Punch (55.1868)

35

July 25, 1868.]

PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

John. “Now, Thomas, ain’t you ready? The Carriage is waitin’ !”

Thomas. “I ain’t a going. If Missis is equal to Carriage Hexercise in this ’ot Weather, I am not!”

MARRIAGE ON A MODERATE INCOME.

Gentlemen entertaining the question whether a man can afford to
marry on £1,000 a year, are informed, in an advertisement by a
Milliner, that there exists at a shop in Regent Street:—

TTlHR LARGEST COLLECTION of ANTIQUE and MODERN REAL
-L LACES in EUROPE.—The new Bruxelles pointe d’aiguille bridal veils
(without powder), 10 to 100 guineas ; volants, tuniques, &c., en suite. Shawls
in every kind of real lace, 5 to 500 guineas (many exclusive designs and par-
ticularly adapted for wedding trousseaux). Real laces of every description
direct from the ouvrieres at the lowest prices.”

This information may suggest the inquiry whether shawls at from 5
to 500 guineas each, particularly adapted for wedding trousseaux, con-
stitute a beginning that may be looked upon as an earnest of the way
in which a wife is likely to go on. If so, this sort of earnest will be
no fun lor anybody but a mihionnaire, who thinks unlimited expenditure
a joke. That amongst those shawls there are some whose designs are
exclusive, one would, think likely. The designs of 500 guinea shawls
must be exclusive of all purchasers except those endowed much more
plentifully with money than with brains, unless endowed with practi-
cally no end of money. From the figures named, with reference to
shawls and veils, the lowest prices of real laces would seem to be too
high to admit of matrimony on a pittance of £1,000 per annum. Bridal
veils at from ten to a hundred guineas may be thought to imply brides
proportionally expensive in every other particular. All this is intel-
ligible ; but what is the meaning of bridal veils without powder ? Not
surely that tuey are composed of materials like gun-cotton, which will
blow up. That can be no recommendation, although many husbands
may wish that such costly veils were exploded.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH PLAYS.

-Mr the St. James’s The Grand Duchess finished by becoming the wife
ol Paul the Prince. At the Olympic The Grand Duchess ben an by being'
Mrs. Paul.

THE RAILWAY AMALGAMATION SCREW.

The subjoined extract from the Railway News looks rather like a
defiance thrown in the teeth of Parliament and the People of England
by certain Directors of:—

“ The Railways South of the Thames.—One of the first effects of the
withdrawal of the Amalgamation Bill of the Southern lines will very shortly
be felt by the public. Up to the present time several of the Brighton trains
have been allowed to run into the Cannon Street terminus. As, however,
Parliament has refused power for the South-Eastern to charge a reasonable
toll for the use of the station on which so large a sum has been expended, the
directors have given notice to the Brighton Company that their trains will
not, on and after August 1st, be allowed to enter the station. Some additions
to the fares, which the company have power to make under their present Act,
will also come into force at that time.”

“We will see whether you aud your Legislature, or we are the
stronger. We will try whether we have not the power to make you
accept our terms, and submit to what you are pleased to call our impo-
sition.” Such is clearly the meaning of the announcement that the
Brighton Company’s trains will be excluded from the South Eastern’s
station, and the intimation that, simultaneously, the fares will be raised
to the highest figures allowed, by law. In short, the Railways South of
the Thames inform the British Public that, in order to extort consent
to their rapacious Amalgamation scheme, they are about to put on the
screw. Let them. A few turns of that instrument will probably have
a different effect from what they contemplate. Already Government is
proposing to take the Telegraphs into its bands. Perhaps the Railways
will follow.

A Sors Horatiana.

(■Apropos of Ritualism and the Vicar of Wymering.)

“ Hce Nugce seria ducent
In mala-”

“These Nugees may lead the Church into serious mischief.”