Punch: Punch (69.1875)

August 7, 1875.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAEIVAEL

51

A CITY MAYOR'S NEST.

lace—The Guildhall. Time
—An hour before the
dawn on the 2nd of
August, 1875. Gog, the
giant of Progress, and
Magog-, the symbol of
Statu Quo, discovered on
Guard.

Gog. Well, Brother, I
trust you are pleased. I
really think the Inter-
national Demonstration
(taken as a whole) has
been a great success.
Don't you think so too ?

Magog. "Well, it wasn't
so werry bad. It wqs wot
I call a himmertation —
something like that there
feed we 'ad when the
furreign Sufi 'rings came
Citywards in the beginning
of this 'ere new-fangled
cent'ry.

Gog. My dear Brother,
pray call their Majesties
—Sovereigns. _ Look to
your pronunciation, my
good fellow, look to your
pronunciation.

Magog. I tell yer wot it is—you leave my grammar alone, can't
yer ! Although you've taken up with the new style, I tell yer I
'old with the old. At the beginning of this 'ere new-fangled
cent'ry we called 'em " Sufi'rings."

Gog. My dear fellow, we need not quarrel. I have no doubt
(when I take into consideration the crushes at the old City banquets)
that " Suffering " was not an inappropriate title.

Magog. An inner—wot ? I tell yer what it is, Gog, I don't under-
stand 'alf yer say. You've grown so werry fine of late years, that
there's no knowing yer ! Wot's come over yer ?

Gog. I have merely marched with the Spirit of the Age. There
is nothing absurd about an Alderman now-a-days.

Magog. Well, there never was, was there ?

Gog. My dear Brother, you have the entree to the City Library.
I will give you a reply by asking a question. Have you ever looked
at the back numbers of the periodical published at the Office of the
Greatest Sage of this and any other century ?

Magog. You mean Mr. Punch. In course I 'ave. Who ain't ?

Gog. Pray use the aspirate, my dear Brother. You positively
shock me. Your education must have been sadly neglected.

Magog. Neglected indeed! Now I tell you wot it is, don't you
begin a chaffing me about my haches, cos I won't stand it.

Gog. I apologise. Let us change the subject. To return, you
must have been pleased with the International gathering. It was
better, far better, than the banquet given to the Allied Sovereigns,
because it was held in the honour of peace. It was a congress of
doves.

Magog. Right you are—turtle doves !

Gog. You are pleased to be facetious! But was not the sight
most gratifying ? Did it not prove that Municipal Government had
received a new lease of power and popularity ?

Magog. Guver'ment, indeed! A lot of guver'ment we 'ave in
the City now-a-days! Why, 'aven't we been obligated to give up
almost everythink ? Didn't they make us turn Smifiel into a
butcher's shop ? didn't they meddle and muddle with the Thames ?
and 'aven't they put down the men in brass ? A coming into the
City and turning of everythink upside down!

Gog. I am delighted to say that everything that was capable of
improvement twenty years ago is now greatly improved. The Lord
Mayor of London is no longer the laughing-stock of the whole
nation.

Magog. And why shouldn't he be ?

Gog. Because he has taken his proper place. He is the National
Host, and the Head of Public Philanthropy.

Magog. Pine words butter no parsnips ! I like the old style best.
Give me the days when the Lord Mayoe and the Corporation did
nothing but heat and drink and go to sleep in the Justice Room of
the Mansion 'Ouse!

Gog. My dear Brother, I fear your tastes are unrefined.

Magog. I s'pose yer means "low." Low, yerself! Who hasks
scribblers and hartists, and such like chaps, to dinner nowadays ?
Yah!

Gog. I rejoice to say that after many years of " black neglect" (I

quote from a recent speech of that distinguished novelist Me.
Diseaeli), the City has redeemed its reputation by recognising the
claim of Genius to share the honours bestowed upon the Soldier and
the King.

Magog. Well, if that aint low, I don't know wot is ! But it's too
'ot for rows. Let's go to Margate awhile nobody's looking.
Gog. Margate!

Magog. 0, don't you be shocked. It's quite genteel now. Don't
yer know as 'ow the Prince took 'is wife (bless 'er sweet face and
kind 'eart!) with 'im the other day. Where 'is Ry'l 'Ighness can
go, surely you and I can.

Gog. Well, really, I should like a little sea-air. Do you think
we could get away without attracting attention to our departure ?

Magog. In course we can! Now, then, down yer comes! 'Old
'ard ! Get back!—just our luck!—'ere comes a Peeler! We must
wait for another hopertoonity !

[ We may add that when our parcel was made up, the City Giants
were still on guard, and London slept in peace.

A SAINT'S "WARNING.

Youe Meteorologists may refer the late rains and floods to natural
causes, but the truly weather-wise will know what to think when
they read the subjoined extract from a Hampshire journal—the
Andover Advertiser:—

"A startling rumour has lately been current in this county to the effect
that the authorities of the Cathedral are about to disturb the repose of
St. Swithin, by either removing the slab which is dedicated to him in the
Presbytery, or by placing on the top of it the proposed cenotaph of Bishop
Sumner."

It may be that this report is unfounded, for the deluge on
St. Swithin's Day, and the subsequent floods, have been followed
by some fine harvest weather. Or perhaps the authorities of Win-
chester Cathedral have abandoned a vile intention. But in so far
as they are the same as those who, a few years since, turned the
bones of Rufus out of his grave, because towards the end of eight
centuries they discovered that the tomb over it stood in the way,
they are capable of anything. To be sure Swithin as saint had the
advantage of Rufus as Sinner. On the other hand, Bishop Sumner
has the better of St. Swithin, by his reign of forty years to the
Saint's of forty days.

Offence may also have been given to St. Swithin by the sale of
Winchester House, and by the enlargement of the new diocese of
Rochester, through the diminution of the old one of Win-
chester, now shorn of Putney, Mortlake, Wimbledon, Richmond,
and Kingston-on-Thames. The Saint may have resented this
curtailment of his old domains by throwing cold water upon that
proceeding. However, his wrath seems to have abated; at least,
his waters have. Should the former rekindle, and the latter be
renewed, perhaps, with the view of appeasing St. Swithin, devotees
at the approaching season, instead of going to Lourdes or Paray-
le-Monial, might make a pilgrimage to Winchester. They would
be heartily welcomed there by the tradesmen and licensed victuallers.

But as it is an ill wind that blows, so it is bad weather that
brings, nobody good. If St. Swithin, as successor to Jupiter
Pluvius, is injurious to the farmer, he is gracious to the mycolo-
list and mycophagist. If he drowns the hay and wheat, he
quickens the mushrooms and toadstools. Among these last, Mr.
Punch is told, there is an esculent variety sacred to a Saint—the
St. George's agaric,—which comes up on or about St. George's Day.
But the Patron Saint of fungi and their eaters at large is clearly
St. Swithin. In this connection it is remarkable that the general
form of mushrooms is that of an umbrella.

NEW NAYAL MONSTER.

The last new thing in naval architecture is a Russian novelty,
the Novgorod, designed by Admiral Popoee, and highly commended
in the Times by a no less authority than Mr. E. J. Reed. She
carries armour eleven inches thick and guns of twenty-eight tons,
goes eight knots an hour, has steamed from Nicolaieff round the
south of the Crimea to the Circassian coast, thence back as far as
Sebastopol, then on to Odessa, and lastly into the Sea of Azoff,
through the Straits of Kertch in a depth of only fourteen feet of
water. The Novgorod is described as a "Circular Ironclad." She
does rather fast work for a sort of vessel that our old naval heroes
would have styled a saucepan and a tub. In another kind of
phraseology than the purely nautical, to wit, the horsey, or, so to
speak, the horse-marine, she might be said to be "a rum 'un to
look at but a good 'un to go," and the Admiralty might as well
perhaps consider the possibility that the Novgorod might some day
prove an ugly customer.