Punch: Punch (57.1869)

134 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 2, 1869.

"THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE (SKETCHING) SEASON."

Papa. " There, Henry f If you could do like that, I'd have you taught Drawing, my Boy ! "

"UP WITH THE BLACK FLAG!"

The "Men of Business" have been at it again, and nicely they have
done it. Down went the Albert Assurance the other day, and now
the European has collapsed. What goes next ? We hear, the-

And who cares, except unhappy policyholders, who have been living
in the comfortable faith that they had provided for their widows and
children, and now find that they have done nothing of the sort, the
" Men of Business " having made mistakes. Those poor holders care,

of course, and some hang themselves, as they are not now afraid of I we rejoice in acquiring the above information. But let us have some

AND WHAT THEN ?

"At the last meeting of the Anthropological Society of London, Da, Beddob
read a paper on the stature and bulk of man in the British Islands. He
found the tallest men in Upper Galloway, the heaviest in Berwickshire, and
the smallest among the Spitalfields weavers."

Most valuable and interestiug statistics. Next to knowing how-
many pennies piled up would be as high as the Monument, and what is
the united age of nine old idiots who dined together on the 1st April,

vitiating their policies by the act. Some begin with old hands to try ! more ? Erom investigations by our own Special Commissioner, we are

to scrape a little. We have not heard of any of them throwing a
Director or two out of window.

But the rest of the world takes no heed of the ruin. It reserves its
indignation for twopenny police cases. A servant-maid sets her affec-
tions on a thief, and he sets his on the plate. All respectability is in
a hot rage, and would hang both. A couple of rogues break into a
church and take out the halfpence, and bits of tobacco-pipes, and
buttons, in the dusty old charity box. Sacrilege and transportation
are the household words on every respectable tongue.

But the " Men of Business " who take a hard-worker's money, half-
year after half-year, solemnly pledging themselves to pay a lump sum
at his death—they smash up. Nobody proposes to hang any of them.

We really do not know why.

Just as an experiment made on a vile body?

Let us have no ex post facto laws, but let it be understood that the
Directors of the next Assurance Company that collapses shall be
hanged.

The process can do no harm, and may do much good.

It should be done on the premises, in the Board Room. The Black
Flag Assurance Society would be a name of remembrance among
" Men of Business."

i

botheration

On the Irish Land Question everybody is—of course—at sea. Then
they should try to promote the Irish Fisheries.

able to inform Dr. Beddoe that in Cornwall are the most men who
squint, in Devonshire the most men who have the hiccups, in Dorset-
shire the most men who put their knives into their mouths, in
Zummersetshire the most men who go to sleep in church, in Sussex
the most men who snore, in Hampshire the most men who stutter, in
Berkshire the most men who scratch their heads, in Derbyshire the
most men who like onions, in Worcestershire, the most men who wish
when they see a piebald, and in Herefordshire the most men who never
blow their noses. Knowledge is power, and here is a power of know-
ledge. Bravo, Beddoe ! bravo, Punch !

" Seely," i.e., Lucky.— Spenser.

The Author of Ecce Homo succeeds Canon Kingsley in the chair of
Modern History at Cambridge. Lord Shaftesbury is as well as can
be expected, and Archdeacon Denison is so much recovered that no
further bulletins will be issued.

Why the Viaduct Isn't Opened.

All's done, the work of trowel, stone-saw, forge:
Admit the public. Not so fast, by George !
Wait till Great Beadledom can Strut and Gorge.

Disinfecting Fluid.—Mr. Punch's Ink.