Punch (75.1878)

September 28, 1878.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAKIVAKI. 133

FROM A VALUED CORRESPONDENT.

Glorious Apollo di Puncho,

I am just off to my country residence at Colney
Hatch, but send you my latest and best. It is a
conundrum to be proud of :—

Query. Who was, historically, the king of all the
Dumb-waiters ?
Answer, Louis Trays.

Hooray ! I'm off ! When I return to my senses for
the season, I am going to set up in business, for myself,
as a " Simile-Maker." Any Author unable to make a
simile for himself will send to me. Orders punch-
tually attended to. Conundrums mended on the shortest
notice. No objection to a butler where one or more is
kept. Would like to be a bird, but am, yours ever

toplights the FlRST.

P.S.—Make P.O. Order payable to me for not less
than £2000, to be drawn at sight, or sketched,—or, stay,
instead of a P.O. Order, or cheque, send me a Lettre de

" DARWINIAN."

Our Village Grocer {great Floriculturist). " Most extr'or'nary Thing, Sir.
Last Year I had some Bacon in my Shop that went bad durin' that hot
Weather, and I buried it in mt Garden. You'll hardly believe it,

but all my asters this season come up streaky ! ! "

Dishing and Dished.

The Army and Navy Gazette relates that a certain
Goorkha having been waylaid by six Greeks—■

" The Goorkha managed to kill four of his assailants with his
kookerie, and was then himself killed."

This statement seems calculated to puzzle the pro-
pagandists of spelling reform. How, they may ask,
could anyone, even the worst of kooks, kill assailants
with his kookerie ? And when the Goorkha had killed
four of those who fell upon him, did the other two
then kill him, or was he himself killed with his own
kookerie also ?

Good for Trade.

The Anti-Tobacco Society, having perhaps learned
that the Police in some parts of Germany are engaged in
preventing boys under the age of sixteen from smoking
in the streets, may wish that a like measure of repres-
sion were adopted here. So may the Tobacconists; for
lads prevented from smoking openly would smoke all
the more on the sly, to the greatly increased consumption
of nicotine, with its attendant evils.

PARIS CONGRESSES.

Meetings, Congresses, and Conferences, with many and widely
differing objects and of various degrees of importance and self-
importance — national, international, and cosmopolitan, literary,
scientific, philanthropic, aesthetic, and politico-economic, significant
and insignificant,_ representing different shades of opinion, and
represented by different coloured tickets—have been conducted at
Paris since the first of May, and their number is by no means
yet complete, as will be seen by anyone taking a bird's-eye view
of the following list of influential gatherings which are confidently
expected to be held in buildings on the banks of the Seine before
the end of the year and the close of the French Exhibition.

An International Mothers' Meeting, all in full evening dress, con-
vened by circular, bearing a halfpenny stamp, to discuss (amongst
others) such momentous questions as the minimum income on which
daughters ought to be allowed to incur the risks, responsibilities,
disappointments, and expenses of married life ; the measures to be
adopted, without a season's delay, to induce young men of property
and position to marry, or, if they will not take that precarious step,
at least—to dance ; and the formation of a body of paid professional
lady chaperones with unimpeachable manners and references, inex-
haustible patience, and nice smiles and nasty frowns, to relieve the
mothers of marriageable daughters of onerous and nightly duties
during the fifth or fashionable season of the year.

A Congress of Bachelors, and, if any of them can be induced to
join in such aQuixotic enterprise, of Widowers, to concert energetic
measures against female extravagance in dress, ornaments, furni-
ture, knick-knacks, amusements, and entertainments; to denounce
and discourage the application of cosmetics, hair dyes, pearl powder,
paint, rouge, and other " toilet requisites ; " to place some restraint
on the publication of ladies' photographs ; and to protest against the
heavy and increasing outlay on presents, gifts, fees, douceurs,
bridesmaids' lockets, bouquets, and honeymoon tours, which render
the rite of matrimony a ruinous and appalling ceremony, and make

the preliminary season of courtship a term of incessant mental dis-
quiet and insupportable pecuniary pressure.

A Congress of Cooks, Epicures, Gourmands, Hotel and Restaurant
Proprietors, Waiters, and others interested in the grand culinary
art, to discuss and settle, and issue in an authorised volume, a series
of recipes, in all languages, and both in prose and verse, for Salads
and Mayonnaises.

A Conference to take into consideration, and, if possible, to deter-
mine for all time, a question which has at various periods, and in
different countries, caused the mind of man great vexation, doubt,
discomfort, and expense, not unattended with a considerable amount
of personal ridicule, and is to this day, amongst many other,
but perhaps not more difficult social problems, awaiting its solution
in the jaws of the future—" What is the most suitable, the most
becoming, evening dress for the Male Sex ? " (N.B.—A Museum
will be formed of evening costumes of all nations and periods.)

A Conference of Musicians, Professors of Dancing, and dancers of
both sexes, summoned to supply a want and meet a deficiency which
have long been felt and lamented both in private and public balls,
assemblies, and parties, alike by the higher, middle, and inferior
strata of Society—the invention and adoption (by telegraph) of a new
set of quadrille figures.

A Congress of Amateur Legislators, busybodies, grumblers, idlers,
and writers of grandiose remonstrances (in the heavy season) to
the leading journals, grimly bent on effecting gigantic reforms in
hotel bills, and accommodation all over the world, Channel steam-
boats, Post Office regulations, culinary economy, domestic service,
the capacities of wine bottles, and the shape and material of men's
hats.

Arrangements for many other Congresses are in active progress
and may terminate at any moment. Due notice will be given of
their completion, and of the dates of assembling, the time and place
of meeting, and of luncheons, dinners, receptions, and excursions,
in GalignanVs Messenger, the London Gazette, Charivari, and the
pages oi this periodical.

YOL. LXXV.

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