DOI Heft:
April 13, 1867
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16879#0154
April 13, 1867.]
PUNCH, OR THU LONDON CHARIVARI
147
FEMININE. INTELLIGENCE.
ODE TO MRS. GRUNDY.
N one of its intensely interesting
articles upon the Fashions, Le
Follet naively tells us that—
“ It is just now rather amusing to
inspect the novelties of the season.”
Amusing ? we should think so :
for among the present novelties, we
are told, is a new necklace called
a—
“ Collier 6e chien, made just to fit
close round the throat, and with long
ends behind.”
A dog-collar seems rather an odd
ornament for a lady. A man must
be a puppy to evince his admira-
tion for it. If worn at all, we think
it should be only sported in the
dog-days. “ Sported,” by the way,
is precisely the phrase proper for
it. Ladies who wear dog-collars
are doubtless fond of slang, and
would incline to masculine expres-
sions when talking of their toilette.
In the same delightful article the
writer also naively says that—
“ The Spring bonnets seem to require
very little material, as they are smaller
than those of last year.”
One wm soon require a microscope to see a lady’s bonnet, “ fine by degrees and beautifully
less,” as it is every day becoming. Now that ladies wear their chignons rather larger than
their heads, one has really to look twice before their bonnets become visible. We often
wonder that it has not been the fashion for a lady to wear two bonnets at once, the one upon
her head and the other on her chignon.
This at least would be a novelty, and would double the expense, which to many a fine
lady would be a great attraction.
SCIENTIFIC WIFE-KILLING.
The question is sometimes asked, “ Can a man murder his wife?” Though at first blush
we might be inclined to doubt it, if we founded our conclusion on recent trials, sentences,
and revisions of sentences, still we believe the feat is not absolutely impossible. As a
general rule, it may be laid down, that though wife-killing is easy, wife-murder is one of the
most difficult things a man can set himself to accomplish. Of course, if you are rash and
hasty, and, in a fit of passion, whip up a knife and cut your wife’s throat, you may be hung for
it, though we need hardly say, that every effort will be used by Jury and Judge to obtain
remission of the punishment, on the general understanding that the presumption of law in
all cases of uxoricide is “ Sarved her right.” But still, a man who kills his wife in this rude
and unrefined way, may slip his head into a halter.
This method, however, is uncertain, even if it were not dangerous. You may only wound,
instead of killing, and if you do kill, there is little or no pleasure in it. This act is too
soon over, and the suffering too insignificant, to extract any enjoyment out of. How
much better, if you are bent on effectually severing the nuptial tie, and can make no opening
for Baron Wilde’s intervention, to secure at once your own safety, and get the utmost
pleasure out of the act, by killing your wife by inches. “ Every little makes a mickle; ”
and you may gently urge her on to her death by a series of skilfully applied kicks, or blows,
or starvings, or shocks of terror, or by an artistic combination of these, none of them in
themselves leading immediately to death, yet all conducing to it, and leaving you, when the
consummation is accomplished, safe to get off with a few months’, or, at worst, years’
imprisoument, and, perhaps (if the Judge be a Quixotic person), a reprimand.
But you must be a bungler if you have to pay even this price for your riddance from a
domestic nuisance. With a properly regulated mind, and the coolness that is proper to
conduct the operation, you ought to be able so to measure your acts of brutality and cruelty,
as to escape with no penalty at all; probably without even the formality of a trial. It is only
bunglers who precipitate matters, as by taking jumping exercise over their wives’ bodies with
iron-plated boots on, or throwing them out of three-pair-of-stair windows, or other rude and
summary processes of destruction. You may go considerable lengths even in this direction
without much risk, but sometimes an eccentric Judge or Jury may be found to take an
uncharitable view of your conduct. But the safe rule is to administer quiet cruelty in small
doses, and to keep it up, varying the treatment, if you like, by more energetic exhibitions of
fist or stick, starvation or exposure, from time to time ; and the great point is to go deliberately
enough about your work, and to be cool in regulating your treatment. Ne quid nimis should
be the motto of the uxoricide as of the physician. Besides the safety from cousequences
thus insured, there is the pleasure of watching the progress of the case, and the manly satis-
faction engendered by the consciousness of your own power, and the hopelessness of your
victim’s resistance. If by any accident, any rashness of your own, or any extravagance ofJ
the Jury, you should be sentenced on the capital charge, you need not be under any alarm,
so long as there is a Walpole to counteract their sentimentality, and to give you the benefit
of those doubts to which every man who kills his wife is entitled ;—first, the doubt whether
he meant to; and, secondly, the doubt whether, if he did mean to, he hadn’t very sufficient
provocation.
Mrs. Grundy,
On a Sunday
Joyful music I will hear,
Gaze on painting
Soul untainting,
Nor the sight of sculpture fear;
For diversion.
An excursion
Make by steamboat or by rail,
Or, preferring
Active stirring.
Take my walk, and glass of ale.
Mostly clad am
I, so, Madam
Your decorum as may shock ;
In a shooting
Jacket, suiting
With the hat named billycock.
As my raiment
Little payment
Costs my dwelling, nowise fine.
Simply furnished:
Roof-tree burnished
Glitters not in house of mine.
Outward show, Ma’am,
I forego, Ma’am,
When it interferes with ease :
Often eat. Ma’am, .
In the street, Ma’am,
As I walk, my bread and cheese.
Grandeur sinking,
Never thinking
How your censure I provoke ;
Oft a cutty
Pipe, with smutty
Bowl, along the road I smoke.
My life’s measure
Is my pleasure,
Only saving others’ due :
That respecting,
But directing
Madam, no regard to you.
Mrs. Grundy,
Gloria m.undi
Passes like a dream away.
You may chatter,
That’s no matter—
Ma’am, I care not what you say.
BEAUTY WITHOUT PAINT.
Madame Jezebel offers silly women, who are
not contented with their natural features, “ re-
cipes for Youth, Beauty, Grace, and Elegance,
which give golden tresses, sparkling eyes, ruby
lips, and soft peachlike complexion to ladies
wrinkled, freckled, scarred, or aged, which have
gained for her the patronage of the crowned
heads of Europe and her world-renowned name.”
These prescriptions for facial paint and plaster,
Madame Jezebel adds, “ can be forwarded on
the receipt of £L Is.” Her advertisement con-
cludes with “ Caution : Beware of spurious
imitations.” Certainly; but rather beware of
noxious originals.
The Next Thing from New York.
(A Reuter's Telegram.)
The House of Representatives has adopted
resolutions calling on Mr. Seyvard to demand
redress of the British Government for the
American citizens shot by the Irish constabulary
in putting down the Fenian insurrection.
Our Musical Saint.—Saint-on Dolby.
PUNCH, OR THU LONDON CHARIVARI
147
FEMININE. INTELLIGENCE.
ODE TO MRS. GRUNDY.
N one of its intensely interesting
articles upon the Fashions, Le
Follet naively tells us that—
“ It is just now rather amusing to
inspect the novelties of the season.”
Amusing ? we should think so :
for among the present novelties, we
are told, is a new necklace called
a—
“ Collier 6e chien, made just to fit
close round the throat, and with long
ends behind.”
A dog-collar seems rather an odd
ornament for a lady. A man must
be a puppy to evince his admira-
tion for it. If worn at all, we think
it should be only sported in the
dog-days. “ Sported,” by the way,
is precisely the phrase proper for
it. Ladies who wear dog-collars
are doubtless fond of slang, and
would incline to masculine expres-
sions when talking of their toilette.
In the same delightful article the
writer also naively says that—
“ The Spring bonnets seem to require
very little material, as they are smaller
than those of last year.”
One wm soon require a microscope to see a lady’s bonnet, “ fine by degrees and beautifully
less,” as it is every day becoming. Now that ladies wear their chignons rather larger than
their heads, one has really to look twice before their bonnets become visible. We often
wonder that it has not been the fashion for a lady to wear two bonnets at once, the one upon
her head and the other on her chignon.
This at least would be a novelty, and would double the expense, which to many a fine
lady would be a great attraction.
SCIENTIFIC WIFE-KILLING.
The question is sometimes asked, “ Can a man murder his wife?” Though at first blush
we might be inclined to doubt it, if we founded our conclusion on recent trials, sentences,
and revisions of sentences, still we believe the feat is not absolutely impossible. As a
general rule, it may be laid down, that though wife-killing is easy, wife-murder is one of the
most difficult things a man can set himself to accomplish. Of course, if you are rash and
hasty, and, in a fit of passion, whip up a knife and cut your wife’s throat, you may be hung for
it, though we need hardly say, that every effort will be used by Jury and Judge to obtain
remission of the punishment, on the general understanding that the presumption of law in
all cases of uxoricide is “ Sarved her right.” But still, a man who kills his wife in this rude
and unrefined way, may slip his head into a halter.
This method, however, is uncertain, even if it were not dangerous. You may only wound,
instead of killing, and if you do kill, there is little or no pleasure in it. This act is too
soon over, and the suffering too insignificant, to extract any enjoyment out of. How
much better, if you are bent on effectually severing the nuptial tie, and can make no opening
for Baron Wilde’s intervention, to secure at once your own safety, and get the utmost
pleasure out of the act, by killing your wife by inches. “ Every little makes a mickle; ”
and you may gently urge her on to her death by a series of skilfully applied kicks, or blows,
or starvings, or shocks of terror, or by an artistic combination of these, none of them in
themselves leading immediately to death, yet all conducing to it, and leaving you, when the
consummation is accomplished, safe to get off with a few months’, or, at worst, years’
imprisoument, and, perhaps (if the Judge be a Quixotic person), a reprimand.
But you must be a bungler if you have to pay even this price for your riddance from a
domestic nuisance. With a properly regulated mind, and the coolness that is proper to
conduct the operation, you ought to be able so to measure your acts of brutality and cruelty,
as to escape with no penalty at all; probably without even the formality of a trial. It is only
bunglers who precipitate matters, as by taking jumping exercise over their wives’ bodies with
iron-plated boots on, or throwing them out of three-pair-of-stair windows, or other rude and
summary processes of destruction. You may go considerable lengths even in this direction
without much risk, but sometimes an eccentric Judge or Jury may be found to take an
uncharitable view of your conduct. But the safe rule is to administer quiet cruelty in small
doses, and to keep it up, varying the treatment, if you like, by more energetic exhibitions of
fist or stick, starvation or exposure, from time to time ; and the great point is to go deliberately
enough about your work, and to be cool in regulating your treatment. Ne quid nimis should
be the motto of the uxoricide as of the physician. Besides the safety from cousequences
thus insured, there is the pleasure of watching the progress of the case, and the manly satis-
faction engendered by the consciousness of your own power, and the hopelessness of your
victim’s resistance. If by any accident, any rashness of your own, or any extravagance ofJ
the Jury, you should be sentenced on the capital charge, you need not be under any alarm,
so long as there is a Walpole to counteract their sentimentality, and to give you the benefit
of those doubts to which every man who kills his wife is entitled ;—first, the doubt whether
he meant to; and, secondly, the doubt whether, if he did mean to, he hadn’t very sufficient
provocation.
Mrs. Grundy,
On a Sunday
Joyful music I will hear,
Gaze on painting
Soul untainting,
Nor the sight of sculpture fear;
For diversion.
An excursion
Make by steamboat or by rail,
Or, preferring
Active stirring.
Take my walk, and glass of ale.
Mostly clad am
I, so, Madam
Your decorum as may shock ;
In a shooting
Jacket, suiting
With the hat named billycock.
As my raiment
Little payment
Costs my dwelling, nowise fine.
Simply furnished:
Roof-tree burnished
Glitters not in house of mine.
Outward show, Ma’am,
I forego, Ma’am,
When it interferes with ease :
Often eat. Ma’am, .
In the street, Ma’am,
As I walk, my bread and cheese.
Grandeur sinking,
Never thinking
How your censure I provoke ;
Oft a cutty
Pipe, with smutty
Bowl, along the road I smoke.
My life’s measure
Is my pleasure,
Only saving others’ due :
That respecting,
But directing
Madam, no regard to you.
Mrs. Grundy,
Gloria m.undi
Passes like a dream away.
You may chatter,
That’s no matter—
Ma’am, I care not what you say.
BEAUTY WITHOUT PAINT.
Madame Jezebel offers silly women, who are
not contented with their natural features, “ re-
cipes for Youth, Beauty, Grace, and Elegance,
which give golden tresses, sparkling eyes, ruby
lips, and soft peachlike complexion to ladies
wrinkled, freckled, scarred, or aged, which have
gained for her the patronage of the crowned
heads of Europe and her world-renowned name.”
These prescriptions for facial paint and plaster,
Madame Jezebel adds, “ can be forwarded on
the receipt of £L Is.” Her advertisement con-
cludes with “ Caution : Beware of spurious
imitations.” Certainly; but rather beware of
noxious originals.
The Next Thing from New York.
(A Reuter's Telegram.)
The House of Representatives has adopted
resolutions calling on Mr. Seyvard to demand
redress of the British Government for the
American citizens shot by the Irish constabulary
in putting down the Fenian insurrection.
Our Musical Saint.—Saint-on Dolby.