DOI issue:
October 19, 1867
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16880#0166
October 19, 1867.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
155
PRECOCITY.
Belle of the Juveniles. “Oh, Lady Charlotte, do let us Stay a little
longer ! ”
Lady Charlotte. “But, my dear, you’re not Sent for, yet!”
Belle. “Ah, but I mean when we are sext for!”
A GROAN FROM BELOW.
’Twas in a large Metropolis,
Where busy folks abound.
And from somewhere came thro’ the air
A sad and solemn sound.
That never murmured overhead,
But always underground.
Among the streets it seemed to sigh,
Among the crowd to moan ;
It muttered in the air, and then
The drains took up the tone
As if beneath the crowded street
The dead began to groan !
Oh, wherefore comes that murmuring,
That sad and solemn sound ;
That never murmurs overhead.
But always underground.
Some fellow’s been interred alive
I ’Jl wager you a pound !
But hark ! I think I now can heat
Some human accents there.
By Jove ! Ah yes ! upon my word
They’re speaking, 1 declare !
And this their cry, “ Good folks above,
Come send us down some air ! ”
And one most sad and solemn voice
I hear, with groan profound :—
“ Good men of London, if you’d keep
Your bellows clear and sound.
Just travel always up above,
And never underground ! ”
A SOBER DEMAND.
Teetotallers are not very common in stage workshops,
to judge by this advertisement:—•
’yy’ANTED, a Sober Stage Carpenter. Apply, &c.
One might fancy that Stage Carpenters were habitually
intemperate, if it be needful to advertise thus pointedly for
a sober one. But surely the adjective might be omitted as
redundant. A drunken Stage Carpenter never could be
advertised among the “ persons wanted.”
CHINESE ANCIENT CONCERTS
In the Great Exhibition at Paris there is something which should
interest the Anthropological Society. That is an orchestra in the
Chinese department, which plays national airs. The music of the
Celestial Empire can hardly be called heavenly; on the contrary, in
the opinion of competent judges, it precisely resembles that of a master
principally celebrated for his composition of L’Orphee aux infers. Of
the observation of those critics the Post says :—
“ It amounts to this, that the description of light melodies, so characteristic and
so much appreciated in our times in the West, under the name of Offenbach, would
appear to have delighted Chinese ears some twenty centuries at least before the
inauguration of the Parisian boufies. In order to be convinced of this it is sufficient
to take a seat in the Chinese garden of the Exhibition, where an orchestra daily
performs, partly on Chinese instruments, pieces of the time of Confucius, reve-
rently preserved by the countrymen of the celebrated philosopher, and translated
with scrupulous accuracy by an eminent composer, L. HaUnel de Cromenthal.”
Milton delighted ia music “ married to immortal verse,” and
married equally. The music of the Chinese Offenbach would not
perhaps have been appreciated by our sublime Poet: but it has proved
to be, if not immortal, at least long-lived, and is probably well-matched
with the specimens of verse whereof some of the titles are under-
named :—
“ The Song of Tea, the Descent of the Swallow, the Pipe of Niou Va (a princess
who obtained the consent of her husband to her living always as on the eve of
marriage), the Dance of Feathers, all these, in fact, so completely remind us of the
style of the Orphie and the Belle tUttne, that some incredulity has for a moment
been felt touching the nationality of those charming compositions. It must, how-
ever, be admitted that the doubt has vanished before incontestable evidence of then-
origin.’
The character of the Chinese compositions above specified may be
supposed to be eminently exemplified by the Dance of Leathers, which
ought to be very light music. But of what consequence is all this, or
any of it, to the Anthropological Society ? It bears on the question
of the possible degeneration of the human race. The Chinese had an
Offenbach of their own, a Ting-Ting, or a Sing-Sing, or whatever he
called himself, two thousand years ago. They have no such composer
now. Music, then, is one particular in which they have gone down.
Three, or four or five centuries ago, perhaps they had a Handel, a
Haydn, a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Cherubini, and a Weber. Before ;
they had an Offenbach they may have had a Sebastian Bach.
At this rate they have been for many ages in a gradual course of
musical declension. At the same time they have most likely declined in
every other respect, bodily as well as mental. Look at their features.
Consider the porcine obliquity of their eyes. What if Ching-Wang
be in the way of a gradual descent to Tig-Tig ?
The Offenbach sort of music is very widely popular among our-
selves. But there is a public and a public. There is a public in-
sensible to any music but that which is congenial to gaiety and animal
spirits. There is another public that loves music meaning what is
meant by the higher and nobler sort of poetry. We have the free and
easy Music Halls ; but we have also Exeter Hall and the Operas. The
capacity of the British Public is not universally satisfied with the
levities of Offenbach. We may hope that our descendants will not
have been gradually transformed, as though by Circe, to grunting
creatures, or have sunk into long-eared animals, or anthropoid apes
“ with foreheads villanous low.”
Dying and Die-Forging.
Two women, named Cooke and Silk, were sentenced in Dublin
lately for conspiring to defraud the Royal Liver Society by a forged
death certificate. Six months’ imprisonment is rather an unusual
consequence of a Liver complaint, but in this case a perfectly natural
one.
Painful to a Degree.—Being plucked.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
155
PRECOCITY.
Belle of the Juveniles. “Oh, Lady Charlotte, do let us Stay a little
longer ! ”
Lady Charlotte. “But, my dear, you’re not Sent for, yet!”
Belle. “Ah, but I mean when we are sext for!”
A GROAN FROM BELOW.
’Twas in a large Metropolis,
Where busy folks abound.
And from somewhere came thro’ the air
A sad and solemn sound.
That never murmured overhead,
But always underground.
Among the streets it seemed to sigh,
Among the crowd to moan ;
It muttered in the air, and then
The drains took up the tone
As if beneath the crowded street
The dead began to groan !
Oh, wherefore comes that murmuring,
That sad and solemn sound ;
That never murmurs overhead.
But always underground.
Some fellow’s been interred alive
I ’Jl wager you a pound !
But hark ! I think I now can heat
Some human accents there.
By Jove ! Ah yes ! upon my word
They’re speaking, 1 declare !
And this their cry, “ Good folks above,
Come send us down some air ! ”
And one most sad and solemn voice
I hear, with groan profound :—
“ Good men of London, if you’d keep
Your bellows clear and sound.
Just travel always up above,
And never underground ! ”
A SOBER DEMAND.
Teetotallers are not very common in stage workshops,
to judge by this advertisement:—•
’yy’ANTED, a Sober Stage Carpenter. Apply, &c.
One might fancy that Stage Carpenters were habitually
intemperate, if it be needful to advertise thus pointedly for
a sober one. But surely the adjective might be omitted as
redundant. A drunken Stage Carpenter never could be
advertised among the “ persons wanted.”
CHINESE ANCIENT CONCERTS
In the Great Exhibition at Paris there is something which should
interest the Anthropological Society. That is an orchestra in the
Chinese department, which plays national airs. The music of the
Celestial Empire can hardly be called heavenly; on the contrary, in
the opinion of competent judges, it precisely resembles that of a master
principally celebrated for his composition of L’Orphee aux infers. Of
the observation of those critics the Post says :—
“ It amounts to this, that the description of light melodies, so characteristic and
so much appreciated in our times in the West, under the name of Offenbach, would
appear to have delighted Chinese ears some twenty centuries at least before the
inauguration of the Parisian boufies. In order to be convinced of this it is sufficient
to take a seat in the Chinese garden of the Exhibition, where an orchestra daily
performs, partly on Chinese instruments, pieces of the time of Confucius, reve-
rently preserved by the countrymen of the celebrated philosopher, and translated
with scrupulous accuracy by an eminent composer, L. HaUnel de Cromenthal.”
Milton delighted ia music “ married to immortal verse,” and
married equally. The music of the Chinese Offenbach would not
perhaps have been appreciated by our sublime Poet: but it has proved
to be, if not immortal, at least long-lived, and is probably well-matched
with the specimens of verse whereof some of the titles are under-
named :—
“ The Song of Tea, the Descent of the Swallow, the Pipe of Niou Va (a princess
who obtained the consent of her husband to her living always as on the eve of
marriage), the Dance of Feathers, all these, in fact, so completely remind us of the
style of the Orphie and the Belle tUttne, that some incredulity has for a moment
been felt touching the nationality of those charming compositions. It must, how-
ever, be admitted that the doubt has vanished before incontestable evidence of then-
origin.’
The character of the Chinese compositions above specified may be
supposed to be eminently exemplified by the Dance of Leathers, which
ought to be very light music. But of what consequence is all this, or
any of it, to the Anthropological Society ? It bears on the question
of the possible degeneration of the human race. The Chinese had an
Offenbach of their own, a Ting-Ting, or a Sing-Sing, or whatever he
called himself, two thousand years ago. They have no such composer
now. Music, then, is one particular in which they have gone down.
Three, or four or five centuries ago, perhaps they had a Handel, a
Haydn, a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Cherubini, and a Weber. Before ;
they had an Offenbach they may have had a Sebastian Bach.
At this rate they have been for many ages in a gradual course of
musical declension. At the same time they have most likely declined in
every other respect, bodily as well as mental. Look at their features.
Consider the porcine obliquity of their eyes. What if Ching-Wang
be in the way of a gradual descent to Tig-Tig ?
The Offenbach sort of music is very widely popular among our-
selves. But there is a public and a public. There is a public in-
sensible to any music but that which is congenial to gaiety and animal
spirits. There is another public that loves music meaning what is
meant by the higher and nobler sort of poetry. We have the free and
easy Music Halls ; but we have also Exeter Hall and the Operas. The
capacity of the British Public is not universally satisfied with the
levities of Offenbach. We may hope that our descendants will not
have been gradually transformed, as though by Circe, to grunting
creatures, or have sunk into long-eared animals, or anthropoid apes
“ with foreheads villanous low.”
Dying and Die-Forging.
Two women, named Cooke and Silk, were sentenced in Dublin
lately for conspiring to defraud the Royal Liver Society by a forged
death certificate. Six months’ imprisonment is rather an unusual
consequence of a Liver complaint, but in this case a perfectly natural
one.
Painful to a Degree.—Being plucked.