Punch: Punch (69.1875)

September 18, 1875.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

109

the Promenade of Covent Garden, see Hebe Josee Gung'l conduct
one of his own waltzes, and hear the new cornet-a-piston player,
who, on my arrival, seemed to be having a nice blow-out.

One can't be in " more tban two places at once," but altogether
this was not bad as an evening, en passant, for

Youb. Representative.

A PIS ALLER.

(See last Number.)

T^hek Amandtis exclaimed
to Amanda,
" I think I have hit the
right track,
Let us hurry away to the
Forest—
I don't mean the New,
but the Black.
To get out of Town in Sep-
tember
Is always a pleasure, I
know,

And that Forest how well
I remember—

In days long ago!

" 'Tis a place where you 're
quite clear of tour-
ists—

Of the terrible Cook and
his band!
Who swarm elsewhere like
locusts in Egypt,
And eat up the fat of
the land.
There living is cheaper
and better
Than in most other
forests I know;
Yes! that Forest's the place of all others
To which one should go.

" There the traveller meets with innkeepers,

Who of honesty still have a share,
And don't think that because you are English,

To cheat you is perfectly fair.
"Who really seem glad to see you,

And civil— though prices are low ;
And whose bills do not always want checking,
As when elsewhere we go.

" You may wander in beautiful valleys,

Refreshed by the cool water's flow,
With the pine forest murmuring above you,

And the rivulet babbling below.
They've no waterfalls lit up to bore you,

Like that dreadful Swiss Staubbach and Co, ;
One is free to see just what one likes to—
0 say, will you go ? "

Then Amanda replied to Amandus,

'' Call a Hansom, and let us away,
For London grows dustier, drearier,

And stuffier, day after day;
You have not a Club fit to dine in,

I've not a soul left that I know;
No Black Forest on earth can be duller—
So do let us go! "

DISTINCTION-WITH A DIFFERENCE.

Said Me. Roebuck the other day, by way of something sharp to
suit the blades of Sheffield,—

" There is no nation in the •world so distinguished as England by a House
of Commons."

Collectively, we brag of our " Collective Wisdom," yet our M.P.'s
are not all wise, regarded individually. So we may call our House
of Commons "distinguished" if we like, but we can scarce apply
that epithet (at least, by way of compliment) to certain of its
Members. For instance, the Member for Stoke is a distinguished
man, no doubt, but few of his fellow Members would covet his
distinction. So the Member for Peterborough likewise is dis-
tinguished— but we will not attempt to say for what he is esteemed

to be so. Me. Biggab, too, has made himself distinguished this
last Session, though, perhaps, not in a manner that most persons
would think enviable. And not to prolong the list, Me. Dbax, M.P.
for Wareham, may also claim, to rank among our Members of dis-
tinction. He is distinguished as the man who is destroying C^sae's
Camp, in spite of the appeals which have been made both, to his
pocket and his patriotism.

SIGNS OF SWEETNESS.

Now-a-dats we defy augury. We have renounced, at least, that
superstition. No alarm will probably be created by the following
piece of seasonable intelligence :—•

" Porpoises in the Thames.—During the past fortnight several porpoises
have been seen disporting themselves below and. above London Bridge. One
has been shot near the Cherry Tree Garden landing stage, Eotherhithe, and
another was captured near Waterloo Bridge, and the carcase has been exhi-
bited in the neighbourhood of the New Cut. The body of a dead porpoise has
for the past week been floating up and down the Thames, to the great annoy-
ance of excursionists in the neighbourhood."

We are not as our forefathers were when, as Old Atjbbey notes in
his Miscellanies,—

"A little before the death of Oliver Protector, a Whale came into tbe
River Thames and was taken at Greenwich. . . . Foot long. 'Tis said,
Oliver was troubled at it."

Nobody would now take the appearance of Porpoises in the
Thames to portend that anything was going to happen to anybody.
If such visitors may be regarded as ominous, they can only be looked
upon as good omens. Perhaps Porpoises seen in the Thames are
signs that we shall soon have better fish there—Zoologists, pray
pardon the misnomer of calling a Cetacean a fish. They testify to
the comparative purification of the Thames. A few years ago, the
body of a dead Porpoise in the River would have added little to the
annoyance of excursionists on it. Could you,^ dear friends and
fellow-citizens, only contrive duly to dispose of all your sewage,
then there might be a river of Middlesex which would resemble a
river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth likewise, in the special
circumstance that there would be "salmons" not only in two of
those fortunate rivers, but in all three.

Ducks and Dripping'.

0 whithee hie, the heat to fly ?

Of course a sea-side trip !
Perspiring down we steam from Town,

And dripping take a dip.
To wipe us dry, in vain we try,

For drying makes us drip,
And so again we seek the main,

And strip, and drip, and dip I

No Vegetarian.

Bv the composer of an advertisement extracted from the Aberyst-
wyth Observer there is—

WANTED, unfurnished, a small Garden and House, near Aberyst-
wyth, within a mile of the town preferred.—Address-s Post Office,

Aberystwyth.

The want of an unfurnished Garden as well as House, above
expressed, may suggest that there are Welsh bulls as well as Irish.
It is, however, obvious that anybody who wishes for a Garden
without furniture can as little delight in leeks as rejoice in potatoes.

Dear Old England!

The Sea hath its sharks,

And so hath the land :
They fall on their prey

By shingle and sand;
At Brinesmead or Groyne,

Congerwhinkle and Breeze,
There are ravenous things

In and—out of the Seas.

Jupiter Tonans.

The Newspapers report that, on the evening of Thursday, a terrific
thunderstorm .broke over the north of Scotland. Punch does not
wonder at it, considering how close the weather has been. Were he
a heathen, he should ascribe the thunder and lightning to the awful
puns of which he has lately received so many from Scotch corre-
spondents.