DOI issue:
September 28, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16880#0135
September 28, 1867.1 PUNCH. OR TOE LONDON CHARIVARI 123
HARD UP ON THE MOORS.
Anxious Wife. “ For Goodness’ sake bring Something home to-day, dear ! There’s absolutely Nothing for Second Course ! ”
A FEW FRIENDS.
(FROM MY PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)
TABLEAU III.—A RELATIVE.—NECESSARY PREPARATIONS FOR EXHI-
BITING TABLEAU OF “ MY FUNNY FRIEND.”
I have a character to keep up : I intimated that much in my last.
Government required inspectors under the new Olfactory Act for the
Better Regulation of Registers (Chimneys), and Prevention of Infan-
tile Overworking. The first part of this Act affects the consumption
of smoke, the second the consumption in children. [I said this, not
my Funny Friend—portrait coming.] Thus I am placed by a wise and
enlightened Government in the position of a superior chimney-sweep,
with a travelling commission to look up all the factory chimneys in
my district, combined with the office of a doctor with powers to make
little boys put out their tongues (not rudely, but salubriously and
politely), extend their arms to have their pulses felt, and to ask ques-
tions of them to which their answers must be the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, or else they ’ll catch it.
I mention these particulars in corroboration of my assertion that
“ I have a character to keep up.” I only have to keep it up in the
North, when I come South I am another creature. In the North I am
practical, severe, yet affable: in the South I obtain the name of a
genial trifler. I come South, like a swallow, for my holidays. Hence
my stay at Brighton, hence my Hearty Friend, hence my being laid up,
hence my Gloomy Friend, and after play comes my work.
How I obtained my present position as Olfactory Inspector has con-
siderably puzzled my friends, but so has the policy of Mb. Disraeli.
I have heard good-natured people remark on my incapacity for business
in general, and this in particular. What do I know of chimney-
registers, of the law of patents, of measles in little boys, and of the
amount of smoke required to be consumed at a pressure of so much on
the square inch, and the lubrication of wheels within wheels as an
economical process in manual labour ? That is what my friends (all
photographed) ask ? What is my reply when questioned point blank P
I say, “Never mind,” simply that, like Edgar Poe’s Raven over and
over again—
“ Quotli th’ Inspector,
* Never mind.’ ”
(The Raven said “Never more ” on a door.)
Still I was nettled by these insinuations. It was not nepotism that
put me where I am, as 1 am nobody’s nephew.
By the way. What a first-rate title for a novel, Nobody's Nephew, by
the author of—what P
As I was saying, no nepotism directed my individual case. There
was an examination to be passed, and I passed it; passed it well too,
leaving it (so to speak) several miles behind me on the road, and
staggering the Examiners. There were several competitors, they may
be going on at it now for all I know, so cleanly did 1 walk away irom
them. A regular Achievement or Hermit among the Examiners. The
subjects were French (including a conversation viva voce with an
Examiner whom I was obliged to correct several times), Latin (Cicero,
with questions as to what his prse-nomen was, where he lived, when he
lived, how he liked it, and so forth) ; Greek, in which I gave them my
theory on the particles, and History of England, Irom James the
First to William the Third, which I had at my fingers’ ends, with
dates on my nails in ink. We topped up with Arithmetic up to
Compound Fractions, and that finished it. After this I was selected as
duly qualified to inspect and report upon the Chimneys ot the Northern
Factories, under the new Act. “ Ending in smoke,” as my runny
Friend observed, to whom we shall soon come, after I’ve shown you
one interesting picture in my collection.
In order that my situation as regards my Funny Friend may be
thoroughly appreciated (I have been obliged to drop his acquaintance
—let the reader decide between us) I must add that I am a bachelor.
It is almost superfluous to say that I was born a bachelor. 1 was;
and am.
I have, however, by me (so to speak) a Great Aunt, ohe is not
greater than other people’s aunts, only she had the advantage to ^be
born some time before them, at least, belore most aunts whom I ve
met. If it hadn’t been for the fact of her being alive now, I should
have always thought that great aunts existed only in portraits at j
HARD UP ON THE MOORS.
Anxious Wife. “ For Goodness’ sake bring Something home to-day, dear ! There’s absolutely Nothing for Second Course ! ”
A FEW FRIENDS.
(FROM MY PHOTOGRAPH BOOK.)
TABLEAU III.—A RELATIVE.—NECESSARY PREPARATIONS FOR EXHI-
BITING TABLEAU OF “ MY FUNNY FRIEND.”
I have a character to keep up : I intimated that much in my last.
Government required inspectors under the new Olfactory Act for the
Better Regulation of Registers (Chimneys), and Prevention of Infan-
tile Overworking. The first part of this Act affects the consumption
of smoke, the second the consumption in children. [I said this, not
my Funny Friend—portrait coming.] Thus I am placed by a wise and
enlightened Government in the position of a superior chimney-sweep,
with a travelling commission to look up all the factory chimneys in
my district, combined with the office of a doctor with powers to make
little boys put out their tongues (not rudely, but salubriously and
politely), extend their arms to have their pulses felt, and to ask ques-
tions of them to which their answers must be the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, or else they ’ll catch it.
I mention these particulars in corroboration of my assertion that
“ I have a character to keep up.” I only have to keep it up in the
North, when I come South I am another creature. In the North I am
practical, severe, yet affable: in the South I obtain the name of a
genial trifler. I come South, like a swallow, for my holidays. Hence
my stay at Brighton, hence my Hearty Friend, hence my being laid up,
hence my Gloomy Friend, and after play comes my work.
How I obtained my present position as Olfactory Inspector has con-
siderably puzzled my friends, but so has the policy of Mb. Disraeli.
I have heard good-natured people remark on my incapacity for business
in general, and this in particular. What do I know of chimney-
registers, of the law of patents, of measles in little boys, and of the
amount of smoke required to be consumed at a pressure of so much on
the square inch, and the lubrication of wheels within wheels as an
economical process in manual labour ? That is what my friends (all
photographed) ask ? What is my reply when questioned point blank P
I say, “Never mind,” simply that, like Edgar Poe’s Raven over and
over again—
“ Quotli th’ Inspector,
* Never mind.’ ”
(The Raven said “Never more ” on a door.)
Still I was nettled by these insinuations. It was not nepotism that
put me where I am, as 1 am nobody’s nephew.
By the way. What a first-rate title for a novel, Nobody's Nephew, by
the author of—what P
As I was saying, no nepotism directed my individual case. There
was an examination to be passed, and I passed it; passed it well too,
leaving it (so to speak) several miles behind me on the road, and
staggering the Examiners. There were several competitors, they may
be going on at it now for all I know, so cleanly did 1 walk away irom
them. A regular Achievement or Hermit among the Examiners. The
subjects were French (including a conversation viva voce with an
Examiner whom I was obliged to correct several times), Latin (Cicero,
with questions as to what his prse-nomen was, where he lived, when he
lived, how he liked it, and so forth) ; Greek, in which I gave them my
theory on the particles, and History of England, Irom James the
First to William the Third, which I had at my fingers’ ends, with
dates on my nails in ink. We topped up with Arithmetic up to
Compound Fractions, and that finished it. After this I was selected as
duly qualified to inspect and report upon the Chimneys ot the Northern
Factories, under the new Act. “ Ending in smoke,” as my runny
Friend observed, to whom we shall soon come, after I’ve shown you
one interesting picture in my collection.
In order that my situation as regards my Funny Friend may be
thoroughly appreciated (I have been obliged to drop his acquaintance
—let the reader decide between us) I must add that I am a bachelor.
It is almost superfluous to say that I was born a bachelor. 1 was;
and am.
I have, however, by me (so to speak) a Great Aunt, ohe is not
greater than other people’s aunts, only she had the advantage to ^be
born some time before them, at least, belore most aunts whom I ve
met. If it hadn’t been for the fact of her being alive now, I should
have always thought that great aunts existed only in portraits at j