Punch (73.1877)

October 13, 187?.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 157

CONSCIENCE-MONEY.

Repentant Chairman of Quartet- Sessions (who lias been " Dining"). "'Drunk
'n 'caf bTjK ! 'sh Five Shill'nsh."—(Transfers Coin from left to right Waisteoat-
pocket.)—"Pay't int' Finesh Boxsh t'mobr'w ! 1"

A PROTEST FROM A PILLBOX.

Me. Punch,

I was sorry to see a letter in the Times from " A Fellow of his
College ' entitled "Professionalism," of which, the writer expresses "infinite
satisfaction," with the novelty that for.the first time in many of the Introductory
Lectures delivered at the various Medical Schools on the First of October, direct
recommendations were made to the medical student "to cultivate and practise
in their highest attainable development any special attributes or faculties with
which he.might chance to be gifted"—namely, for example, a turn for music or
drawing. Why, Sir, when I was an apprentice, if it had got about amongst a
medical man's patients that he occasionally amused himself by painting or
playing the violin or the piano, he would have been ruined. The rule then
imposed upon him by Public Opinion was " Stick to your Profession," and that
is what the student would then have been anywhere told in the Anatomical
Theatres on the First of October. But now, forsooth, he is informed that an
ear attuned to music will help him in auscultation, and that the practice of
pencilling and colouring will facilitate him in discovering symptoms and in
operating. All that, Sir, I call fiddle-de-dee, and stuff and nonsense. I say a
man's profession ought to occupy his whole mind. It always did mine. For my
part I don't know God Save the Queen from Rule Britannia; and as for
drawing could never draw anything but a tooth, or a cork, or a conclusion—of
course,_ a professional conclusion only. To Avhich permit me to come by
informing you that I have the honour to be, Sir, your humble servant, an old
practitioner, whom you may, if you please, call a Philistine among Philistines
of the good old medical school, one as big as Goliath

A PLAiTUL POPULATE.

It appears that the London Roughs, always accustomed to amuse themselves
more or less generally and often by assaulting defenceless persons, have lately
taken to the special pastime of spitting on the clothes and in the faces of
ladies. Perhaps these diversions are superintended by the Police ; but should
not Robert have orders to suppress them, and take the roysterers indulging in
them into custody ? A year's imprisonment and hard labour might suffice to
convince the roughest Rough of the injudiciousness of treating ladies, as
Shylock complains that Antonio treated him. The addition, by statute, of a

sound Hogging, would probably, in most cases, complete
the demonstration. There is truth in the saying that we
must " take the rough with the smooth," but that can
be no reason why the use of the street should necessitate
any one to submit to be ill used by the London Enoughs,
whom Prince Bismarck would honour a great deal too
much by calling them " Gentlemen of the Pavement."

« PLACE AUX DAMES !"

Make way! She comes in her bright array,
"With an eager smile and a greeting gay.
Like the dames of old on a festal day

With the blood-zest duly flavoured.
The Home grows tame to the tender thing
Whom maudlin poets were wont to sing
As the incarnation of Love and Spring,
And she craves for change with the pungent sting
; . Of anguish sweetly savoured.
The playhouse palls, and its puppets pale
To stir her languorous pulses fail;
E'en the Gallic salt grows something stale ;
Half tired of Sin 'neath a modish veil,

Of Vice well dressed and witty,
She comes, unshamed, to a tragic stage,
Where no mere posturing mimes engage.
Can the tinselled scene or the pictured page
Apply so well to a callous age

The purge of terror and pity ?
Terror ? Truly no touch of fear
That, glance perturbs, that gaze abashes ;
Pity ? When doth a womanly tear

Bedew those lifted lashes ?
She seeks diversion. To list and laugh
To the tale of shame, at the legal chaff ;
To watch the writhings of law-trapped guilt,!
To hear, while counsel and convict tilt,

Keen thrust, retort laconic;
To mark the sobbings of choking shame
The stoic smile of a scoundrel " game,"
The victim's spasm, the trickster's grin,
The sickened shrinking of sentenced Sin,
Yields pungent pleasure you'd scarcely win

From aught that's histrionic.
" Good as a play! " cries the cynic Cad,
When living folly, grotesque, yet sad,

Before him struts and poses.
Grande dame de par le Monde, you'd shrink
From owning kinship's slenderest link
With the low-born lover of gutter and sink ;

That daintiest of noses
With high-bred horror would tilt and thrill ;
Yet a ditch-course is but a ditch-course still,

Though it winds amidst the roses.
Where shame and sorrow are set on show,
The despot, Fashion, has bid you go ;
The voice of modesty, faint and low,

Her mandate promptly hushes.
No need for delicate cheeks to glow
At Dirt undraped when her shield she '11 throw
O'er modish sinner, and spare the show

Of most inopportune blushes.
To such excitement, how tame, how slow]

The Season's showiest crushes!
Time was when she who had found sweet sport
In the ghastly dramas of Judgment's Court

Had been dubbed a fair-faced Ogress.
But place aux dames ! The ancient grace
Of a pitiful heart or a blushful face

Were a clog to Woman's progress.
Emancipation's levelling hand
Breaks pity's bond and modesty's band,

And the sex disports right gaily,—
In modish vesture of motley hue,
Midst scenes that reek of the shambles and stew,
And full in Fashion's approving view

At the Theatre Royal Old Bailey.

Legal Definition.—Professor Tyndall, in his Bir-
mingham address, observed that man had been described
as a " cause-seeking animal." Very possibly he has,
but may we not more properly apply the definition to a
man of law, and especially a Barrister.

vol. lxxiii.

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