Punch (72.1877)

84

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

[February 24, 1877.

A GREAT DESIDERATUM.

Fascinating, but frivolous Fair One. "What a Pitt your Husband doesn't
have Plate-Glass put on his Pictures, as some People do !"

Hostess. "You think it makes the Pictures richer in Tone?"

Fascinating Fair One. " I don't know about that, but one can see ones-
self in them, at least I "

BROWNRIGG ON THE BEAUTIFUL.

Since the time—now above a hundred years ago—
when Mother Brownrigg

"Whipped two female prentices to death,
And hid them in the coal-hole "—

so purchasing for herself an immortality of infamy, and
making her name a synonym for infliction of lingering
death by torture on the weak and unresisting—we have
seldom read of a series of more diabolical cruelties than
those inflicted by a couple of brutes, a "gentleman"
farmer and his wife, at Iver-heath, near Slough, on a
wretched little nurse-girl of sixteen, hired by them
from the Princess Louise's Home at Wanstead.

But the horror of the case alone would not have led us
to harrow our readers' feelings even by allusion to the
disgusting ill-usage by this well-matched pair of the
wretched girl, on whom they were allowed for a while
to wreak their devilish lust of tormenting. The re-
markable point, which prompts Punch's comment, is
that when Mrs. Morris, the female tormentor, hired the
girl at the Home, she expressed to the Matron her regret
that she was not better-looking, as she wished her child
from the first " to look only on what was beautiful" !

Mrs. Morris must evidently have been a person of the
most delicate aesthetic sensibilities. Who knows but
that she ill-used Caroline Carter out of sheer disgust
with her plain face. Just as "a thing of beauty"
would have been a joy for ever," the thing of home-
liness was a constant aggravation, and was made to pay
for her plain face by proddings from forks, lashings from
horse-whips, kickings up and down stairs from Mr.
Morris's new boots, pinchings of pieces of flesh from her
bare body, pluckings out of her hair by handfuls, and
breakings of her head and arm with the kitchen-poker.
"Serve her right! " What business had she to be so
provokingly plain, with a Mistress possessed by such a
strong sense of The Beautiful ?

And what an instructive light does the case thus re-
garded throw on the profound truth, so earnestly of late
inculcated by a certain school of critics and artists
amongst us, of the absolute independence of Ethics and
^Esthetics, and the entire absence of correlation between
Art and Morals.

alarming state oe the joke market.

What will our Yankee cousins say if they read
" Yesterday's Markets " in the English papers ?—

" American Spirits dull, quotations weak."

The Best Covering for a River-bed.—Sheets of
rain.

PLANS EOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LONDON.

Sir Wilfrid Lawson's— Close all the Public-Houses, and prohibit
all Spirits, but the good spirits produced by my speeches, or the
perusal of Joe Miller.

Major 0' Gorman's.—Soberise the Great Babylon, and don't allow
Her Majesty to be insulted by the sale of Scotch whiskey in
licensed publics, while there is Irish whiskey for the importing.

Mr. Whalley's.—Make it penal in the butchers to sell any legs of
mutton with the Pope's-eyes in them.

Dr. Richardson's.—Pull down all the houses, and re-build them
upside down.

West-End Tradesmen's.—Abolish the Civil Service Stores, and
banish Mr, Whitelet.

The Theatrical Managers'.—Shut up all the Music-HaUs.

The Music-Hall Proprietors'.—Close all the Theatres.

Materfamilias'sS—Open depots in every parish for the sale of
American beef at importers' prices.

The Butchers' — Prohibit the importation of dead meat from
beyond sea.

Paterfamilias's.—Suppress the Vestries, and get rid of Rates and
Taxes.

Mr. William Sikes's.—Reduce the number of the Police.

Jemima's, Sarah's, and Mary Anne's.—Build a lot more barracks,
and double the force of Guards in London.

Metropolitan Asylum Board's. — Open a Small - Pox Hospital
everywhere.

Everybody's.—Open a Small-Pox Hospital anywhere else.

The Upper Ten's.—Make a new road at Hyde Park Corner, and
another from Piccadilly, through St. James's Park, to Westminster,
and keep the West-End roads and streets well-watered.

The Lower Millions'.—Keep open all the open spaces_ within a
holiday-trip distance of London, and make those we have in London
available. See that suburban and East-End streets are paved and
scavenged. Make it penal to build houses without foundations, ven-
tilation, water-tight walls, and means of cleanliness and decency.
Find us better places of amusement than the penny-gaff and the
public-house, and better dwellings than the back slums. Double
the Board Schools and halve the Gin-Shops.

SHORT WAY WITH THE SULTAN.

You, by the Prophet's beard who swear,

The Porte and Vatican compare !

Mahomet's heir to the Successor

Of Peter, Pontiff and Confessor ?

You imitate the Papal way

Of saying Powers and Princes nay ?

With you, at least, when you refuse

To treat, such roundness they might use,

As some would e'en presume to give

His Holiness's negative.

To you, when likewise you deny

The claims of reason, and reply

" Non possumus " to their request,

Their words should be " Necesse est."