Punch (74.1878)

132

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [March 23, 1878.

RESPECTABILITY AMONG ROUGHS.

Discreet Me. Punch,

jfij^jjisBjt____■F a fool catches sight of a

crowd his first impulse is to
immediately run and join it.
You, Sir, of course, always
take care to avoid a crowd.
So do I. So does every
philosopher in his rambles,
unless, perhaps, he is a
casual news reporter. To do
so, indeed, is a point of peri-
patetic philosophy. Aris-
totle preached and prac-
tised it, no doubt; and the
same must surely have been
one of those things which
Socrates taught Xeno-
phon and Plato.

"Whoever observes a mass
of mankind assembled, he
may be certain that the
chances are a thousand to
one that he will get no good
by going near them. He
will probably learn nothing
that will even so much as
gratify his curiosity. What
the British Public are
staring at generally proves
to be nothing of more con-
sequence than a horse
down. Should it happen to be a biped run over, or in a fit,
the Police are pretty sure to carry their fellow-man off to a hospital.
Even a doctor can hardly expect to be of any use on such an occa-
sion. He has no prospect of being paid for anything he may do,
whilst he runs the risk of being booked to give evidence at an
inquest. So does anyone else who interferes, and may also find him-
self subpoena'd to come forward at the Sessions or Assizes, and have
to dance attendance at Court for a week. If a medical man, may
he not even, by unsuccessfully attempting to save life, perhaps get
committed by a Coroner's jury to be tried for manslaughter ?

But of all crowds the crowd to shun is such a one as the late Sunday
rabble meeting in Hyde Park, wherein, amidst the tagrag and
bobtail—

" Persons were trampled under foot, heads were indiscriminately punched,
hats and umbrellas were snatched from, their owners, and thrown about, and
one of the missiles used was a dead cat, which was tossed everywhere, but
chiefly into the midst of respectable people who came to be on-lookers."

Served the respectable people right. They ought to have known
better. Experience derived from a dead cat may, possibly, have
made a few of them comparatively wise. In future, perhaps, some
of these 'respectable people will at least not be such fools as to
mingle with a mob of roughs and rowdies merely to look on. " Red
ochre, too, was thrown," we are told, on the respectable people,
whose clothes it must have embellished so as considerably to modify
their appearance of respectability. Then many of them incurred
another penalty to which every donkey must know, but doesn't
reflect, that he exposes himself when he joins a crowd. " In the
height of the excitement the pickpockets were busy at work." _ Of
course ; and Inspector Sayer, of the Detective Police, having seized
one of them, on walking him off to the Park station, " the Inspector
was instantly surrounded by an angry crowd." He did, however,
walk the rascal off notwithstanding the crowd of his sympathising
associates. Such rascals, more or fewer, are to be reckoned as
constituent elements of every multitude, but especially of demonstra-
tion mobs in Hyde Park. Thither they are attracted by those simple-
tons the "respectable people " whom they expect to find there, and
to plunder. If respectable people were to absent themselves, the
mob, minus pickpockets, would speedily diminish. Disregard of
"demonstrations" would probably soon make an end of mobs by
whom Sunday is desecrated, trees and shrubs, flowers and turf torn
up and trampled down, and Hyde Park defaced. Or, at any rate, the
assemblages that wreak this havoc would be reduced to their vile
elements. And would not this, if the preservation of Hyde Park
as a public pleasure-ground should finally some fine day require
the expulsion of a villanous mobility, materially diminish any
obj ection that could reasonably be entertained to dispersing them, if
necessary, with " a whiff of grape-shot" ? That, too, might serve
to give gentlemen of the pavement vociferous for war some little idea
of the calamity they howl for.

Although unconnected with the ducal house of Devonshire, let me
say that my motto is Cavendo Tuttjs.

HIPPO'S FAREWELL.

" The well-known hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens died on Monday
night. He was caught, while quite a baby, in 1849, on the island of Obaysch
on the White Nile, and created an immense public excitement on his arrival
at the 'Zoo' in 1850, when the number of visitors rose from 168,895 to
360,402. Down to the time of his death he continued to be a prime favourite
with the public, the arrival of his more juvenile mate, ' Adhela,' in 1853, hav-
ing in no degree lessened his attractiveness."

Urm'p ! Urm'p ! A feeble grunt! I fail apace.

Old Hippo's mighty yet melodious bass

Sinks to a raucous whisper, short, not sweet I

No more that grunt shall greet

The Zoo's habitues with welcome glad.

Bartlett looks grave, my Adhela is sad,

And poor old Behemoth is very bad.

Well, I have had my day.

Better indeed had men but let me stay

In sedgy Obaysch, island of my birth.

That cosy lair on White Nile, whence white men

Brought me, a babe, to this close tank and pen.

I dreamt of it last night—the unctuous ooze,

Where one might take one's ease, and bask and snooze,

The warm Egyptian glow, the wap and wash

Of water in the reeds ! Once more to dash

Big-bulked through rushy reaches, strong and free !

Methinks 'twould yet revive me. But I see

Kind Bartlett's boding head-shake. Good old man!

He has done all he can
To make my cage a home for a poor brute,
If in this clammy clime one could strike root.
Ah, well! I've had my triumphs, and am yet

A Public Pet \
At least, I've not outlived my popularity,
And that with Pets is something of a rarity—

Ask W. G.

What he thinks of the fate ne'er dealt to me!

Alas ! my native Nile 's no more a mystery.

Egypt, so long the Sphinxian Crux of History,

Has grown an open book,

As commonplace as the Egyptian Hall,

No more occult than the arcana small

Of Maskeltne and Cooke.
By Stanley Africa has been walked over,
And like a bale from Calais shipped for Dover
They've brought Turn's Monolith, to their dull river,

To be stared at and shiver !
Great beast although I be, I vail my fame,
To Cleopatra's Needle. Ah ! that name 1
It is my daughter's, water-born and nurst
By Adhela, to lengthen out our race,
(Guv Fawkes the learned blunderers called her first!!!)
I shall not see her soft, expressive face,

And open smile again !

Urm'p ! Urm'p ! In vain, in vain
Imprisoned Behemoth with Fate would fight.

Weakness subdues me quite.
The times have changed, perhaps 'tis time I went.
That Needle ! Urm'p ! A nine-days wonderment.

How the great Oueen would smile
Like—like my " Cleopatra, Oueen of Nile,"
As Karslake christened her—the cute O.C.!
A lovely, lovely child! takes after Me !
May the round darling long prolong the fame
In alien'isles of Hippo's honoured name.

Urm'p! Urm'p ! I faint, I die.
Bartlett—be good to Adelha—good bye !
Farewell the gazing crowd, the children's fun,
The lavish apple, the superfluous bun,

And all the toothful memories of the Zoo,

Methinks that not a few
Of old and young admirers will be loth,
To bid—Urm'p! Urm'p !—a long and last good-bye,
Piping regretful retrospective ey e,
To Behemoth!

The Pauper's Funeral.

" The Pauper's Funeral," quoted from, in a late number of
Punch, as the work of Hood, is, Punch now learns, the work of
Thomas Noel, a connection of the Byron family, and is to be found
in his Rhymes and Roundelays, published in 1841. As Punch's
erroneous ascription of the lines to Hood is a common mistake, he is
glad to give to its right owner a grimly impressive poem inspired
by a genuinely Christian spirit.