That is
the vast military expenditure of a nation so frugal that it cannot afford
an old soldier half-a-pint of beer. “ For Heaven’s sake a pot of your
smallest ale ! ” How much longer shall Joseph Oliver be permitted
to remain ineffectually uttering that piteous entreaty of
Christophero Sly ?
GOOD AND SAFE WOMEN
Mr. Punch,
I’ve no patience with the fuss that is being made by those
stupid papers about bribery. Of course, if a man really thinks he
ought to vote on one side, and takes money to go and vote on the
other, he doesn’t do what is quite right, unless he has claims upon him
that lie ought to consider before everything ; but how often is it the
case that he has any idea which is the right side and which is the wrong ?
I ’ll be bound to say not ninety-nine times in a hundred, nor so much,
scarcely ever. Nobody knows what a woman has to go through with
a large family, and for a man in that situation, unless he is very, well
off, not to vote for whoever wdl pay the most, I think it positively
wicked. It’s a shame that women have no votes. Why not Woman-
hood Suffrage as well as Manhood Suffrage ? I know what I would
do with a suffrage I could get a hundred and fifty pounds by, or even ten.
But whether women have votes or no there is one thing I know,
they could do much better than men, I mean managing the bribery,
winch I am sure there is no wrong in, or why do men laugh and joke
about it, if they think it serious ? I have heard them talk of a great
briber years ago—I mean the briber lived many years ago—whose
name was Frail. Who was it said “ frailty thy name is woman ” ?
meaning to be satirical, but I’m confident any woman would be
much better than Frail at electioneering. We should be able to
coax the voters in a way men can’t, and get their votes at a much
more reasonable rate, which would be a great save. What was that
story of the butcher, 1 think, who let the beautiful Duchess of
Whereabouts have his vote in favour of her candidate for a lass P
Only if the butcher’s wife had known, she would have taken care that
her husband shouldn’t have been such a fool.
And besides, the women could do all.the bribery among themselves,
and that would prevent the money being spent at the public-house
instead of in new dresses for the children, and paying the bills which
run up in no time to a degree which is perfectly dreadful, and I’m sure
it’s always best to pay all the tradesmen as soon as you can, or else
they put down all sorts of things you never had, and as to giving
evidence before Commissions like Great Yarmouth, I should like to
see how much they would get out of one who would only just like to be
The Woman in the Moon.
P.S. It’s the best plan always to send the money to the voter’s wife,
like the four sovereigns at Reigate done up in the starch.
THE LESSON OF THE LEGER.
What Reform of the House were so thorough,
Could, we manage with man as with horse ;
And do in each county and borough,
What’s been done on the Doncaster Course.
Our M.P. ’s we might safely rely on.
And e’en household suffrage might bolt.
Could our polls show the famed British Lion,
Always beating the Bribery * Colt!
* The name under which Savernake first ran.
Telegrams (from Leicester Square).
The Mutilated Statue is as well as can be expected.
In consequence of the inclemency of the weather at night, another
coat of paint has been ordered for him.