Punch (54.1868)

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MR. PUNCH’S ALLOCUTION TO MANKIND.

TQRETHREN AND PERSONS,

Hebe we are again, and. how do you do at the beginning of
another New Year?

I am quite well, I thank you kindly.

Nevertheless, Brethren and Persons, it cannot be denied that there
are many things which we must regard as misfortunes.

Oysters (I hope you all like oysters) are much too dear.

The old Opera-House (apropos of oysters) has been burned down.

We have only an armed truce with the Cabmen,
i The Walrus is dead.

So are the dear little Hippocampi, that were like the Knights of
‘Chess.

The miscreants who mend the roads won’t roll them.

Women of the inferior class have not learnt from their betters to
discard Dorothy Draggletail dresses, and they be-plaster you with mud
•as they come into an omnibus.

Whalley sits for Peterborough.

Postmen are insufficiently paid. If they should strike ?

There is very little holly this winter.

Music-hall slang-songs are sung by ladies and gentlemen.

The Street-Organ still rages, unstamped out.

Ritualism is rampant.

A good cigar is frightfully expensive.

So is matrimony.

The porters on the Underground Railway will not sound their H.
Mayors of Dover assail sea-sick Notables with addresses.

Young ladies write novels which make bearded men blush.
Napoleon is arming Twelve Hundred Thousand soldiers.

They have spoiled the beautiful front of the Travellers’ Club.

Scotch bairnies are refused sweeties all through a four hours’ service.

Irish stew is rarely made good.

Welsh rabbits are less digestible than ever.

People who bad better hold their tongues—talk.

Smart stock-jobbers make slow puns.

Thomas Carlyle has published nothing lately.

You know who I mean has published a great deal.

Parliament meets in Eebruary—the only compensation (I admit a
grand one) is My Essence.

Half-crowns have not been called in.

The Christmas-box extortion is not made felony.

Bumble is still blatant.

Crossing-sweepers beg.

Shaving is incompatible with comfort, and soup with moustaches.

Eew servants can boil eggs. Slush or stone.

Boys learn Greek instead of French.

Gas is bad, and worst on Sundays.

1 caunot publish myself every day.

These be griefs, but there are many consolations, Brethren and Per-
sons. You have much to be thankful for. I am among you. My
Pocket Book is stupendous, and my Almanack gigantic; and, guided
by these, and by a reverent study of my hebdomadal pages, you will be
preserved from all sorts of evils too tedious to mention.

I wish you a Happy New Year. It is sure to be a lucky one, for it
begins on a Wednesday—the day of my issue to the World.

| Begone dull Care, and begone all of you.

Early Satire.

A young lady sends us this. YYe don’t see much in it, but it is
accompanied by so pretty a petition for its insertion, and by a photo-
graph which proclaims so much prett.iness in the original, that we do
not, like to refuse. She says, that at her Papa’s table there was discus-
sion on the last horseflesh dinner, and her Mamma said, “ Dear me,
Low nasty ! They’ll eat donkeys next.” “1 hope not,” said her
brother. “ N.B. My brother is rather stupid.”

Something like a Miracle.

A genuine double miracle has been worked in Brussels. Three
miscreant carpenters got into a church, and stripped an image of the
Virgin of all its jewels. They got off at the moment, but not only was
a policeman inspired with the power of seeing them, but he was
miraculously endowed with intellect which enabled him to fetch
assistance, and seize them. There is something in Catholic miracles
after all. We are seldom favoured in the above way

Vol. 54.

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