Punch (58.1870)

January 15, 1870.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

19

PESTERED BY POST.

Punch, — I wish there were
some easy means of getting
anybody mesmerised so as to
acquire the temporary power
of clairvoyance.

I am out of town, as usual
at this season of the year.
As usual I have my letters
forwarded to me, because I
want to keep myself posted
up. As usual the post
briugs me no end of cir-
culars.

My name happens to
stand on a professional list
accessible to all men. The
consequence of this is that
my letter-box is the daily
receptacle of circulars and
prospectuses sent me by all
manner of cheap wine-mer-
chants, coal-merchants, puff-
in? tradesmen of all descrip-
tions, joint-stock companies
(limited), foreign lottery
offices, charitable institu-
tions, and appeals, chiefly
clerical, to the benevolent.

Now, Sir, I have not
enough money wherewithal
to buy things which I want;
of course, therefore, I have
too little for buying things
which I don't want, too
little to risk, and none at all

give me a needless shock. But I have the satis-
faction of flinging them into the fire, and con-
sidering that the sender has thrown away a
stamp.

But, Sir, that is just what I am made to do
myself, through my servant, when she posts me
circulars not knowing what they contain. Now,
could she be rendered clairvoyante, she would
then be enabled to distinguish between letters
of some consequence, and letters of none. It is
true she would also become acquainted with
their contents. But clairvoyantes, when demes-
merised, are said to forget everything that they
have experienced in their lucid state.

If advertisers of all kinds, and clergymen who
apply for subscriptions, would only be so consi-
derate as to write on the back of their envelopes
" Circular," or " Appeal," they would enable my
servant to know what to do, and what not to do ;
they would assist her to light her fire, and would
save considerable expense to

Yours, truly,

Pilgarlick.

P.S. "Ilka little maks a muckle," as Dr.
Cummlng's countrymen say. I am not sure
about the Scotch of that proverb, quoted from
memory. But I am sure of the sense.

A GOOD APPRENTICESHIP.

The Pall Mall Gazette, referring to the Liberal
party in the House of Lords, says :—

"We hear that the Earl of Cokic and the Duke
of St. Alban's are to be the new Whips."

Whether the Duke's experience as Hereditary
Grand Falconer (by the way, it is a vulgar error
wu6 a^ay* .i i to suppose that his second title is Lord Hawke)
When 1 am at home how- j be of service to him in his new office, it is
ever, the receipt of all these j impossible as yet to say ; but there cannot be a

communications is merely an annoyance of a certain nature. There was a time when it would
have been an annoyance of another kind. With the postman's rap of other days, one t
expected good news. Now one fears bad. Then, one would have been disappointed with a ! first-^^e^Whip!
circular when one expected a Valentine. Now one never expects anything better than an
invitation, worth accepting, to dine. The double rap no longer indeed raises expectations.
But it creates alarm. "Somebody dead," it suggests to me, "or something to pay." Circulars

doubt that in the Earl op Cork, the Master of
the Buckhounds, the Lords ought to have a

Game por the Channel.—BeStck.

BEEFEATERS ABROAD.

the body of their State, and feebly imitate the strength of the British
Constitution.

With all the compliments of the season, and much good may they do
you ! believe me, yours respectfully, Jeremiah Growler.

The Hermitage, Friday.

Philosophic Punch,

Here we^are again, the idiotic clowns say—at that saddening
t ime of year, which cynics have sarcastically called the festive season.
Ugh ! how mentally I shudder at the roast beef and boiled turkey, the
mince-pies and plum-puddings, on which I am condemed to dine for
the next few weeks! Why cannot people take a leaf out of French I THE GREAT ANGLO-GALLIC AMALGAMATION
cookery books, and vary the monotony of Christmas fare—and fowl— phatpantv
whereby the festive season to my mind is made hideous ? I declare I COAlrAJN l.

think next Christmas, if I survive the present, I shall desert my wife
and children, and go over to Paris to escape the beef and turkeys.
Even there, however, I perhaps may find them rampant, for my news-
paper informs n.e that—

"Taken all in all, France may be no worse in point of cookery than
England or Germany, but it is hardly better. Amongst British travellers
there are still a few enthusiasts who go into raptures over the fare provided at
the monster hotels and the more famous restaurants. But Frenchmen them-
selves are of a different opinion, and it is a significant fact that the-restaurants
most popular with French barristers, journalists, artists, officers, and well-to-
do bachelors in general are precisely those where the dinner is of an English
kind ; that is, where a cortege of solemn-looking joints is wheeled, in at six
o'clock and made to do duty as the staple article of the evening's dinner."

If Frenchmen take to dining daily off the joint, perhaps they next
may copy us in limiting their Christmas fare to roast beef and boiled
turkey. Pantomimes may also be transplanted to their stage, and
when the clown makes the remark of " lei nous sommes encore ! " he may
be greeted with a burst of hearty quasi-British merriment. The sight
of Frenchmen gravely—or gravy-ly, if you prefer it so—dining off the
joint is one that may indeed provide food for reflection. It is generally
conceded that the dinner makes the man, and if Frenchmen leave off
dining upon light and airy kickshaws, and eat solid solemn-looking and
substantial food, we shall soon cease to regard them as our lively neigh-
bours. They will become as sensible, sedate, and snobbish as ourselves :
and who knows but that Frenchmen, after dining a VAnglaise off the
joint, may not by their joint endeavours infuse some British blood into

The following bit of news, we fear, is too good to be true :—

" A brilliant idea has been put forward by a Frenchman, who proposes to
unite England and France by filling up the British Channel with rubbish."

A brilliant idea, truly ! But how can it be realised? And what is
to become of France, supposing that this bright idea be really carried
out ? France is every day becoming more and more like England.
Frenchmen eat roast beef, keep bulldogs, and drink beer, and even
aspire, some of them, to drive a four-in-hand. There are London fogs
in Paris as thick as any that we Londoners can boast about at home.

Our French friends have their Clubs, where they actually play whist
(although they cannot quite pronounce it), and where they bet upon
their Derby as well as on our own. They even venture—some of
them—to risk their lives and limbs in the deadly game of "crickets-
match," or in the dangerous "regates des rowing-botts." In short,
France is well nigh England, even though the British Channel still
separates the countries, and, if this is to be filled up, there will really
be no telling who are English and who French. Port wine and Magna
Charta will be paramount in Paris, and the Tuileries will receive the
name of "Liberty Hall."

Who will start the Great Anglo-Gallic Amalgamation Company ?
If merely "rubbish" be required for filling up the Channel, both
French and English Parliaments might furnish a supply.

The Aristocrat's Paradise.—Quality Court.