Punch: Punch (57.1869)

126

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 2, 18G9.

A WANTON WARNING TO VANITY.

ndeed the Morning Post on slit
to be ashamed of itself. That
journal, which we used to call
our fashionable contemporary,
publishes a paragraph, headed
" Tight-Lacing," which re-
ports the particulars of an
inquest held at the College
Arms, Crowndale Road, Cam-
den Town, on the body of a
young woman, aged only
nineteen, and whereby, if they
see it, our dear girls who take
in such instructive journals
as the Englishwoman's Domes-
tic Magazine will be terrified
to no purpose by the ihfor

and destruction of that very Church he once so gloried to defend, Had the
Eight Hon. TV. E. Gladstone, in 1848, listened to the wise, affectionate,
and prophetic warning of the Kev. Eobert Montgomery, he would now stand
before horror-struck Christendom, arraigned of the most impious and whole-
sale sacrilege on record! "

the ROCK on lord byron.

"But what of Lord Byron? Surely there was fire—bright, brilliant,
blazing fire enough in that heart—but was it ever warmed with the glow of
a generous affection ; was it ever blest with the unspeakable bliss of a fervent
and abiding love ? Trie fire in Byron's heart was like the flame of the
volcano ; it tore his bosom to pieces, it tossed and upheaved his very being ;
it rushed out from him only to desolate and destroy all that was near it and
within its reach ; it was not like the fire that burns in. the lamp of Heaven, to
beautify and to brighten all that it looks down upon."

the ROCK on shelley.

" Shelley's married life points precisely the same moral, and from the
same cause; for the infidel Shelley, like the infidel Byron, was beyond
most men of his time capable of realising to the uttermost all that is most
beautiful and most poetical in human affection, and yet the natural fire

mation^that_" I within him, which should have lighted the lamp of his earthly Paradise,

j became, as in Byron's case, the fire of a volcano, and only burnt the heart
"She was out three hours that it should have blessed."
with a perambulator, in which
was one child, and as she neared

her destination she fell down in- « Both were ardent admirers of Republicanism and professed champions of
sensible. She was taken to 10, the rights of man (!); both became objects of admiration, of pity, and of
Polygon, where upon examma- j tiorror to the generation in which they lived ; both loved to sing of the fasci-

nations or the tlesn m strains ot gross sensuousness, burdened, too, with the
curse of blasphemy, but splendid with the graces and glory of genuine poetry,
in which they painted to the very life the terrible influence of a godless un-
holy love in transforming the manhood of man into the brutishness of the
brute, or into the fury and fierceness of a fiend."

the ROCK on bykon and shelley.

tion by Dr. Smellie, she was found quite dead. It was discovered that she
was very tightly laced, and Dr. Smellie stated that death was caused by
effusion of blood on the brain, caused by fatty heart, accelerated by compres-
sion of the chest produced by tight-lacing. The jury returned a verdict in
those terms."

This statement, so inconsistently published by our once, and, we
hitherto supposed, our still fashionable contemporary, is calculated to THE R0CE 0N THE Jesuits.

have a most unfashionable effect, namely, that of deterring girls from " The Jesuits are not such simpletons as the Pall Hall Gazette seems to
following the revived fashion of lacing as tight as they can stand, and ; imagine. Their unwavering purpose for more than half a century has been
tighter than thev are sometimes able to go. But a propensity, which fixed upon the accomplishment of that object which Dr. Manning looks upon
seems a law of their nature, happily compels them, for the most part, i as the mam business of his life—to undermine and destroy the influence of
to follow the fashion regardless of consequences. The typical and : Great Britain as the leading Protestant Power m ChnstenQom Protestant
average woman can no more deviate from the dress of the day than an ! st5*es™en *j»> understand this question do no trouble their heads with the

__• 1 1 1 1 , • • , , mi -J r wild absurdities 01 modern llomish theology, i nev find more congenial work

animal can choose to change its skin or its spots There is no fear . in iooki after tbe occult di lo <f/the Vatican; and, if we are not
that any girls accustomed to tight-lacmg will ever be induced to relm- ! greatly mistaken, the Council of Pome will supply some good material for
quish that, practice which renders them such delightful objects to one that study."
another, if ridiculous and repulsive to stupid men, by any such non-
sense as a report of the verdict of a coroner's jury ascribing death to
the effect of tight-lacing in accelerating fatty degeneration of the
heart. No_ apprehension of fatty hearts is excitable in intellects
which, dominated by a loveable instinct of imitation, brutal philoso-
phers consider fatuous, and sometimes dare to speak of their charming
possessors as fat-headed, and express the opinion that their heads

contain fat in the place of brains ! j Church of Ireland, professing, "as they did, with Mr. Gladstone, to glut and

1 gorge the cruel and insatiable hunger of the Popish wolves? "

the ROCK on the fact that a scotsman has been shot in ire-
land, though nearly all the scots members voted fob, thb
disestablishment.

" "What will the men of Scotland say to this ' immolation ' of their country-
man ' on the altar of tenant-right' by the assassins for whom they sacrificed
their Protestant principles in pulling down at the last election the Protestant

It will be seen that one Abdiel-journal is "faithful alone among the
faithless found," and that the Rod is constant to the principles which
placed the Star of Brunswick on the Throne, and the Altar

HONEY OUT OE THE KOCK.

Mr. Punch did himself the pleasure of introducing to the world at
large his explosive contemporary the Rock, when that remarkable
journal started. He did so in obedience to the promptings of a pro-
phetic instinct that (if spared) the Rock would afford some good fun. "MA.Y AND DECEMBER."—Chaucer.

K£S ZITV^P Be;'er fUQ than thf !' eTgelical ti j° Tal An American paper gives the following account of the marriage of

pXtlf 'T Tm^} ° T8' t Sr°: Ian old fellow called vIndeubilt, a railway millionnaire. Who shall

Z t>rP< oSX I V f mA f0" fv, the1troubled air- " 13 fa Plty %at doubt the power of money when it causes such a fellow to be spoken
the Rocks circle is limited, for though its correspondents, worthy __, ,™i„„;„;n„ w.f ™+u o^wj™, ?

persons of the most exhausting enthusiasm, compliment it upon its tre- . ot' not merely cml1^ but Wlth atMatloa

mendous power to protect religion, and smash all the non-orthodox, it j " Not many months ago the Commodore Vanderbilt's son fell desperately
reminds one of Mr. Quilp, who " might have been a ship-broker, but if in love with the charming daughter of one of 1 he city officers. But for some
he were, he broke up his ships so very small, that there was no seeing | reason or other the father was unwilling that the young man should wed the
the pieces." It is a reproach to mankind that the Rock is not more charming young lady, and there were sorrow and tears and coldness as a
known, and to do away, in some degree, with that reproach, Mr. Punch i result- At length the young man sickened and died. The young lady then,
has selected a few gems from the last number which has reached him, i for the first time became known to the firm old father, who is ,4. The latter

and thus sets them for the civilised world :- ! f 8?lte of him*f ',7* p, t,' then chanf^d' fth°n m l°ve™ str°nS Th

'u±xli . ,]eepiy ag a y0uth of twenty. By presents at first, then attentions, then the

rr-rr^ t,™., i offer of his hand, his heart, and 'the keys of his chest,' was this love shown.

the ROCK on the state of ireland. Each wag accept'cd; and g0'the cnarming young lady became after all the wife

" And whom has England gained in Ireland in lieu of the friends whom she of a Vanderbilt. As good as she is beautiful, the world says of her. And
has alienated from her ? Absolutely none. There is far more disloyalty and a gallant knight is the hale old commodore."
sedition in Ireland than there was thirty years ago, and a more intense na-
tional and anti-English feeling than ever existed before in that country." A gallant knight! If the story is true, an old ruffian were the fitter

word. He breaks his son's heart, evidently for no sort of reason, and

the ROCK on what the late rev. robert (" satan ") montgomery then buys the girl for himself.
would have said to mb. gladstone.

" Over the recent deeds of the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Prime
Minister of Great Britain and Ireland, might angels weep ! In what words of
fire would not the Bev. Eobert Montgomery have denounced the bold
apostate, who in the decline of life, and in charity, we hope (of mental power
and moral responsibility) has with matricidal hands, and aided and abetted
by Radicals and Socialists, devoted his power and his energy to the plunder

A Possible Erratum.

A Serial Tale is now appearing in Temple Bar, entitled " Bed as a
Rose is She." We hope great care is taken in printing this Magazine,
for " Red as a Nose is She" would certainly not read well.