Punch (62.1872)

April 6, 1872.]

PUNCH, OB, THE LONDON CHAKIVARL

Hi

A RECENT ANNIVERSARY.

hy, it was kept
everywhere all over
the world, in all
latitudes and longi-
tudes, and by every
nation, race, creed,
colour, clime,
class, tongue, tem-
perament, and tem-
perature. Great
kingdoms and em-
pires celebrated it;
small country
towns and rural pa-
rishes observed it.

Ministers of
State, maids of all
work, city mag-
nates, country
bumpkins, rich
merchants, poor
hucksters, senates
? and servants' halls,
colleges and cote-
ries, thrones and
taprooms, people
who wore their own
hair but dyed it,
people who wore
other people's hair

and paid for it, nations which added to their national debt, dandies

A report was prevalent that the great Livery Companies had
undertaken to complete the decoration of St. Paul's.

Me. Frederick Sawder Sudderby speculated in soft soap, of
which he knew nothing, and lost.

Young Lord Dropshiners backed Shuttlecock (a dark horse)
heavily for the approaching Derby.

Miss Ltjcenda Rodgemoore (age 48, income £2,500, payments
ready money) accepted the Hon. Parlby Paenceeort (age 29,
income £250, liabilities extensive).

Mary Djshley gave her mistress warning : no fault to find with
her place, but wanted a change.

HUSBANDS AND HEARTS.

During the last twenty years, says the British Medical Journal,
speaking of death from heart-disease as greatly on the increase—

" There is no change in the per-centage of deaths from this cause in males
under twenty-five years of age. Between twenty and forty-five years of age
it has risen from '553 to '709, and that almost exclusively in males, for there
is almost no increase in the per-centage of females dying from heart-disease
during the twenty-five years of life from twenty-one to forty-five."

To the foregoing statement our medical compatriot and contempo-
rary subjoins the following observation :—

"These figures convey their own lesson, and warn us to take a little ears
not to kill ourselves for the means of living."

Yes, certainly. "We must take every care not to kill ourselves by
incurring heart-disease. One principal cause of heart-disease is ex-
cessive muscular exertion; we must avoid that. Another, and a
who increased their tailors bills, the young, the old, and the middle- more common one, is anxious effort, especially the effort to keep the

aged, the rich, the poor, and the moderately comfortable, the blondes
and the brunettes—all were faithful to the traditions handed down
to them from their forefathers, and showed by their actions that
they were not unmindful of the obligations of that great festival
kept from time immemorial by the human race—All Fools' Day

wolf from the door, as the saying is, and pull the devil by the tail.
No wonder that the deaths from heart-disease have much increased of
late years between the ages of twenty and forty-five, but not at all
under twenty-five, and that the increase between maturity and
middle age has been nearly confined to men. That period is the

Mr. Punch's special correspondents have forwarded him sur- • period of a man's struggle to maintain a wife and family ; and wives
prising accounts of what took place on the first of April in every ! and f amilifeS are much more expensive than they used to be. If the
part of the globe, duly attested by Her Britannic Majesty's Ambas- | British Medical Journal will further investigate heart-disease, it
sadors, Charges d'affaires, and Consuls, but so much of interest hap- : w^ proDably find that the increase thereof has coincided with the
pened at home, that he can only touch on occurrences within the ! increase of the expensiveness of feminine dress and ornamentation,
four seas. Moral.—Let no man marry unless he is liable for a very heavy

Parties were formed to inspect the progress of the new Law ; Income-tax, and certain to be liable for it all his life. A husband

Courts and Natural History Museum, and to view the improvements
in the centre of Leicester Square.

Mr. Robert Spivitt, with a wife, five children, and a salary of
£230 per annum, increasing ten pounds a-year, became security for
his brother-in-law, a gentleman who attends races.

A purchaser (name and previous history unknown) was found for
a novel in three volumes at a guinea and a half.

Mr. Joseph Andrews Adams paid a call on his shares in the
Bubbleton and Swindleby Railway.

Old Litttgate instructed his lawyer to commence an action to
establish his right to some ancient lights.

Mrs. Widmebpool laid in a stock of Lobbison's celebrated
Lumbagofuge, on the faith of a printed testimonial from a retired
timber merchant in North "Wales, who had found instantaneous
relief, after sixteen years' constant suffering, from using a single
bottle.

Young De Gosling gave fees to the attendants at a theatre where
they were positively prohibited.

Miss Maida Daeeaway, having just recovered from a severe cold,
went to Mrs. Goldie Dtves's ball in a dress of thin material, and
open construction, and cooled herself repeatedly during the evening
in airy halls and corridors.

Selleman bought some wonderfully cheap Amontillado, a remark-
able bargain—for the vendor.

Several very young men (Members of the House of Commons)
spent a considerable portion of the day in perfecting themselves in
the imitation of the crowing of cocks, the bleating of sheep, the
braying of donkeys, &c.

A visitor from the country, an elderly man in old-fashioned garb,
went to Covent Garden and Drury Lane, expecting to see Shaks-
peare enacted at one or other of these great national theatres. Dis-
appointed, he refreshed himself with oysters, and was surprised at
the bill.

The Annual Report of the Metropolitan and Provincial Prawn and
Periwinkle Delivery Company was issued, to the Proprietary. It
entered into an elaborate account of the prospects of the under-
taking, and held out a hope that, if the Company did not avail itself
of the Winding-up Act, the shareholders at no very distant day
might receive a dividend on their investments. A further call was
announced.

is the partner of his wife's joys and sorrows. If she cannot follow
the fashions, and enjoy herself' to her heart's content, she has only
sorrows to share with him; whereas, not being rich, he has more
than enough of his own. Though her sorrows may not absolutely
break his heart, yet they tend to disorganise it, the rather when they
vent themselves not only in a discontented demeanour, but also by
positive " nagging." If, then, men would not contract heart-disease,
they should not contract matrimony unless they can well afford it.
They ought not to rush to the Hymeneal altar, or the Registrar's
Office, and marry on the strength of a rise in the price of bread, as,
according to statistics, is the manner of the People.

The almost total exemption of females between a marriageable
age and a certain age from heart-disease, is perhaps to be accounted
fur by the freedom of the confiding heart of woman from anxiety so
long as she has a husband to confide in.

THE DIGNITY OF PLAY.

In a serious leading article on a recent foot-ball match, a contem-
porary described that particular match as constituting the Blue
Riband of Foot-ball. Play is looking up. We shall soon hear
talk of the Blue Riband of Prisoner's-bars, the Blue Riband of
Stag-out, the Blue Riband of Rounders, the Blue Riband of Hockey,
the Blue Riband of Leapfrog, and the Blue Riband of Hopscotch.
Even marbles (which we hear have again become fashionable among
young gentlemen) will perhaps have more than one Blue Riband,
and newspapers will contain glorifications of the Blue Ribands of
Shoot-ring and Lob-out, and the Blue Riband of Gobblehole.

Following Suit.

To the Alabama claims it seems that we have a counter case to be
submitted to Arbitration at Geneva. Suppose we ask, not only direct,
but also consequential damages for the Cotton Famine, and leave
the Arbitrators to decide whether our own demands or those of the
Yankees are the more preposterous ?