Punch (59.1870)

October 22, 1870.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

169

ONLY TWO LEGS TO STAND ON.

N the Home News for India
we read—

" An East-Indian is exhi-
biting a ' wonderful' horse
at Madras, -which has only
the two hind legs. The
animal is said to be about
four years old."

This paragraph somehow
came to the notice of one
of the animals that have
just distinguished them-
selves by losing the
Cesarewitch. The great
trouble the ambitious
creature occasioned by
its desire to show that it
could manage as well with
two legs as four, has been
happily depicted by our
artist. Nothing could
be happier, in fact, except
the face of the jockey.

NEW MUSIC.

We hear of some de-
lightful novelties in
music, which a very little
puffing will doubtless
render _ popular. Eirst,
we notice a new ballad
called " The Timepiece by
the Thames" which clearly
owes its origin to " The
Watch by the Rhine" a
song that now is being
- "if- '>^>5~^-^4,VVJ£5&^^,^ "sung hv fifty million
cre -v^^&aR-i-*^^-^^. Germans." Further pen-
dants to this melody are
likewise said to be in active preparation ; and this, considering its
popularity perhaps is not surprising. One of these, adapted for the
Erench, we hear will be entitled " L'Horloge par la Seme," in which
the striking of a clock will produce what the advertisements will pro-
bably describe as " an effect truly striking." The other, written for a
Music Hall, is intended to delight the connoisseurs who revel in the
slang which there is prevalent. Composed as a companion to the
songs above described, and intended to be sung after the famous
" Roman Fall" it will be welcomed by the title of " The Ticker by the
Tiber."

A NICE CARGO!

The Times says :—

"Our Malta correspondent, writing from Valetta, informs us that 'news
has been received here of the expected arrival of a batch of two hun-
dred Jesuits from Eome, who together with one hundred and fifty already
here, will make a rather formidable collection of these politico-clerical
gentlemen!' "

What a charming place Malta will be to live in! The peace and
happiness of the families living in that fortunate island, its political
tranquillity, and the comfort of the resident clergy must now be perma-
nently ensured by this welcome addition to its society. Yet, some
people seem never to know when they are well off, and to grumble even
at the good things provided for them, for we read on, " This invasion
is looked on with little favour by the Maltese clergy." We wish the
Times' Correspondent had added a word or two more, and told us how
it was regarded by the Maltese laity.

Music and the Drama.

It may have been remarked by some of our elder readers that the
Loudon Street Music-Bands are neither so numerous nor so good as
they were a few years ago. That is probably because the musicians
who used to play in the streets must now be engaged at the daily mul-
tiplying theatres.

A Correspondent inquires whether the Germans will care so much
for the Watch on the Rhine now that they have got the great Stras-
burg Clock.

EXTRACTS FROM MY COMMON-PLACE BOOK.

(A". B. The Authorities will be kept till called for.)

The circulation of the new and handy Post Cards leads the mind to
many serious reflections on postal communication, as carried on at
different times and in various countries in the World's history. The
following particulars relating to this deeply interesting subject ha^e
been collected at great expense and not without some personal risk,
from rare books and unheard-of codices and manuscripts existing in
our public libraries, principally in those attached to the Levantine
Monasteries. They would serve as an excellent foundation for contri-
butions to magazines and reviews, lectures at literary and scientific
institutions, and conversation at the dinner-table or in the railway
carriage : heads of families and preceptors of youth, country audiences
and parties of not less than four, two children being counted as one,
may rely on the authenticity of the statements here adduced, the police
having received strict orders not to interfere.

Earlier than the Siege of Troy we have no trustworthy information
as to the regulations for Book Post; nor do we know, for a certainty,
at what crisis in the nation's history the privilege of franking was first
allowed, but scattered notices in the works of our best historians and
writers on the Belles Lettres point to a date anterior to the one generally
assigned by instinct.

It has only within the last few weeks been settled that the Savings
Banks of the Nile were not in connection with the Chief Office ; and
the plausible theories built on some curious remains of mediaeval brick-
work, discovered by the Dilettanti Society on the coast of Arabia
Petrffia, have completely crumbled away beneath the searching gaze of
modern scientific investigation.

Some of our learned Societies would do well to offer a reward—a
medal, or a premium of books, or copies of their quarterly publications
—for the best essay on the long disputed questions whether the rural
postmen in the Italian Republics wore uniform or not, and how far
they were allowed to receive boxes at Christmas; and if the writers
branched out into a comprehensive survey of the exciting circum-
stances attending the early struggles of the impressed stamp for ex-
istence, the cause of truth would be materially benefited at little or no
expense to the persons principally implicated.

We know the names of the Athenian Archons, the Spartan Ephors,
the Roman Consuls, the Italian Gonfalonieri, the Dutch Doges, the
"Venetian Stadtholders, the Tibetan Grand Llamas, the Egyptian
Soothsayers, the Norse Vikings, the Provosts of Eton, Ihe Masters of
the Ceremonies at the Bath Pump Rooms, and ihe Lord Mayors of the
City of London; but history and tradition are alike silent as to the
first occupants of the post of Postmaster-General, when it was created
on the revival of letters in the Great Western Empire.

Their Majesties' mails have been carried in sundry odd fashions since
the day when Leander swam across the Hellespont with a valentine
in his mouth for Hero; since the evening when Marc Antony sent
a trusty retainer, with a sweet message scraped on tablets of wax, to
Cleopatra dressing for a dinner-party. They have been borne across
sandy deserts by sure-footed mules, they have been carried up steep
mountain passes on the humps of docile dromedaries ; India's haughty
elephant and Wales's hardy pony have travelled with them many a
weary mile through jungle and morass, over common and village
green; full-breasted pigeons, and inflated balloons, have passed swiftly
through the buoyant air with important despatches; the dogs of
St. Bernard, have been met on a dark winter's evening with the
monastery post-bag tied round their faithful necks with a piece of blue
satin ribbon; and even the ferocious alligator has been trained to
convey the hurried scrawl of the poor Nubian to his wife and family,
sitting under a palm-tree in distressed circumstances.

Not many years before the close of the last century the Post Office
at Margate was a bathing machine, at Leeds a cellar, at Ipswich a
disused gig-house; and the romantic caves on the Yorkshire coastt>
when not required for smuggling purposes, served as the depository of
many generations of village correspondence, before pillar-boxes came
into general use.

Statistics, as a strict rule, should be abandoned to learned bodies,
blue books and hardworking buttermen, but it may interest a large
proportion of the respectable inhabitants to learn that if all the letters
which pass through St. Martin's-le-Grai d, on any given day in the
year, could be placed in a row, end to end, they would reach from Wells
to Wigan and back again, within a few yards.

Similarly the newspapers would completely fill up the Suez Canal, if
it could be drained dry; and it should be strongly impressed on the
minds of the young and innocent that if the postage stamps, used by
Great Britain and her dependencies in the course of twelve months,
were heaped up together, they would form an enormous pile exactly
corresponding to the Great Pyramid in weight Mid dimensions.

(N.B. In consequence of the length to which these details, bearing
on one of the most important questions of the day, have extended, _w«
are compelled to postpone the communication of many other interesting
extracts.)