Punch or The London charivari (4.1843)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

8T

maintained ; or whether he intended to humbug his petitioner, may
be questioned ; his design may have been moral, but it was more
probably insidious. He must have known that as soon as the poor
little soul had done crying, she would eat ; what other resource wai
there open to her }. As it might have been expected, so it-fell out; she
saw a pomegranate in the Elysian Fields ; it reminded her of her
childhood's home, and also of her not having dined ; and she very
naturally ate it tip. " You 've done it !" cried the Furies from the
abyss, and the gloomy rocks and caverns around re-echoed in thunder,
" You've done it!" She had done it; "her flint," as a transatlantic
mythologist has expressed it," was fixed for ever ;" and much against
her mamma's consent and her own, she was forced to become Pluto's
queen.
To commemorate this sad event, and do the people out of their
goods, the above-mentioned mysteries were instituted.
Ceres did one very eccentric thing. She changed herself into a
mare, and thus transformed, gave birth to the colt Arion, who was
subsequently winner of the Nemacan sweepstakes (ridden by owner,
Adrastus of Argos). She was by no means proud of this prodigy,
and so annoyed was she at the birth of it, that she was actually on
the point of going into a nunnery ; but Jupiter sent the Fates to
condole with her on her misfortune. They represented to her that
what was to be would be, and that it was no use to cry at what could
not be helped. With which philosophical suggestions she allowed
herself at last to be comforted.
To atone for a single foolish act, Ceres made several acts that were
wise. These were legislative acts, for the benefit of the natives of
Sicily. In return, she was serenaded for a long time with Sicilian
Vespers.
Ceres was variously pourtrayed. Sometimes she was figured
veiled, in allusion, probably, to having so nearly taken the veil. At
others she was represented with a head-dress of corn, flowers, and
bladesof wheat, according tothe Celestial Female Fashions for August.
Instead of a parasol, however, she had a poppy in one hand ; and a
torch in place of a fan in the other. There were other images of her
on sale at t he statuaries' shops; among which, if there was not one in
the shape of an old woman leaning on a staff (in reference to bread,
the staff of life), there ought to have been.
To this goddess were ofl'ered beef and mutton, as well as pork ; but
which she preferred has not been satisfactorily ascertained. We
may be sure, however, that, whatever meat she had, the priests took
care it should be tender.

Sfceatn: i&oijal, ?Bonq Hong,
INTENDED FOR " THE OBSERVER,

From our active contemporary, The Times, we take the following from
the latest " Indian News : "—
" The last division of the fleet, having left the Yang-Tze-Kiang river, had on the l"th
ol October reached Chusan, where a portion of the troops was to be stationed lor a time,
other portions were stationed at Araoy and Hong Kong ; this latter colony is governed by
Lord Saltoun. It was thriving, and a proposal had been made for erecting a t/ieativ
there.'"
We have made every inquiry into the subject, and finding the report
to be perfectly true, we are inclined to believe that there can be scarcely
any doubt of its correctness. To be sure, if the intelligence should turn
out to be a mere flam, it would cause some suspicion of the veracity of an
excellent contemporary. Nevertheless, we are enabled to favour our
readers with certain intelligence, which, we think, removes the possibility
of any doubt upon the matter, and can, therefore, positively state that
Mr. John Cooper, of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, is engaged by
Lord Saltoux as .Stage-manager to the Theatre Royal Hong Kong. Mr.
Cooper will take with him a complete outfit, and the regret of the pro-
fession. An escort from Covent Garden will, it is supposed, accompany
him to Gravesend. Handsome terms have been offered to Mr. Charles
Kean to play three nights ; but that gentleman having stipulated for three
hundred, his Lordship does not, under present circumstances, think ft
advisable that such an experiment should be tried upon our conquered
enemies.

A NOTICE OF MOTION.
Coi. Sibthorpe lias given notice of a motion for a return of all the " school-
masters abroad/' and the amount of Income Tax paid by them.
A certain tragedian, whose performance of Hamlet some thirty years
ago was so successful that it was repeated fifteen years afterwards, and
may probably be looked for once every ten years till further notice, boasts
of his godlike figure, but is candid enough to admit that " his paddings
have cost him a little fortune." It, may be said of him, that if his nose is
not finely chiselled, his legs are, at all events, splendidly calved.

SONGS OF THE SESSIONS.

THE COUNSEL'S CANZONET.
Herc I am, here I am ! — from the first of the morning,
And here I remain till the close of the day ;
No brief—but a dummy—my bag is adorning,
And that I take precious good care to display.
Around me in eloquence boldly expanding,
More fortunate barristers bawl themselves hoarse ;
But I am contented with silently handing
To the proper Official my motion of course.
But is eloquence only in language ? Oh, never
So false an assertion as that I'll allow,
A lengthy address I admit may be clever,
But grace can be met with in nought but a bow.
There's something, I'm certain, extremely beguiling
In my manner, when motions of course I hand hi ;
For the proper Official salutes me with smiling,
And 1 his politeness return by a grin.
Then talk not of triumph by long-winded speeches,- —
Compare them with acts, and their merits are smai! ;
And Shakspere himself in his Plays somewhere teaches
The most they express who say nothing at all.
There's poetry, perhaps, in the orator's notion
W hen language he uses with passionate force ;
But who has not heard of the poetry of motion »
And that's to be found in the motion of course.

£l)c 53ar anti tlje $ktsS.
A good deal has been said in the papers lately about the comparative
importance of the Bar and the Press; but Punch is of opinion that they—
the Bar and the Press—are " much of a muchness." That the dignity of the
Bar is represented by a horse-hair wig and a stuff gown, is undeniable ; but
the moral influence of the press—including its advertising invitations to
try Coles's Patent Rheumatic Bands, or to Save your Income Tax at
Doudney's, is not to be for an instant questioned. The Press, which carries
the praises of Cockle's Anti-bilious Pills to the remotest corners of the
earth, certainly does more for civilization than the Bar, though a barrister
asking for judgment against the casual ejector is certainly a noble piece of
nature's handiwork. There is something very dignified in criticising the
measures of Government, which it is the duty of the press to do ; but there
is more real power exercised by the counsel, who, by merely signing his
name to a piece of paper, enables the sheriff to compute ; and thus the
bar wields an enormous engine, acting—through the sheriff—on the mass-
of the community.
The Bar has the glorious privilege of defending the pickpocket, while
the Press can only chronicle his actions ; and the barrister's entry into a
crowded court is accompanied by a cry from the usher of—" Way for the
Bar," while the gentleman of the Press is obliged to elbow his way as he
can thro-ugh the populace. This seems to give the preponderance in the
way of importance to the Bar ; but altogether we think that the penny-a-
liner and the briefless one are about upon a par, and we therefore recom-
mend that the contest between the two should be considered as a drawn
battle.

OPINIONS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL.
OUT OF PARLIAMENT AND IN PRIVATE.
Lord Stanley is a very ambitious fellow, extremely hot-headed, and
very desirous of cutting me out as leader in the House of Commons.
I must keep him down.—From Sir R. Peel's thoughts while shaving on the
■12nd of May 1842.
Graham is a humbug : that's my opinion.—Private conversation with
Lady Peel at the break fast-table, June 24, 1842.
The Queen don't like me just yet, but I'm a smooth tongued fellow, and
I think I can work my way.—Cogitation in the carriage when yoiny down,
to Windsor.
There's uobody like me. — Sir R. Peel's opinion of himself; passim.

31 JSuUrtm.
In answer to our last inquiries in Trafalgar Square, we were informed
that the following bulletin had just been issued :—" The Nelson Monu-
ment is getting on as well as can be expected. It has passed some very
quiet days lately—but from the present symptoms we cannot venture to
say that the patient will be in a condition to bold up its head before th«
Spring."
(Signed) Andrew Wynch, Mason.
Patrick O'Mortaherty, Labourer, bis X
John Dott, Mason's boy.