Punch (51.1866)

158

PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 13, 1866

A BUTTON BUB,ST AT
BEBLIN.

An accident, which might have
been attended with fatal conse-
quences, happened the other day
to the King of Prussia. His
Majesty, after dinner, requested
Count Bismarck, who had been
invited to a seat at the Boyal table,
to read out to him a report of
the address delivered by Lord
Brougham to the Social Science
Congress. The Minister, reading
on, came to this passage:—

" In the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury a wide-spreading war has raged,
and tens of thousands have perished, or
been consigned to a life of wretchedness
by their wounds, and all this has been
made to secure an extension of do-
minion or increase of affluence.”

Here Bismarck momentarily
paused, and slightly grinned. The
King groaned and turned up the
whites of his eyes, and then thrust
his tongue in his cheek. Again
Bismarck proceeded, reciting to
his sovereign’s great amusement,
the rest of Lord Brougham’s
remarks on the subject of war,
until he arrived, at the following
declaration

“ Nor will mankind ever be free from
the scourge of war until they learn to
call things by tbeir proper names, to
give crimes the same epithets, whatever
outward form they may assume, and to
regard with equal abhorrence the con-
queror who slakes his lust of dominion
with the blood of his 'fellow-creatures,
andVthe more vulgar criminal, who is
___* _.

MISS LAVINIA BROUNJONES-No. 9.

Lavinia takes a Siesta,

executed for taking the life of a way-
faring man that he may seize upon his
purse.”

At this. Count Bismarck made
another face, as though he couldn’t
help it, and King William fell
into a violent fit of laughter.
His Majesty laughed so long and
heartily that he became almost
blue in the face, and so strong
were his convulsions of merri-
ment as at one time to suggest
fears for the safety of the royal
sides. At last something was
actually heard to give way, but
this audible rupture proved to be
nothing worse than that of a
waistcoat button which the King
had burst. When he came to
himself he declared that he was
much delighted to find the vene-
rable Lord Brougham capable,
at his time of life, of making so
capital a joke as the comparison
of a successful conqueror to a cut-
purse and a cut-throat.

An Airy Nothing

To “ A Young Astronomer ”
who asks our advice as to the
best method of observing the stars,
we reply—“ Go to Devonshire, for
there you may with advantage
study the Cidereal System.”

What is the companion game
to Parlour Croquet ? Cricket on
the- Hearth-


And the Frightful Situation she finds herself in at thf. End of it.