Punch or The London charivari (4.1843)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAR TV ART.

85

PUNCH'S POLITICAL ECONOMY.

OF NATURAL AGENTS.
A natural agent is, as its name imports, an agent of nature ; and all
our country agents are in the nature of natural agents, for they are natu-
rally desirous of such a respectable agency. The wind is a natural
agent, and in some cases may be said to help circulation, w hich it may be
truly said to do when violent puffing is resorted to. Water is an agent of
very great power, very often turning—a mill; and when mixed with brandy,
it frequently gives a rotatory motion to every object—at least as far as the
oersons are concerned who have resorted to the very powerful agency
aiiuded to. Water is a very natural agent, for all the metropolitan milk-
men; and, in conformity with the truth that it always finds its level, it
generally causes a very perceptible rising in all the milk-cans. Such is
the power of water, that, when held in solution with ordinary chalk, a
pound weight of it has been found capable of raising a penny. Humbug
is also entitled to be called a natural agent ; and a parliamentary agent
falls under this description. Inanimate agents are better than living
agents; for instance, a steam-engine is better than a lawyer—for while
the former generates steam, the latter generates hot water, and is pretty
sure to plunge us into it.
It is said by political economists that inanimate agents are capable of
much more rapid action than those that are alive ; but the political
economists seem to have forgotten that no action can be so rapid as that
commenced by an attorney on a bill of exchange when his object is to
create value—in the shape of costs, which lie runs up with a rapidity of
action that is truly astonishing. The East-India Tea Company professes
to be very particular in the appointment of its agents; but every tea-
kettle is in some degree an agent, if the Company's teas are uied in the
family where the kettle is located.
Frost is an agent for the plumbers, by putting the pipes out of repair ;
and when one of the Syncretics publishes a tragedy, he becomes at once
su agent for the butter-shops.

MATERNAL SOLICITUDE.
mother.
Daughter, wherefore on thy cheek
Shines that tear, the sign of woe—
What thy cause of sorrow 1—speak !
Sure a parent ought to know !
Does the retrospect of years
To thine eyes those tear-drops bring ?—
Bright thy childhood's May appears,
And thy Summer's like thy spring.
What ! another glistening drop !
Whence the cause—can it be love ? —
Passion rankling spite of hope,—
Then thy wayward heart reprove.
Does thy brother's last good-bye
Cause these drops, my Isabelle ?—
Wherefore start they hi thine eye ;
Tell me, dearest daughter, tell !
daughter.
Mother, well you know the reason ;
Don't call me your dearest daughter !
If you had these ducks to season,
Wouldn't your old eyelids water ?

MEDICAL HINTS.
When troubled with the head-ache pay a visit to a Union workhouse,
which will transfer the affection to your heart. Next read through the
last number of Punch, and the ache will first be driven to your sides, and
as soon as the remedy has operated, will be expelled altogether.
A large appetite is an alarming symptom ; it is a precursor of consump-
tion. Take a sheet of white paper, whereupon set down, in a column, your
rent, land-tax, window-tax, poor's-rate, church-rate, water-rate, and your
other rates and taxes, not forgetting your income-tax. To these add your
'!>utcher's bill, baker's bill, tailor's bill, and other bills, particularly any
bill that you may have accepted, and which is on the point of cominn;
due. Add up and contemplate the sum total, which will very probably take
away your appetite.
Somnolency may be removed by involving yourself in a Chancery suit
endangering your whole property. So long as your case remains unde-
cided, you will have little disposition to sleep.
A dry skin results from obstruction in the pores. If ablution and
abstersion fail to relieve you, and running a mile ir; a great-coat prove
ineffectual, write an after piece, and get it played for the first time on some
night when the theatre is sure to be full. Go in with the public when
the doors open, and wedge yourseif into the middle of the pit. You will
boon have no occasion to complain of a dry skia.

Hcgentis ef Inn £btgn».

THE LEGEN'D OF THE SARACEN'S HEAD.
When the Saracens maintained an unequal contest with the Crusaders,
Richard the Second took up his tent, and pitched it excessively strong at
Palestine. We have hunted the annals of the wars, and turned over the
despatches of the Duke of Wellington, in the hope of finding materials for
a legend ; but not being able to meet with anything of the kind, we have
rushed back to our own resources, for there, at all events, " We know a
bank," as the song says, that we can always draw upon.
The legend of the Saracen's Head is an interesting one. When Richard
returned from the Crusades, he was of course much fatigued, and on enter-
ing London he very naturally required some refreshment. The weary
monarch, on arriving at Snow Hill, which stands in the same relation to
Skinner-street as the Alps do to Italy, he called loudly for a tapster, and
having drunk rather freely, " untille ye headde of ye Kinge did swimme
ryghte royallie," say3 the historian of that era, he began laying .about him
j right and left with a battle-axe, to the " astoundmente and dyscomfytturo
of ye courtierres." Upon which one of " ye Barons " said, " I wish his
Majestie hadde the head of a Saracen before him just nowe, for I trowe
he would play ye deuce with itte." Whereupon, the King paid all the
damage, and gave permission that the house should be called the Saracen's
Head, which is the name it bears even to the present day.
We have this legend from Lydgate, who got it from one of the king's
own fellows, but where the fellow himself had it we are unable to give any
account whatever.

Mons. JOURDALV on ''THE RIGHT OF SEARCH.

Some verv bad language has passed between Lord Brougham and M. de
Tocqueville respecting the old story of the Right of Search. Lord
Brougham accuses the Frenchman of ignorance — whilst the Frenchman
vindicates the comprehensiveness of his knowledge. One thing is certain
in this Right of Search : if the French do not know how to vary their
arguments, they have at least numberless ways of shifting the same words.
They remind us in this of their own Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who would
take lessons of the Philosopher as to the mode of saying the same sen-
tence—"Beautiful Marcldoness, your beautiful eyes make, me die with
love"—twenty different wajs. He will, however, use those words and
no other : whereupon says—
" Master of Philosophy.—In the first place, you may use them as you
have used them— Beautiful Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me
die with lore.
" Or,again.— With love to die, they make me—beautiful M^archioness—
your beautiful cyei.
" Or, again.— Your beautiful eyes with love make me—beautiful
Marchioness—die.
" Or, again.— To die, yovr beautijul eyes—beautiful Marchioness—■
make me with love.
" Or, again__They make me, your beautiful eyes, to die—beautiful
I\furchiouess—with love !"
On the Right of Search, the French say—
"Perfidious Albion tvould destroy Preach commerce and dominate the
seas."
Or, again.—" Albion perfidious, French commerce would destroy, ana
the seas dominate.,'>
Or, again.—" The seas dominate and French commerce destroy, would
perfulious Albion /"
Or, again__"Albion would dominate the seas,and French commerce
destroy—perfidious !"
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION.
I am alone—the poet is alone.
Yet fantasies are filling fast his brain,
Around him all things in confusion thrown,
Seem cast together in the vast inane,
An object gone—is quickly there again :
Surely that tree has got a double trunk,
Even the earth refuses to remain
Fix'd in its place—it rises, now has sunk.
Creation shines around—the poet's very drunk 5
Where am I ?—Ah ! upon the poet's ear
Voices are falling indistinct but loud.
" Make way, make way—a passage quickly clear,
Keep off the populace—push through the crowd."
Thus they exclaim—what mystery doth shroud
The poet's strange and awful situation ?
What means it! Let the truth be straight avowed,
I cannot bear suspense—death and tarnation !
I see it all—they drag the poet to the Station.