DOI Heft:
December 30, 1882
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17753#0307
December 30, 1882.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
301
THE CONSTITUTION'S NEW MONTHLY NURSE.
The following is the Real Text of the Prospectus of which a much-garbled
and mangled Version, surreptitiously yut forth, has lately deceived
the Press and deluded the Public.
’Tis sweet to hear the honest watch-dog’s bark
Bay thunderous—monthly—warning to the Town.
’Tis sweet to know he’lL save the Social Ark,
And “ crown the edifice ”—for half-a-crown.
“The undersigned beg to introduce to your notice a project for
calling into play,—or rather, perhaps, into work—the literary and
political talent at present dormant in the ranks of Bow-wowdom.
“ It is intended thereby to place more plainly before the Country
the objects of a truly jBow-wow policy. It is needless here to explain
what is the nature and true essence of Bow-wow. Bow-wow is as
old as the hills, older even than ‘ our glorious Constitution,’ almost as
old as platitude and petitio-principii. Its polity is justified by the
uniform experience of the whole of mankind—except those pestilent
erratics the thinkers. Bow-wow is, as it were, the watch-dog of—
well, in point of fact, of Bow-wowdom, that is to say, of everything
that is worth watching, including Property, Privilege, and all the
more respectable ‘ isms.’ But that watch-dog is at present drowsy,
even torpid. It is not proposed to let this sleeping dog lie, but to
stir it up with a long—literary—pole, till he hays each revolving
moon with a sweet-mouthed welcome worthy of the best Bow-wow
traditions.
“ It is unnecessary to indicate in detail the various forms of
hostility against which the principles of Bow-wow have in these
dreadful days to contend. We all know them only too well. The
policy of the Anti-Bow-wows—principles they have none—tends to
the withdrawal of Bow-wow from universal domination, the gradual
severance of the bonds that link Bow-wowists all the world, over,
and the ultimate separation of Bow from Wow.
“ These pernicious aims will be infallibly attained unless Bow-
wowdom rouses itself to vigorous action ; and, appealing, as it alone
can do, to the sound sense and feeling of all possessed of sound
feeling and sense—in other words, to itself— arrests the invasion of
Privilege, and counterbalances the threatened degradation of Palaver,
by disseminating true Bow-wow principles through the community
at large.
‘ ‘ The undersigned are not insensible to the great work which the
Bow-wow Press, and the many other organs of Bow-wow opinion
have done, and are still doing, but they believe that a large space in
Bow-wow literature remains unfilled, which, for the best in-
terests of the rational Universe—or, what is the same thing, of
Bow-wowdom—it is imperative to occupy.
“ In furtherance of these views it is proposed to issue a Monthly
Magazine, whose pages shall be devoted to the consistent, homo-
geneous, and uncompromising expression of every legitimate phase
and shade of Bow-wow opinion.
‘ The conflict between Bow-wowtsm and all that is not Bow-woio,
however, is carried on not in the field of politics alone, but in every
sphere of mind and every department of manners. The Magazine,
therefore, will not by any means be devoted exclusively to political
Bow-wow, but will aim to nurture and nourish the eternal and
ubiquitous principles of Bow-wowism in Art, Letters, History,
Religion, Philosophy, the Drama, Manners, Agriculture, Bicycling,
Shove-halfpenny, Shakspeare, and the Musical Glasses. The spirit
in which these several subjects will be dealt with, may be indicated
by the mere enumeration of such names as Cope, R.A. (Art),
Alison, Tupper (Poetry and Philosophy), Furnival, Lord Ran-
dolph Churchill (Manners), Lowther, Hyndman, and Tracy
Turnerelli. Space will be liberally devoted to the consideration
of plans for converting the working-classes to the great, but by
them much misunderstood, principles of Bow-wow.
“From the purely business point of view the ruling maxims of the
new Magazine will be two :—
1. Money no object.
2. Subscriptions payable in advance.
“ The name of the Magazine will be the ‘ The Big Bow-wow.”
“Such in its main features is the proposal which is now brought
under your consideration by the undersigned. They are of opinion
that it will conduce in a signal degree to the creation of sound—
that is Bow-wowish—habits of thought, and to the right under-
standing—that is, the understanding, in a Bow-xcowish sense, of
those fundamental questions on the true—or Bow-wowish— solution
of which all the most comfortable and respectable arrangements of
Society are founded. They desire to recommend—so far as sonorous
sesquipedalianism carries weight—this invaluable project to the
hearty support of all those who desire the stable superincumbence
of the superincumbent, the unmoved maintenance of Society’s
pyramidal equipoise, the continued unioD of the traditionally
united, and the consolidation of the vast and varied (vested)
interests of unlimited Bow-wow.
“ (Signed)
“ Carabas, Hookcrook, E. C. Scrape, M. P.
Grandhope, I. Standfast, M.P., Alfred Bustin,
Top lights, A. Balder Dash, M.P., M. T. Shoktscope.’l
A LONDON FOG.
A Fog in London daytime like the night is,
Our fellow-creatures seem like wandering ghosts,
The dull mephitic cloud will bring bronchitis;
You cannon into cabs or fall o’er posts.
The air is full of pestilential vapours,
Innumerable “ blacks ” come with the smoke)
The thief and rough cut unmolested capers,
In truth a London Fog’s no sort of joke.
You rise by candle-light or gaslight, swearing
There never was a climate made like ours;
If rashly you go out to take an airing,
The soot-fiakes come in black Plutonian show’rs.
Your carriage wildly runs into another,
No matter though you go at walking pace ;
You meet your dearest friend, or else your brother,
And never know him, although face to face.
The hours run on, and night and day commingle,
Unutterable filth is in the air ;
You’re much depressed, e’en in the fire-side ingle,
The hag Dyspepsia seems everywhere.
Your wild disgust in vain you try to bridle,
Mad as March hare or hydrophobic dog,
You feel in fact intensely suicidal:
Such things befall us in a London Fog !
A New Year’s Gift.—A seasonable donation is going to be pre-
sented to the inhabitants of West-End, Hampstead, and the Eastern
suburbs of Kilburn, in the shape of a boon which existing circum-
stances must dispose them especially to appreciate. _ They “ are
about to enjoy the benefits of a considerable augmentation of Police-
protection.” Just what they wanted. ‘‘ A capacious Police-Station,”
recently erected in their midst, and furnished ‘ ‘ with a staff of four
inspectors, five sergeants, fifty-seven constables, and with two
mounted-patrols attached,” is to be opened by Mr. Harris, super-
intendent of the S Division, on New Year’s Day. In view of the
increasing frequency of burglaries in and around the Metropolis,
they could hardly wish to receive a gift more acceptable, opportune,
and appropriate to the commencement of the New Year.
The Cornish Pilchard Fishery, it is stated, has been a continuous
failure. “ Only about five hundred hogsheads have been caught.”
Of course, it’s a failure if you go out expecting to catch fish, and the
result is a draught of Hog’s Heads.
“ No, no, they won’t take me in,” said dear old Mrs, Ramsbotham.
“ As Hamlet says, ‘ I know a cork from a Bradshaw.’ ”
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
301
THE CONSTITUTION'S NEW MONTHLY NURSE.
The following is the Real Text of the Prospectus of which a much-garbled
and mangled Version, surreptitiously yut forth, has lately deceived
the Press and deluded the Public.
’Tis sweet to hear the honest watch-dog’s bark
Bay thunderous—monthly—warning to the Town.
’Tis sweet to know he’lL save the Social Ark,
And “ crown the edifice ”—for half-a-crown.
“The undersigned beg to introduce to your notice a project for
calling into play,—or rather, perhaps, into work—the literary and
political talent at present dormant in the ranks of Bow-wowdom.
“ It is intended thereby to place more plainly before the Country
the objects of a truly jBow-wow policy. It is needless here to explain
what is the nature and true essence of Bow-wow. Bow-wow is as
old as the hills, older even than ‘ our glorious Constitution,’ almost as
old as platitude and petitio-principii. Its polity is justified by the
uniform experience of the whole of mankind—except those pestilent
erratics the thinkers. Bow-wow is, as it were, the watch-dog of—
well, in point of fact, of Bow-wowdom, that is to say, of everything
that is worth watching, including Property, Privilege, and all the
more respectable ‘ isms.’ But that watch-dog is at present drowsy,
even torpid. It is not proposed to let this sleeping dog lie, but to
stir it up with a long—literary—pole, till he hays each revolving
moon with a sweet-mouthed welcome worthy of the best Bow-wow
traditions.
“ It is unnecessary to indicate in detail the various forms of
hostility against which the principles of Bow-wow have in these
dreadful days to contend. We all know them only too well. The
policy of the Anti-Bow-wows—principles they have none—tends to
the withdrawal of Bow-wow from universal domination, the gradual
severance of the bonds that link Bow-wowists all the world, over,
and the ultimate separation of Bow from Wow.
“ These pernicious aims will be infallibly attained unless Bow-
wowdom rouses itself to vigorous action ; and, appealing, as it alone
can do, to the sound sense and feeling of all possessed of sound
feeling and sense—in other words, to itself— arrests the invasion of
Privilege, and counterbalances the threatened degradation of Palaver,
by disseminating true Bow-wow principles through the community
at large.
‘ ‘ The undersigned are not insensible to the great work which the
Bow-wow Press, and the many other organs of Bow-wow opinion
have done, and are still doing, but they believe that a large space in
Bow-wow literature remains unfilled, which, for the best in-
terests of the rational Universe—or, what is the same thing, of
Bow-wowdom—it is imperative to occupy.
“ In furtherance of these views it is proposed to issue a Monthly
Magazine, whose pages shall be devoted to the consistent, homo-
geneous, and uncompromising expression of every legitimate phase
and shade of Bow-wow opinion.
‘ The conflict between Bow-wowtsm and all that is not Bow-woio,
however, is carried on not in the field of politics alone, but in every
sphere of mind and every department of manners. The Magazine,
therefore, will not by any means be devoted exclusively to political
Bow-wow, but will aim to nurture and nourish the eternal and
ubiquitous principles of Bow-wowism in Art, Letters, History,
Religion, Philosophy, the Drama, Manners, Agriculture, Bicycling,
Shove-halfpenny, Shakspeare, and the Musical Glasses. The spirit
in which these several subjects will be dealt with, may be indicated
by the mere enumeration of such names as Cope, R.A. (Art),
Alison, Tupper (Poetry and Philosophy), Furnival, Lord Ran-
dolph Churchill (Manners), Lowther, Hyndman, and Tracy
Turnerelli. Space will be liberally devoted to the consideration
of plans for converting the working-classes to the great, but by
them much misunderstood, principles of Bow-wow.
“From the purely business point of view the ruling maxims of the
new Magazine will be two :—
1. Money no object.
2. Subscriptions payable in advance.
“ The name of the Magazine will be the ‘ The Big Bow-wow.”
“Such in its main features is the proposal which is now brought
under your consideration by the undersigned. They are of opinion
that it will conduce in a signal degree to the creation of sound—
that is Bow-wowish—habits of thought, and to the right under-
standing—that is, the understanding, in a Bow-xcowish sense, of
those fundamental questions on the true—or Bow-wowish— solution
of which all the most comfortable and respectable arrangements of
Society are founded. They desire to recommend—so far as sonorous
sesquipedalianism carries weight—this invaluable project to the
hearty support of all those who desire the stable superincumbence
of the superincumbent, the unmoved maintenance of Society’s
pyramidal equipoise, the continued unioD of the traditionally
united, and the consolidation of the vast and varied (vested)
interests of unlimited Bow-wow.
“ (Signed)
“ Carabas, Hookcrook, E. C. Scrape, M. P.
Grandhope, I. Standfast, M.P., Alfred Bustin,
Top lights, A. Balder Dash, M.P., M. T. Shoktscope.’l
A LONDON FOG.
A Fog in London daytime like the night is,
Our fellow-creatures seem like wandering ghosts,
The dull mephitic cloud will bring bronchitis;
You cannon into cabs or fall o’er posts.
The air is full of pestilential vapours,
Innumerable “ blacks ” come with the smoke)
The thief and rough cut unmolested capers,
In truth a London Fog’s no sort of joke.
You rise by candle-light or gaslight, swearing
There never was a climate made like ours;
If rashly you go out to take an airing,
The soot-fiakes come in black Plutonian show’rs.
Your carriage wildly runs into another,
No matter though you go at walking pace ;
You meet your dearest friend, or else your brother,
And never know him, although face to face.
The hours run on, and night and day commingle,
Unutterable filth is in the air ;
You’re much depressed, e’en in the fire-side ingle,
The hag Dyspepsia seems everywhere.
Your wild disgust in vain you try to bridle,
Mad as March hare or hydrophobic dog,
You feel in fact intensely suicidal:
Such things befall us in a London Fog !
A New Year’s Gift.—A seasonable donation is going to be pre-
sented to the inhabitants of West-End, Hampstead, and the Eastern
suburbs of Kilburn, in the shape of a boon which existing circum-
stances must dispose them especially to appreciate. _ They “ are
about to enjoy the benefits of a considerable augmentation of Police-
protection.” Just what they wanted. ‘‘ A capacious Police-Station,”
recently erected in their midst, and furnished ‘ ‘ with a staff of four
inspectors, five sergeants, fifty-seven constables, and with two
mounted-patrols attached,” is to be opened by Mr. Harris, super-
intendent of the S Division, on New Year’s Day. In view of the
increasing frequency of burglaries in and around the Metropolis,
they could hardly wish to receive a gift more acceptable, opportune,
and appropriate to the commencement of the New Year.
The Cornish Pilchard Fishery, it is stated, has been a continuous
failure. “ Only about five hundred hogsheads have been caught.”
Of course, it’s a failure if you go out expecting to catch fish, and the
result is a draught of Hog’s Heads.
“ No, no, they won’t take me in,” said dear old Mrs, Ramsbotham.
“ As Hamlet says, ‘ I know a cork from a Bradshaw.’ ”