Punch (72.1877)

43

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[February 3, 1877.

HARMLESS LUNATICS.

N the Council
of the Charity
Organisation So-
ciety a Special
Committee was
some time ago
appointed to con-
sider and report
upon a parti-
cular branch of
social scientific
improvement,
which may ,be
styled Colney-
Hatch Reform.
That Committee
has, accordingly,
issued a Report
on the "Education
and Care of Idiots,
Imbeciles, and Harm-
less Lunatics." Doc-
tors may doubt the
existence of any luna-
tics who are not dan-
gerous ; but indeed
the number of lunatics,
harmless in so far as
that the little harm
they do affects only themselves, is very great. The population of
Lunatic Asylums represents but comparatively few of these harm-
less lunatics. The majority "of them are at large, unlooked after,
and they abound. They labour under a great variety of invincible
delusions and fixed ideas. To specify some of the more pro-
nounced types, for instance, the following may be enumerated
amongst tolerably Harmless Lunatics:—

Lunatics who pass their time in trying to discover perpetual
motion, and the quadrature of the circle.

Lunatics continually publishing pamphlets to show that the earth
is liat; but only showing themselves to be so.

Lunatics who devote themselves to tulip fancying, or any other
fancy which occupies their whole minds, crockery fanciers, collectors
of useless objects, worth no more than the effaced postage stamps
collected by young Lunatics.

Lunatics who believe in and practise Astrology and Spirit Rapping
seriously, and not with an intelligent intent to defraud.

Lunatics with a theological craze, who cannot see that their
dogmas are matters of opinion.

Lunatics who are in the habit of taking quack medicines of whose
composition they are ignorant, and who do not know whether or no
what they suppose to be is really the matter with them.

Lunatics who, without the necessary knowledge of what they are
about, gamble on the Stock Exchange and the Turf.

Lunatics who invest their money in risky speculations ; who
believe puffing prospectuses of Bubble Companies, and apply for
shares to Directors, and remit cash to them, when they do not know
them not to be rogues.

Lunatics, of both sexes, who go to evening parties a little before
midnight and dance in a vitiated atmosphere until sunrise.

Lunatics who, in these times of high prices, expecting to live in
comfort, and maintain appearances, marry upon less than the cer-
tainty of a thousand a year, and the prospect of indefinitely more.

Lunatics who, when anybody, whose name is unlucky enough to
suggest a self-evident pun, happens to be going the round of the
newspapers, write letters to Mr. Punch, each of them containing
the same pun on the name of the same person.

But besides these Lunatics, not contemplated in the Report of the
Charity Organisation Society's Committee, there are others, Lunatics
recognised as such, but perfectly harmless. They are computed to
amount to only 35,963 in England and Wales. These unfortunates
are capable of being improved in various degrees, and to some
extent utilised. To these ends they require express, treatment
and training ; especially separation from poor creatures similarly
afflicted, whose cases are hopeless. Hence, upon new buildings for
their proper accommodation, a need of outlay. Such expenditure
will ultimately prove economy. The Committee recommend that,
the expense for the poorer class of Harmless Lunatics, "should
be defrayed out of the rates, with assistance out of the public
revenue," and that a voluntary system should be adopted for those
of the Middle, and a semi-voluntary one for those of the lower
Middle and upper Artisan Classes.

The requisite provision for Harmless Lunatics will ask both
legislation and personal bounty; and those who have a voice in the

former, and can afford the latter, if they wish to see what Organisa-
tion is proposed for that purpose, should read the Society's Report,
to be had at Messes. Longmans for the small sum of one shilling.
The scheme therein particularised will not cost so very much to
carry out. It is not as though it comprised the unrecognised Harm-
less Lunatics going about in Society. How many and spacious
Asylums would be necessary to contain these numerous, and,
alas ! in most cases, hopeless, but happily, as a rule, unconscious
sufferers!

AN IRISH PROFESSOR IN" HIS (BARBER'S) CHAIR.

Ireland is the Land of Eloquence, where the very " praties," as
an advertisement in the Irish Times lately informed us, " speak for
themselves." Hair-dressing has always been an eloquent profession,
from the days of the Roman tonsor to those of Figaro. Perhaps
it was in complimentary allusion to this in the Green Isle that the
old Irish way of cutting a head of hair was called a "glib." Of all
glib-tongued Irish tonsors, Punch does not know that he ever
encountered a glibber specimen than the worthy who, in a handbill
lately sent to Punch by one of this gifted hair-cutter's garrison
customers, describes himself as—

"Professor Daniel O'Connelly (late Frederick Lenex, New
Market, Sheffield), Hair Dresser and Perfumer, Trans-Atlantic and Cosmo-
politan Clipper, Comber, Brusher, and Dresser to all Fashions for Ladies and
Gentlemen."

The Professor then goes on, enthusiastically if ungrammatically—

"Hair Dressing for its Beauty and Growth, the Professor wishes to see
Horizontal Eyes and perpendicular work, and not to have Hair Cut like the
Bashabazouks, or like as if the Gorilla was operating, but the Gorilla has not
got the Hypocompus Miner. Get Scientific Work that will Refresh the Cer-
rumbellum of the Cranium, and promote its Growth."

After which earnest exhortation, he signs himself—

''Yours, Gentlemen, Professor O'Coxxelly, Garrison Hair Dresser,
Razors Set, Diamond Edge, in Fine Order for use, at his Residence, Queen
Street, Athlone."

But the Professor, once mounted on the diamond-edge of his own
razor-like wit, cannot so easily get down again. He continues—

" The Professor does not like to see Bulsheen Cutting, or what Molly gave
the Cabbage, a good Chopping."

Then, rising to rhyme—

" But if you wish to have a shave,
I'm sure to make your chin,
As free from every rib of hair,
As any brand new pin.

" And if you want to have a dye,
You won't have much delay,
I'll make your head as handsome
As the I'urtlue Bird in May.

" For I can curl hair so neat,
And with such cunning hand
You'd really think the head was one
Quite fresh from fairy land.

" And I can frizzle, shringle, prune,
And do so with such art;
That but to gaze upon my work
Would gladden any heart."

As it evidently does gladden his heart, who, for the third and last
time, signs himself—

"Yours, Gentlemen, Professor O'Connelly, Hair Dresser to the
Students of the Queen's College."

"We thank Professor Connelly for his additions at once to the
English Fauna and the technical vocabulary of Plococosmology.
The Turtlue Bird is worthy to perch on the crest of the Jabberwock,
and we chortle in our joy over the prospect of having our hair
" shringled" !

A Long Pull and a Strong Pull.

Our stout Archdeacon stood forth to declare,
If Tooth to gaol went, he'd himself go there
If that Archdeacon really speaks the truth,
Issue the writ, and draw—a double tooth !

Of Two Heads, Which?

(In the United States.)

That question must be answered before March. It remains, as
an intelligent Nigger, writing to us, remarks, " In a Haze till den."

erratum:.

An Anagram on "The Reverend Arthur Tooth," printed, in
Punch for January 20, "Not the road to her Truth "—should have
run, " Never the road," &c.