Punch (55.1868)

September 19, 1868.] PUNCH, OP THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

117

THE RIGHT SORT OF LITTLE WIFE.

Rosa (clear George is coming down by the “ Husband's boat ” in time for tea). “ I
WANT SOME NICE PRAWNS.”

Margate Fishmonger. “ Ain’t got no Prawns, Mum. Can let you ’aye some

FUST RATE WINKLES 1 ”

[Ah/ She thinks for a moment of Brighton, and Pet’s house on the Steyne, before
she married on £300 a year, and then trips cheerfully back with a bag of ilic
humblest Mollusks.

REMONSTRANCE WITH RAILWAY DIRECTORS.

Wiiat now, are you wroth, dear friends.

Seeing you may not combine
With a view to dividends,

Leagued in concert, line with line?

Do you wish to raise your fares
To their greatest legal height,

Give yourselves vexatious airs,

And the Public try to spite ?

Cease, beloved, cease an aim
So unlovely to pursue ;

Play not such a little game.

Lest I have to weep for you !

Think, when Bribery checked at length
By the might of Law we see,

What will yours and Mammon’s strength
In the House of Commons be ?

Then may an impatient State
Railways, you and all who share.

Eorce to sell, at such a rate
As itself shall reckon fair.

Why not, if the general weal
Sacrifice of you demand,

Sweet ones, since you did not steal
When you forced the sale of land ?

Law, for you, did lord and ’squire,

At a price within set bounds,

Hideous cuts to yield require
Through their old ancestral grounds.
Everywhere your eyesores stand,

Shaming hill, and dale, and wood.

Oh, how you have marred the land.

Doubtless for the public good !

Apple is not sauce for goose
If not sauce for gander too :

Legal tenure should, as loose
As for others, be for you.

Oh then, brethren ! I entreat,

Be content with moderate gain.

Of what measure you did mete
Lest yourselves have to complain.

Musical Note.

A Loyal Composer has brought out a song called “ God
bless the Princess Too.” May Punch suggest another,
“ God bless the Princess Teck.”

HOW TO SAVE OUR INCOME-TAX.

Admiral Punch presents his compliments to the present Board of
Admiralty, and begs to call their notice to the following remarks,
occurring in a letter sent by Captain Sherard Osborn to the
Times:—

“ After having given much consideration to the subject of public expendi-
ture on the Navy, 1 avow that there should be now little difficulty in reducing
it by the annual sum of six millions, or a sum equal, say, to our Income-Tax
of 5d. in the pound sterling, and that without impairing the real fighting
power of the State. . . "Whether in effete admirals, unserviceable half-pay

officers of all grades, huge dockyard establishments, crazy ships, gangs of
loafers receiving pay as combatants who have sworn to themselves never again
to see blue water, and reserves which are only so in name, I maintain that
there never was a time in the history of our Navy when unsparing retrench-
ment could be more advantageously carried out, both in the interest of the
State and of our service.”

Admiral Punch not being exempted by his virtues from liability to
Income-Tax, would thank his brother Admirals to give up wasting
money which he, and hundreds like him, can but ill afford to spare.
Let the loafers in the Navy, who now eat the bread of idleness, be sent
about their business with a big flea in their ears. Let the obsolete
old wooden hulks now rotting in our harbours be broken up for fire-
wood, rather than continue to cost us thousands yearly for keeping
them afloat. Let a serviceable fleet of turret-ships be built, and no
more millions be wasted upon men-of-war monstrosities—big, rolling,
broadside ironclads, whence, it seems, in roughish weather not a
broadside can be fired. Let promotion depend less on patronage than
merit, and let brains not always be overcome by birth. Let expensive
dockyard jobbery no more be winked at by extravagant and indolent

officials, who only keep their eyes open to their own advantage. Let
the Navy be no longer preyed on by the knavish. And, with a view
! to these amendments, let electors recollect that they may save their In-
come-Tax, if needless waste of money be prevented in the service; and
let them, therefore, firmly refuse to vote for candidates who will not
pledge themselves to vote for thorough Admiralty reform.

THE HAIR AND A FEW FAIR FRIENDS.

We wonder if young Gentlemen now ever ask young Ladies for a lock
of their hair. One would fancy men of sense would think twice ere
they did so, after laying to their hearts such intelligence as this:—

“ Long hair now costs as much as 110 f. a pound ; short hair ranges between
18 f. and 35 f. One of the principal dealers in human tresses occupies a house
five storeys high entirely to himself, and last year he did business to the extent
of 1,233,000 f. The capillary razzias executed among the peasantry no longer
suffice to meet the enormous demand. The hair of dead persons, cut off the
corpses in the hospitals, is a great help, but still insufficient.”

Fancy begging for a love-lock and being probably presented with
some hair cut in a hospital, and purchased by pound-weight ! And
fancy women fancying that a lump of purchased hair in any way can
add to their capillary attractions ! Venus Calva, the bald Venus, was
worshipped in old Rome, and we should not wonder much if baldness
be ere long regarded as a beauty. A man of any sense would surely
much prefer to marry a woman without hair than one who wore a
chignon transplanted from a hospital. Instead of being attracted by
copious hirsuteness, a man will find that “ beauty draws him with a
single hair ; ” or he at any rate will think that the fewer hairs a lady
has upon her head, the greater chance there is that she is wearing
what belongs to her by nature, not by purchase.