Punch (56.1869)

January 23, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

23

HINTS FOR CONVERSATION.

and the King of Greece ; and the Paris Conference ; and the
Velocipedes in that city, and the probability of their becoming the
fashion in London ; and the dirt and danger of our streets ; and the
Police ; and the organs ; and the musical pitch ; and the destruction
of sea-birds on the Bass Rock ; and Gibraltar ; and the settlement of
the difficulty with China, and—“ Tea, Sir, is in the Drawing-room.”

HERE HE IS AGAIN !

lways adapt your conversation to your company.
If you find yourself seated at dinner by the side of
the wife of a dignitary of the Church of Ireland,
eulogise Mr. Gladstone and- Mr. Bright, and
ask her whether it is true that the average at-
tendance at Divine Service in Protestant Churches
in the Catholic Provinces is eleven, includ-
ing the clergyman’s family and the officials. If your next-chair
neighbour chances to be a lady who is of the Evangelical way of think-
ing, lament the unpleasant consequences that seem to result in China
and elsewhere from the injudicious zeal of Missionaries, and tell her,
if you happen to be an M.P., who has not been petitioned against, that
you mean to bring the matter before Parliament. References, amusing
but slightly irritating, to Mr. Bennett or Mr. Mackonociiie, and a
positive assertion that Archdeacon D-n in early life held Pela-
gian opinions, and that Dr. P--y was inclined to adopt the tenets of

Emanuel Swedenborg, will make the after-dinner hour pass pleasantly,
if the clergyman near you shows by his vestments and conversation that
he would prefer the stake to having his candles put out by that extin-
guishing Lord Cairns. You can have no hesitation as to what you
should say to the foolish young creature whose hair, now of golden
lustre, you remember was shabby colour when you met her twelve
months ago at the Lumley Gillsons : remarks on the destructive
character of dyes and washes and the diseases their use brings on,
including hydrocephalus, malaria, madness, and impecuniosity, from all
of which several of your own friends and relatives have had hair-breadth
escapes, will fill up the intervals between the quadrilles agreeably,
and if you are of a jocular turn, as you go round the room, and the
room goes round with you in the waltz, whisper that you suppose
women always were, and always will be, dying lor men. Your popu-
larity with boys in the holidays will be unbounded, if you can encourage
them to give you the date of the foundation of ancient Rome, or the
leading events in the life of Numa Pompilius, with a translation off
hand of “ Me a viater sus est mala,” or any other scrap of catch Latin
you can think of over dessert; while, if you desire to make yourself
agreeable to their sisters’ governess, the readiest way will be to invite
her opinion as to the best manuals of geography, chronology and
calisthenics.

Pass the bottle and get upon bottle-nosed whales; and the Prince’s
visit to Egypt, and the reception he will have from the Viceroy ; and
Lord Spencer’s public entry into Dublin ; and Gladstone’s inten-
tions on the land question ; and threatening letters; and letters in the
papers about primogeniture, hair-dyes, young men, criminalism and
pauperism ; and poor outcasts in rags looking into fruiterers’ shop
windows at pears a guinea a-piece; and the first-fruits of Ministerial
economy, as shown in reductions in Commissionerships, Dockyards,
and Public Departments ; and the Department of Science and Art,
and the Meyrick CoUection of Armour at South Kensington ; and the
new Parish Church it is proposed to build in that quarter of London ;
and the Ritualists and their meetings in Freemasons’ Hall; and the
Prince of Wales having become a Ereemason while in Denmark ;

WHO ? WHY, OUR OLD POET OF THE PHILHARMONIC. DON’T YOU
REMEMBER HIS DIVINE STYLE IN BYE-GONE YEARS OF MUSICAL
STRIFE ? YOU WILL DIRECTLY.

Well, I declare ! If Music, which means the same as Harmony,

And if there are any Savage Breasts professes to be quite equal to
charm any,

Isn’t again causing Able Conductors and Pleasing Vocalists to fly
at each other,

When every true Musician should regard the rest as a Man and a
Brother.

(Of course I don’t mean when he’s a Sister, that’s different conditions.
Instance Grisi, Patti, Lucca, Nilsson, Arabella Goddard, and
Titiens)

Instead of letting Passions rise because Pitch is to be let fall,

Surely such Sentiments don’t become Philadelpheion, namely, Exeter
Hall.

Highty tighty, goody me, I say. Come you know. Bless me. My word!
Considering the Matter in unfriendly Spirits is a good deal worse than
absurd.

Why, you know, if Brazen instruments gets rusty, a Sensible Man oils
’em,

But if Human Voices grow rusty, the rust takes and Spoils ’em.
Because you can’t oil voices, though you can the inside of a throat,

As salads, Cod Liver, Olives, Castor, Sardines, and others useless to
Quote.

Brilliant no doubt, Conductors are, like the lightning which runs down
them,

(Not them, but the iron ones) and ought to have Noble Laurels to
crown them,

And I’m sure to hear a great orchestra go off Simultaneous
Impresses with the highest idea of Instrumental genius,

But voices before instruments, Miriam before Tubal Cain,

(At least she came after him, but my Allegorical meaning is plain)
What is made by Nature can only be mended by her, ana she won’t
mend it,

Whereas Most Respectable makers will mend your Pipe whenever you
please to send it.

And if Sims Reeves, and Halle, and Manns, and the rest say Down
with Pitch,

(As if laying Bitumen pavement) the Conductors should behave as sich,
That is, conduct themselves, namely, with Suavity, Conciliation, and
leave off sulking.

Pitch ill feeling to the deuce, and Toss discord clean out of the Welkin.

NOT AT ALL PHARISAICAL.

A Erench gentleman, writing on Erench theatres, informs us that
as soon as a Parisian young lady is married, she demands to be taken
to a playhouse, where it is supposed that she is more likely to see and
hear “ tk'it she should not ” than in any other edifice of the kind. We
are sorry to hear such an account of the mothers of Young France.
On the whole, we are glad that no such marriage right exists in Eng-
land, and that if there did, we have no theatre for its exercise. Flippant,
stupid, sensational, our theatrical presentations may be, but they are
nearly harmless, and would be quite so if managers were aware how
very inexpensive, thanks to free trade and improved machinery, femi-
nine garments are. The misplaced economy which deprives the ballet
of clothing may be creditable to the honesty of managers, but is other-
wise objectionable. But we have no Palais-Royal for the demoralisation
of brides.

Parliamentary Thought.

One of the Windsor election witnesses described somebody as the
very man that was wanted as an agent, “ because he looked exactly
like a fool, but wasn’t one.” Curious, that many electors should employ
precisely the opposite rule when selecting the very man wanted as
an M.P._

WELL done.

Sending a donation the other day, anonymously, to the Metropolitan
Free Drinking Fountains’ Association (a deserving society), Water-
ford Lake signed himself, not inappropriately—” A Well-Wisher.”