Punch: Punch (69.1875)

48

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 7, 1875.

RATHER VAGUE.

"Eva, did you hear that Lady's Name that's come to see Mamma?" "Yes. Mrs. Abel."

" i wonder if she's the mother of those two boys mamma told tjs of. and one of them was naughty, you know,
and Killed his Brother."

"What Nonsense, Eva! "Why, that Happened ever so long ago! If she's Anybody, she must be their Grand-
mother i "

NICK OR NOTHING.

[The following lines have been dropped into Mr. Punch's Letter-Box.
The signature is partly undecipherable, but, from internal evidence, and a
certain unusual odour about the sealing-wax, he conjectures that the missive
may have emanated from the personage whom Mu. JJisraeli euphemistically
called " a peculiar potentate." Mr. Punch prints the communication without
further comment.]

Mr. Punch,

You are getting most iconoclastic,

You mannikin mortals, but this is too strong—
A new dose of dogma exceedingly drastic

Such sceptical laxness will call for ere long.
Tradition and Tale you have turned topsy-turvey,

But this last attempt to cut me from your creed
Is far worse than wicked—it's stupid and scurvy,

Although—please the parsons!—it shall not succeed.

I've had many flouts in my time, but, like Dizzy,

(Nous autres admire him !) I care not for those ;
Saint Dunstan declared he once made himself busy—

Of course the old Mulciber fibbed !—with my nose.
But granting the tongs and the tweak, they were trifles

Compared with this insult from Clifton that comes;
I swear indignation my voice fairly stifles

When I hear myself branded as chief of the Hums!

Ah, Jenkins of Clifton! your future my care is !

You think me—0 Lucifer, here is a fall!—
A sort of a swart subterrene Mrs. Harris,

And doubt if there's " any sich person at all! "
If seeing's believing—aha!—but no matter,

The parsons plus Phtllimore bay on your track,
A victim to clerical chasing and clatter,

Might envy Actason his peaeefuller pack.

I'm safe, for the orthodox can't do without me,

The sine qua non of their Church and their creed,
To serve me would shock them far less than to doubt me,

To Niebuhrise me were destructive indeed.
I'm the parson's own pet, and these reckless attackers

Of me will find them at their heels double quick,
With the sinners for thralls, and the saintly for backers,

A fico for J en kins I youra gaily>

Old Nick.

NONAGE AND DOTAGE.

At the Maidstone Assizes, the other day, a British Jury, on a
case of breach of promise of marriage, actually found a verdict for
the defendant. But they had no choice. Defendant's Counsel
pleaded infancy, and proved his client to be under twenty. The
learned gentleman argued "that an infant was only liable for
necessaries supplied to him," and that " marriage could not be
treated as a necessary"; and Judge Denman put the question of
infancy as the only one to be tried. It is quite clear that a wife
cannot be a necessary anyhow for an infant, unless a very forward
one, but a nurse may and generally is. Sometimes the defendant in
a breach of promise case is an old man in his second childhood, who,
if he wants a wife at all, wants her only as a nurse. On behalf of
an aged ninny in cases of this description, would it not be advisable
to legalise the plea of infancy ?

The Situation in Spain.

The Alphonists, by not cutting off supplies from the Carlists in
their retreats, have been said to have given them a modus vivendi.
They seem to have rectified that mistake by active measures through
which they are giving their adversaries a modus moriendi.