Punch (51.1866)

206

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

[November 17, 1866,

THE CONNOISSEUR.

Host (smacking his lips). “ There, my Boy, What do you Think of that ?
I THOUGHT I ’D GIVE YOU A TREAT. THAT’s ’34 PORT, Sill ! ”

Guest. “Ah! and a very nice, sound Wine, I should say! I believe
it’s quite as Good as some I gave 37s. for the other Day.”

NOTORIETY FOR KNAVES.

The more hilarious portion of British playgoers would
doubtless be highly diverted by a sufficiently laughable
burlesque of Fidelio. In the prison-scene of the mock
opera, where the hero and liis companions in captivity
come ont of gaol, a fine effect (the idea of which would
have amused Beethoven) might be produced by the
introduction of the Rogue’s March. But a more suitable
adaptation of that piece of music is suggested by a para-
graph in the South London Press, to wit:—

“ Unjust Weights.—At a Special Sessions at Newington, on Wed-
nesday, sixty-eight tradesmen were fined for having in their possession
unjust weights, scales, or measures. The list comprised twenty-five
licensed victuallers and beer retailers, eleven chandlers, five butchers,
eight bakers, one eating-house keeper, five coal and potato dealers,
five grocers and cheesemongers, one fruiterer and fishmonger, two
marine storekeepers, one corn-chandler, one woolstapler, one iron
merchant, and one zinc worker. The fines amounted to £121 15s.
Curious to relate, one of the persons fined—a widow—rejoiced in the
name of Virtue Innocent ! ”

And a truly proper name: as much so as Blanche
would be for the niece of Aunt Sally, or for the sister of the
Coal Black Rose. But to revert to the Rogue’s March. A
most edifying impression would have been made on the
mercantile mind in a small way of business if the Magis-
trates who fined the sixty-eight tradesmen above referred
to, and Mrs. Yirtue Innocent, could have caused them
and her to be inarched, to. that good old English military
measure, during a certain time every day for a week,
about the streets of London. To render this procession
the more distinctly instructive, the convicts composing
it might have been made to carry banners, respectively
specifying the name and fraud of the bearer. An Act
of Parliament ought to be passed, enabling justices to
institute, on occasion, this sort of spectacle with appro-
priate musical accompaniment. Moreover, it should
empower them to compel every tradesman convicted of
using false weights and measures, of adulteration, or of any
sort of cheating or imposition, to exhibit, for a stated
period, in his shop window, a large poster notifying rhe
particulars of his conviction, and also, at his own expense,
to advertise them at least thrice in the Times newspaper.

i -- ■

I

“ THE HEAD AND FRONT OF THEIR OFFENDING.”

Ladies ! if you go on diminishing the size of your head-
dresses, yon must be punished—you must be bonneted.

JEM THE PENMAN (Convict) TO SIR MULTUM
SLEEKOWE (Bart, and M.P.).

From the quarries of Bermuda, in my intervals of leisure,—

E’en in grey and yellow dittos one has leisure to improve,—

I put my time to profit and to melancholy pleasure
In studying the journals of the London of my love.

Oh, London ! scene of trial, school of grown men’s education,

Where some, like you, win prizes, some get “ kept in,” like me :

Arena where brain wrestles with law for wealth and station,

Metropolis of industry, whose knights we boast to be!

To me, a baffled actor, driv’n from the stage with hisses,

In convict:garb and quarry-gang condemned to eat my heart,

What reflections in these mirrors of life, its hits and misses,

What instructions in these records of the Court, the ’Change, the Mart!

“ Ah, if youth possessed the knowledge, if age possessed the power ! ”
Had I my life to live again, what a different life were mine !

Here in hard garb, hard tare, hard toil, ’neath Law’s rude hand I cower,
And, with a sigh, contrast my fate, oh, wiser friend, with thine !

Year after year I’ve followed thy fortunes, upward soaring,

As from each crash of thy ladders, thou, brave climber, still didst
rise;

Grand Trunk, Great Eastern—shareholders might all be left deploring, i
Boards of Northern Navigation end in smoke before our eyes—

Still thou, from out the ruins, serene and smoothly smiling,

With a firm hand didst drive thy gig o’er prostrate stock and shares,

Respectable, respected, while poor rogues, their dockets filing,

Cursed and railed at thee unheeded, or but earned thy Christian
prayers.

And now thy high career of bold rectitude high-crowning.

Like Marius at Carthage, amid collapse uncowed,

Bayed by London, Chatham, Dover debentnre-holders frowning,

Thou drown’st loud accusation in defiance yet more loud.

Ah, had I but had the wisdom, in my days of young ambition,

Like thee, friend, to look upwards, and choose the better part!

To aim at high financing and scorn small imposition.

And despising tens aud hundreds; to millions raised my heart!

Had I felt the truth that with their scale things English change their
nature,

That what in pence is “swindling,” “speculation” grows in pounds :
I perhaps had learnt to elevate to thine my moral stature,

And from my gig, like thee, defied detraction’s baying hounds !

Had I but been respectable, far-sighted, and sagacious,

Not stooped to snap up trifles, swindled, forged, been lagged, brought
low,

I, too, might with “financing” swag have filled hands as capacious,

“ Bart” and “ M.P.” as additions to my name I, too, might show !

As it is, here in Bermuda, a convict, sad and seedy,

I read of my friends’ progress in finance’s pleasant ways,

His ever ready charities unto the poor and needy :

The fair chapels he endows, and the unctuous prayers he prays.

And I feel that what our chaplain says is true unto the letter,

(And wish like you to prove it. I’d my life to live again)

That Heaven helps those who help themselves—and take the more
the better,

And that—back’d by good financing—still Godliness is gain.

A Question for Lloyd’s.—Are Sub-Editors Underwriters :