Punch: Punch (69.1875)

October 9, 1875.]

PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

145

THE SILLY SEASON.

Brown {reads from Newspaper). " ' Sturgeon picked up dead on the Beach
at Weymouth-' "

Mrs. B. " Lob', Brown ! And it ain't a Month ago tod and me 'eard
him Preach at the Tabbynacle ! !"

A PLEA. AGAINST THE BEE.

A certain "C. R." has announced in the Times the
discovery that the Bee, from time immemorial reputed
a model insect, the embodiment of virtuous diligence
and industry, is, instead of that, a truculent and noxious
pest, no better than a wasp, a cockroach, or an earwig.
This discovery is news indeed. It is also just now par-
ticularly seasonable, as this is the season of fruit, espe-
cially of monstrous pippins and gigantic peaches and
pears. " C. R." accuses Bees not only of devouring his
own wall-fruit and that of other people, but also of
having wantonly pitched into and stung himself, and
being prone, without provocation, to fly at and sting
mankind. His denunciation of Bees has naturally raised
a swarm of gainsayers about his ears, and the character
of the Bee may, perhaps, be considered to have been
satisfactorily vindicated ; but, if "C. R.'s" assault upon
it could have been sustained, the immortal poem in
which it has been extolled by Dr. Watts would have to
be re-written. Instead of. being represented as an ento-
mological pattern to a moralising infant, the Bee would
deserve to be proposed as a study to an idle and vicious
boy, abandoned to the indulgence of a swinish appetite,
and glorying in it. The verses of Dr. "Watts might
then be replaced by the following perversion of his
panegvric :—

THE BEE.

How doth the gorging greedy Bee,

Destructire little brute,
Hum all day long from tree to tree,

And spoil the choicest fruit!

Behold how deep she scoop3 a cell,

"When peaches she attacks,
In nectarines and pears as well

How big a hole she makes'.

Likewise to eat and drink my fill

1 should be happy too ;
For Nature has disposed me still

But little else to do.

In prog and grub, by turns with play,

Might all my life be past,
Till I, perhaps, should come to weigh

Good fourteen score at last.

However, there is every reason to think that " C. R."
has mistaken a sort of blow flies for Bees, and that,
having, as he says, been stung by a Bee, he is labouring
under melissophobia.

pine—and repine—in unwilling celibacy, while the rich tradespeople
and the proletarians go on increasing and multiplying like Colorado
beetles, and overrunning the earth with their Cockney abodes.

Mundungus. Impregnating our air with noxious gases and
noisome effluvia.

Smelfungus. Turning our rivers into filth.

Mundungus. That is, turning our filth into the rivers.

Smelfungus. And what are we the better for railways ? "What
have we got by them that we had not in the old coaching times ?

Mundungus. Facility of locomotion, as the phrase is—quick con-
veyance from place to place. But then one place is daily getting
more and more like another—and all more like suburbs of London.

Smelfungus. Railway receipts grown to £22,000,000 in one year !
What have we got to show for it Y

Mundungus. About the greatest blessings I see from the railway
system, and steam, and commerce, and communication between man
and man, are cheap pine-apples, gutta-percha, and india-rubber.

Smelfungus. In the meanwhile an Ironclad costs above half a
million, and we have to reconstruct the Navy every two or three
years.

Mundungus. Every shot or shell we may have to fire from a
monster gun, bang will go from five-and-twenty to fifty pounds.

Smelfungus. Public expenditure and private extravagance, grasp-
ing and squandering, increase yearly, at the rate of thousands of
millions. And every now and then there is a smash for three or
four.

Mundungus. All the fat's in the fire.

Smelfungus. And —with the Iron Horse all over the civilised
earth to feed-all the coals. There at least they will be before long.
Prosperity is blazing up, but when our coal-fields are exhausted ?
How then ?

Mundungus. Prosperity will have burnt itself out.
Smelfungus. Darlington won't be much inclined to celebrate a
centenary Railway Jubilee, I take it.
Mundungus. If the world lasts so long.

Smelfungus. Let us hope it won't.

Mundungus. We shan't, at any rate, old man.

Smelfungus. No ; long before that we shall both of us have fallen
martyrs to bile and indigestion.

Mundungus. And so have got rid of a world of sorrow, stink,
steam, rheumatism, ritualism, roguery, and rhodomontade !

Smelfungus. And a good riddance, too !

{Curtain falls on them croaking severally.)

GRACIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

Or, Pour Encourager les Autres.

It is rumoured that, in consequence of the general satisfaction
given by two of their most recent official communications, the Lords
of the Admiralty intend sanctioning the invariable use of the
following form of letter, to be used in all cases where the recognition
of assistance rendered at sea becomes absolutely necessary. The
same form to be adopted by the Board of Trade :—

Whitehall, [Date].

Sir,—I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Admiralty to inform you that, in consequence _ of your heroic

gallantry in saving the crew of the ship-, during a heavy gale,

you have made it necessary for their Lordships to take notice of the
matter ; and, on your enclosing a stamped receipt for Five Pounds,
and a letter of thanks, I shall be directed to forward to you, in the
course of the next financial year, the above-mentioned sum, together
with a concertina, or any other article you may, within the above-
mentioned period, select from the Lowther Arcade.

Their Lordships, however, desire me to warn you that, should you
at any future time render like services at sea, you must not look for
any further recognition of such service.

Your Obedient Servant,

To Captain-, of the- [Secretary for tike being].