Punch (59.1870)

October 1, 1870.] PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 137

MEDITATIONS ON THE EVE OF MICHAELMAS.

BY a man op feeling.

It is the hour -when 'mid the trees
Sighs fitfully the evening breeze :
When, ceasing from their busy hum,
Bees to their hive, well-laden, come:
When frogs begin their nightly croak,
And owls forsake the sheltering oak :
When rooks that, homeward wing their flight,
Reluctant bid the worms good night:
When spiders, as from sport they cease,
Leave hapless flies to sleep in peace:
When the bright glowworm's lamp is seen
Illumining the village green :
When beetles, blind as any bat,
Bounce rudely 'gainst your nose or hat:
When cats their nightly prowl begin.
And wandering organs cease their din :
When cooks the evening meal prepare,
And savoury viands scent the air:
When with the odour greens produce
Mingles the fragrance of roasr, goose :
And men who sniff a pleasant smell
Delight to hear the dinner-bell.

BEHIND TIME.

Ticket Collector. "This voer Boy, Mum ? He's too Big for a 'Alf Ticket !"
Mother (down upon him). "Oh, is he? Well, p'ehaps he is now, Mister;

but he wasn't when we started. this 'xccrsion '8 ever so many houes

be'intj Time, an' he's a Gkowin' Lad! So now!" [Exit in triumph.

INFALLIBLE PUNSTERS.

" Non Angli, sed Angeli" said Infallibility in the person
of Gregory the Great. Infallibility, by the mouth of
Pio Nono, said nearly as good a thing the other day.
According to a Correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette:—

" He seems in good spirits, and distributes his cutting ion-
mots as usual. When informed that even the French volunteers
were recalled, be is reported to have said, 1 Qu'est-ce que qa me
fait? La France ne morde plus. Elle a perdu see dents.''
(Sedan)."

It is to be hoped that his modus vivendi as a Pontifical
Lord Mayor of the Leonine City will suit his HoHdcss's
convenience, but otherwise (with large endowment ot the
jocu'ar faculty of which he is accustomed to make such
brilliant displays as the pun above-quoted) there can be
no doubt whatever about the one spot where the Holy
Father should seek an asylum; and we can assure him
of a cordial welcome and profitable employment in Fleet
Street.

" THE MEANEST MAN OF MEN/'

{Wordsworth, cf Napoleon I.)

_ The leading journal pas been publishing a very interesting and well-
timed reprint of certain passages from its articles written at other
times, when Paris was, as she is now, " isolated from all the rest of the
world " (Strange words to pen concerning the supposed capital of the
universe.)

To one extract Mr. Punch begs leave to call the attention of all his
readers. It is the announcement of the escape of the First Napoleon
from the mild comfinement in which he was placed by those who
miraculously retained a belief that, he could be trusted.

On the 11th March, 1815, the Times writes thus :—

fore, we thank the Times for reproducing the honest and straight-
forward utterances which expressed the feeling of our fathers, in days
when sentimentalism was not allowed to mingle in the rough business
of the world, and when treachery was not condoned because it was
successful. Treachery indeed is a mild word when we read in the
same articles that Napoleon seized hundreds of English civilians who
had visited France on the faith of peace being maintained, and that he
kept them in his fortresses as " prisoners of war" for eleven years—
an act dictated by spite alone, for it could have no influence on the
Campaigns.

" Napoleonic ideas " are not yet quite crushed out of France, thongh
recent events have done much to that good end, and it is well that this
British protest should be recollected. Mr. Punch has.more than once
had hdrd words used to trim because he has always invited his readers
" Early yesterday morning we received by express from Dover the impor- ! to regard the First Napolfon in the light in which the Times regarded
tant but lamentable intelligence of a civil war having been again kindled in j him in 1815, but the more that the life of the man is studied, the more
France by that wretch Bonaparte, whose life was so impolitically spared by righteous is the above judgment found to be. We have not too often
the Allied bovereigns It now appears that the hypocritical villain, who at the good fortune to agree with Mr. Goldwin Smith, but we may cor-

8^11™^ fd,cat,on a5e/ted atn, av«'7V0 ?h«ra™« of dialiy endorse on the Times testimonial of '15 the Professor's verdict in
Wood in civil warfare, has been engaged during the whole time of his residence '6q . nttme]v fniir thprp ;s » narrfiv a ba„pr name jn hisTorv
at Elba in carrying on secret and treasonable intrigues with the Tools of his I ' name|y> lml T'uere 18 ™™>y a oaser name m "tsiory.
former crimes in France. At length, when his plots were ripe, he sailed from
Elba with all his guards, on the night of the 28th ult, and ltmded near
Frejus, in France, on the 3rd imt."

The result was, as everybody knows, the horrible carnage of Waterloo,
and the transportation of the " hypocritical villain" to an island where
he was kept very safely until this world was relieved of one ot the worst
men who ever defaced it. His life was again spared by the Sovereigns
and this time it was well. For his later years were beneficial to man-
kind. They revealed the base nature of the man so completely that
any admiration which his military genius had inspired was speedily
forgotten in the revelations of his falseness and meanness. But of late
years there has been some affectation of regilding the brazen image
and of worshipping the Brute Force of which he was the type. There-

The Italian Capital.

The reunion of Bome with Italy may give occasion for the remark
respecting Victor-Emmahuhl, that success has at last crowned the
venture of an enterprising capitalist. May the capital acquired by the
Italian Kingdom conduce to an immense improvement in its financial
affairs.

SOT L1K.E TuOSJS FOKKlGN COUNTRIES.

Mrs. Malaprop hopes she will never live to see the day when all the
fine young men in this happy country will be turned into soldiers by a
Subscription. She vows she will not distribute a sixpence towards it.