October 23, 1880.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

189

OUR OWN CITY COMMISSION.

Exciting Scene in Court! Examination of a Sheriff! !

Our Commissioner. You are, I believe, a Sheriff of London ?

Sheriff. I am a whole Sheriff of London, and half a Sheriff for Middlesex.

Our Commissioner. Good gracious me, how’s that P

Sheriff. I must request you to ask my Under-Sheriff; he is a lawyer, and
bears me harmless, and answers all bothering questions, and takes all my fees,
and keeps ’em for his trouble.

Our Commissioner. Are your fees of large amount ?

Sheriff. Somewhere about a “ thou” more or less—but I’m not quite clear on
the subject, and I don’t believe any Sheriff ever is.

Our Commissioner. Have you any salary ?

Sheriff. Yes, the Corporation allows me about £300 a year, some of the items
being rather curious. Lor instance, the Common Council in the time of Philip
and Mary kindly granted the Sheriffs of that day 20s. each, which amount we
still receive. In 1577 they granted for Wax, Herrings, and Sturgeon, £5 6s. 8d.
I don’t use wax myself, and I don’t like herrings or sturgeon, but I receive my
half of the £5 6s. 8d.

Our Commissioner. What strange items! Anything further of a curious
kind ?

Sheriff. Yes, I am also kindly presented with some very handsome Fire
Buckets, which, I believe, are intended to enable me to extinguish any lire that
might be accidentally caused, shortly after my return home from one of the
many sumptuous repasts I have to attend officially.

Our Commissioner. What paternal care the City Fathers seem to display
towards you. Anything further ?

Sheriff. Yes; they allow me Nine Pounds to pay the tolls on London
Bridge, but as there is no toll on London Bridge now, I-

Our Commissioner. Yes, quite so. Yery natural. Anything further ?

Sheriff. Well, I wear a peculiar costume—which I think rather becoming,—
and I have to swallow a great deal of green fat with my turtle. 1 ride in a
carriage of resplendent beauty. I am waited on by domestics arrayed more
gorgeously than those of Royalty itself. I am allowed to address the House of
Commons from the Bar of the House. I go to Court, attend State Balls and
Concerts, and have always before me the possibility of a Knighthood.

Our Commissioner. Pray what are your principal duties ?

Sheriff. Dining, Flogging, and Hanging.

Our Commissioner. Will you describe them more in detail ?

Sheriff. Certainly. Whenever and wherever the Lord Mayor dines, there I
dine; wherever the Lord Mayor goes, there I go; whatever the Lord Mayor says, I
repeat, with a difference. In short I am the Lord Mayor’s shadow. “ We come
like shadows, so depart.” I emerge from obscurity into the brilliant sunshine of
Corporation life. I bask in that sunshine for twelve short months, and I then
return into the obscurity from which I emerged, I trust, a wiser and a better
man.

Our Commissioner. Never mind the rest. Yery instructive. You may
retire, Mr. Sheriff.

THE WAGS OF WATERLOO.

The London and South-Western is usually esteemed a “ safe” railway, both
as regards its dividends and its exemption from accidents—the Nine-Elms
disaster notwithstanding. Nevertheless, the Directors of this Company may
justly be considered as holding high rank among the Practical Jokers of the age.
The mention of a few of the witticisms expended upon the traveller by them will
indubitably confirm this assertion :—

1. The Waterloo Station is so constructed that no voyager of ordinary
intelligence can determine the precise point of his departure. With rare
humour the Directors have so arranged the various platforms that it is quite
possible to be at Waterloo and yet to be some hundreds of yards away from the
spot whence any particular train will start. A craftily-devised medley of
barriers, bridges, subways, and iron ways, after the Hampton Court Maze
model, moreover, generally succeeds in baffling the stranger in the Waterloo
Wilderness. The only successful plan for escaping is to propitiate one of the
natives (or porters). And even these are often at a loss to determine the right
platform five minutes before a train starts. With equal jocularity the Directors
have scattered seats few and far between. Several of these resting-places are
judiciously placed over the gratings of the kitchens connected with the refresh-
ment-rooms, so that the imaginative traveller may refresh himself economically
on the savoury odours. The walls of the Station are carefully, and, it may be
added, generously adorned with the announcements of other Railway Companies.
The careful explorer will discover some few time-bills of the London and South-
Western in odd nooks and corners. An arrangement whereby those who are
arriving and those who are departing from the “ Loop-Line ” Terminus meet in
friendly conflict, is a touch of genuine pantomimic fun.

2. Horse- and boat-racing are sources of great revenue to the Waterloo wags,
and also of infinite pleasantry. Whenever there are meetings at Epsom, Ascot,
Kempton, or Sandown, or aquatic contests at Putney or Mortlake, the fun is fast
and the jokees (or ordinary travellers) furious. The uncertain hours of arrival
and departure have all the charm of constant variety. But, furthermore, the
monotony of the journey is repeatedly broken by abrupt stoppages at not gene-
rally appreciated spots of interest, commanding splendid views over wild
expanses of tiles and chimney-pots, or embracing vistas of ploughed fields

interspersed with telegraph poles and unfinished man-
sions of the lower order. In addition to these jests,
ordinary fares _ between the Metropolis and the place
where the equine or aquatic sports are being held are
abolished for the time being—not to the traveller’s ad-
vantage, nor with his consent. Lastly, a splendid Com-
munism is very often established, especially during the
Ascot and Derby weeks. On these occasions any well-
organised^ band of roughs can eject a party of Ladies
from a first-class carriage, and establish themselves
without the unnecessary ticket, for the South-Western
Directors and their merry employes humorously treat
such scenes as the fortune of uncivil war.

3. It is evident that the Directors must be great rabbit-
fanciers, for the number of hutches scattered over their
“ System” is enormous. It is only by experience that
the traveller can appreciate the irrepressible propensities
of the South-Western Company when he finds out that
these hutches are not for rabbits, but for human beings,
and that they are technically known as “ Country Sta-
tions.” Most of them are adorned with texts, but every
one has a pigeon-hole for the reception of the customary
tribute. _ A long wait in any of the South-Western
hutches is one of the most excruciating jests which any
Company of Practical Jokers could practise. However,
Christmas is coming, so Clowns in want of a few comic
scenes would do well to visit this rare field of Waterloo.

THE BREWERS AT ISLINGTON.

A Brewers’ Exhibition, one would think,

Should be a show peculiar to the Trade,

Chiefly of every sort and kind of drink
From malt and hops through fermentation made;
Beer under all its forms, of local fame,

Or popular by individual name.

Burton and Kennet, Welsh and Scottish ales ;

Barclay and Perkins’s Entire—the best
Which they and firms whom space to mention fails
Brew likewise—Truman, Hanbury, and the rest,
Merchants of porter, heavy wet and stout,

Aloft the sky whose tavern-legends flout:

Materials used in brewing too; those twain
In making genuine beer employed alone.

None of your shams; no produce of the cane,

No quassia, by true British Brewers shown.

No drugs; nought save the ingredients of pure beer,
Sound, unadulterated, and sincere.

Models and plans of “ Plant” you might expect,

In order, to behold disposed or hung;

Boilers, and vats, and tuns withal, select
Utensils ; barrel, tub, and tap, and bung.

And ah, ’midst all that good old-fashioned gear,

The modern beer-engine that mars good beer !

And carved or moulded forms of Brewers’ men,

Types of the Drayman famed in comic song,

And those big Brewers, to the Upper Ten
Thousand, as Brewer Princes, that belong ;

The legislative Brewers, who represent
'Beer’s interests in Britannia’s Parliament.

But who, at any Brewers’ Exhibition,

Could ever have expected to appear
All manner of beverages in competition.

As non-intoxicants, with Brewers’ beer,

Such as of late may have been viewed, on call,

In Islington, at Agriculture’s Hall ?

Can Brewers have taken Temperance Drinks to brew,
Meeting the times, to suit the taste of such
Good folk as those malt liquor that eschew,

And, in their cups, can’t take a drop too much ?

As well as beer, do breweries now supply
The draughts that not inebriate, for the dry ?

Or do the Men of Beer design to show
How little they the opposition dread
Of mineral waters, lemonade, and so
Forth, to the potions that excite the head ;

And do they back beer still to hold its own
’Gainst mimic fizz, and pop and zoedone ?

A “ Relieving Officer.”—General Roberts.