Punch (78.1880)

January 24, 1880.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

25

AN AGGRAVATING TEUTON.

O'Reilly (in the heat of a political discussion). “The fact is, Sorb, all you
Germans are Prigs, regular Prigs/”

Herr Muller. “ Ja wohl ! all ye Chermans are Bricks, recular Bricks l”
O'Reilly. “I said Prigs, Sorr—not Bricks/”

Herr Muller. “ I haf ears, my Yrient ! You said Bricks, or course—
not Prigs.”

O'Reilly. “ Prigs, Sorr ! Pig-headed, could-hearted Prigs!”

Herr Muller. “Ja wohl! Big-headed, gold-hearted Bricks!”

O'Reilly. “Ah ! get out wid ye ! Ye ’re past Prating for ! ”

Herr Muller. “Zen vy do you go on Braying, my Vrient?”

[Exit O' Reilly foaming at the mouth. Herr Muller chuckles for the rest of the day.

OUT OP THE LION'S MOUTH.

Friend Punch,

We are told about three hundred times a year that we occupy the
centre of the finest site in Europe. This may or may not be. As our look-out is
bounded by the National Gallery on the north, Northumberland Avenue on the
south, Morley’s Hotel on the east, and the Union Club on the west, and we
cannot change our point of view, we have no sufficient means of verifying this
very current, but not self-evident, statement. But one thing we do know. The
finest site in Europe, as far as we can see it, is one of the dirtiest and dreariest
sights in London. Strings of omnibuses, east and west, north and south, halt
within earshot of us, to take up and set down. I wish you could only hear
them taking up the subject and setting down Trafalgar Square!

Please, Punch, do us poor Lions one more good turn. You have got us a
few trees planted, though, it must be owned, that like the workhouse girl’s
baby, “they are very little ones.” Some day you may get our street-names
painted on the street-lamps. But as we don’t go out to dinner, that won’t be
so much a comfort to us as to more moveable feasters. But we Lions have big
appetites; acknowledging all we owe you, like Oliver Twist, we venture to
ask for more.

Can’t you do anything for our fountains ? You used to peg away at them in
the old days, and I daresay flattered yourself you had purified as well as
increased their water supply, while blackening their jets week after week. Not
a bit of it. There may be an Artesian well still in tap, but I believe the under-
ground connection with the Saint Martin’s wash-houses is as active as ever.
Analyse our waters—for quantity and quality—hy your own observation, Sir—;
more trustworthy than any chemical analysis by a long chalk. What do
you find ? First—for colour. How do you account for the bilious greenish hue

observable in the water, except on the theory of too close
a connection with the yellow soap of Saint Martin’s ?

Then look at the steam that hangs over those basins in
wet weather. What does that suggest so obviously as
the laundry ?

Again, there are the statues—our nohle selves always
excepted—including the Admiral, whom we can still look
up to, because the more we look up the more we can’t see
him. You may say the statues are an old story. So they
are, Sir, but are they any the better for that ? Look at
George the Third’s wig, by way of a sop to the realists;
and of George the Fourth’s toga, by way of a concession
to the idealists, and who shall decide which is the
ugliest ? As absurdity is worse than ugliness, we strike
the balance against George the Fourth—that balance
which he looks as if he could not strike for himself in
stone after death, any more than he could in flesh and
blood during life. There he stands, lopsided, in one corner
of the finest site, calling in vain on St. Martin to divide
his cloak with him—poor beggar! and so hide the naked-
ness of his legs.

Then there are Havelock and Napier, two British
Lions on two legs, as dark and dingy as we twice aB
many British lions recumbent on four. And there’s
Charles the First, with the sparrows taking cavalier
liberties with his love-locks, calling in vain for that
cleaning up which has been lately vouchsafed to much
blacker sovereigns. Why isn’t Mr. Froude set to work
on him, instead of the Cape Colonies, We’ll be bound
he would make a better job of it. Perhaps, in spite of
his native brass, the martyr-monarch is afraid of at-
tracting to himself more of the flattering attention of that
great dramatic re-writer of history, W. G. Wills.

Then look at the pavement! It is simply disgraceful.
In wet weather we sit in a sea of slop, altogether out
of keeping with leonine constitutions; in dry, we are
smothered in a mixture of granite and coal-dust, blacker
and more biting than that of the Sahara. Why should
we not be blessed with flower-beds under our noses, like
our living congeners at the Zoo ? Why not get the Office
of Works to adopt our Places, as we do our Plays, from
the French, and make the stony squares of London—
not the West-End oases—as bright and blooming as
the open spaces of Paris, East and West?

Nelson, I am sure, would be as ready to take French
hints on this point from his present elevation at the
mast-head, as to take French ships from his life’s.post
on the quarter-deck.

But 1 must bring my growl to a halt, for here comes
a foul and frowsy mob of ragamuffins, headed by its
cracked orators, and preceded by its equally cracked
brass band, to spout about us, and, worse indignity still,
to sit upon our backs, and dishonour our bronze with
expectoration and orange-peel. It’s too bad that Nelson
should be forced to look down on such desecration of the
flags of Trafalgar (Square).

While you are putting down nuisances, suppose you
put down that!

With best wishes for the New Year,

Believe me, dear Punch, always yours (whatever the
Pall Mall may say), The Britisb: Lion.

(For self and partners.)

From our pedestals round the Nelson Column,

Jan., 1880.

A Civic Curiosity.

We extract this remarkable advertisement from that
respectable local print the Hackney and Kingsland
Gazette:—

FURNISHED APARTMENTS. — Suitable for a 'City
Gentleman ■with, folding doors.—Address, &c.

We have many of us seen or read of the Siamese
Twins, and the Two-headed Nightingale, and heard of,
if not seen, the still earlier and more interesting case of
the Canadian with a hole in his stomach, through which
the processes of digestion could be observed and experi-
mented on; we all of us probably have heard portly
persons described as Gents with “Bow Windows”—but
“aCity Gent with folding doors” is a phenomenon as
yet unrecorded. One finds oneself wondering how the
apartments can be furnished so as to be suitable to such
a lusus naturce.