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VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING OCTOBER 23, 1841.

THE GREAT CREATURE.

Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was a tall young man, a thin young man, a pale young man, and, as some of his friends asserted, a decidedly knock-kneed young man. Moreover he was a young man belonging to and connected with the highly respectable firm of Messrs. Tims and Swindle, attorneys and bill-discounters, of Thavies'-inn, Holborn; from the which highly respectable firm Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk received a salary of one pound one shilling per week, in requital for his manifold services. The vocation in which Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk laboured partook peculiarly of the peripatetic; for at all sorts of hours, and through all sorts of streets was Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk daily accustomed to transport his anatomy--presenting overdue bills, inquiring after absent acceptors, invisible indorsers, and departed drawers, for his masters, and wearing out, as he Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk eloquently expressed it, "no end of boots for himself." Such was the occupation by which Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk lived; but such was not the peculiar path to fame for which his soul longed. No! "he had seen plays, and longed to blaze upon the stage a star of light."

That portion of time which was facetiously called by Messrs. Tims and Swindle "the leisure" of Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, being some eight hours out of the twenty-four, was spent in poring over the glorious pages of the immortal bard; and in the desperate enthusiasm of his heated genius would he, Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, suddenly burst forth in some of the most exciting passages, and with Stentorian lungs "render night hideous" to the startled inhabitant of the one-pair-back, adjoining the receptacle of his own truckle-bed and mortal frame.

Luck, whether good or evil, begat Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk an introduction to some other talented young gentlemen, who had so far progressed in histrionic acquirements, that from spouting themselves, they had taken to spouting their watches, and other stray articles of small value, to enable them to pay the charges of a private theatre, where, as often as they could raise the needful, they astonished and delighted their wondering friends. Among this worshipful society was Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk adopted and enrolled as a trusty and well-beloved member; and in the above-named private theatre, in suit of solemn black, slightly relieved by an enormous white handkerchief, and a well-chalked countenance, did Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk, at or about the hour of half past eight--being precisely sixty minutes behind the period announced, in consequence of the non-arrival of the one fiddle and ditto flute comprising, or rather that ought to have comprised, the orchestra--made his d?but, and a particularly nervous bow to the good folks there assembled, "as and for" the character "of Hamlet, the Danish Prince."

ATRY-ANGLE.

PUNCH'S COMMISSION TO INQUIRE INTO THE GENERAL DISTRESS.

Downing-street.

Sir,--Knowing that you are everywhere, the Secretary of State has desired me to request you will inquire into the alleged distress, and particularly into the fact of people who it is alleged are so unreasonable in their expectations of food, as to die because they cannot get any.

I have the honour to be, &c.

HORATIO FITZ-SPOONY

Sir,--I have received your note. I am everywhere; but as everything is gay when I make my appearance, I have not seen much of the distress you speak of. I shall, however, make it my business to look the subject up, and will convey my report to the Government.

I think it no honour to be yours, &c.; but

I have the very great honour to be myself without any &c.

PUNCH.

In compliance with the above correspondence, Punch proceeded to make the necessary inquiries, and very soon was enabled to forward the following

REPORT ON THE PUBLIC DISTRESS.

Sir,--In compliance with my undertaking to inquire into the public distress, I went into the manufacturing districts, where I had heard that several families were living in one room with nothing to eat, and no bed to lie upon. Now, though it is true that there are in some places as many as thirty people in one apartment, I do not think their case very distressing, because, at all events, they have the advantage of society, which could not be the case if they were residing in separate apartments. It is clear that their living together must be a matter of choice, because I found in the same town several extensive mansions inhabited by one or two people and a few servants; and there are also some hundreds of houses wholly untenanted. Now, if we multiply the houses by the rooms in them, and then divide by the number of the population, we should find that there will be an average of three attics and two-sitting-rooms for each family of five persons, or an attic and a half with one parlour for every two and a half individuals; and though one person and a half would find it inconvenient to occupy a sleeping room and three-quarters, I think my calculation will show you that the accounts of the insufficiency of lodging are gross and wicked exaggerations, only spread by designing persons to embarrass the Government.

It will hardly be credited that I counted no less than fourteen sheep hanging up in the shop I have alluded to, while there was a bullock being skinned in the back yard, and a countless quantity of liver and lights all over the premises. Knocking off the infant again for the sake of uniformity, you will perceive that the fourteen sheep would be one sheep each for every member of this family, including the mother, to whom we gave half the rolls and flour in the former case, and there still remains a large quantity of lights, et cetera, for the cat or dog, if there should be such a wilful extravagance in the family. With these facts I close my report, and I trust that you will see how thoroughly I have proved the assertion of the Duke of Wellington--that if there is distress, it must be in some way quite unconnected with a want of food, for there is plenty to eat in every part of the country.

I shall be happy to undertake further inquiries, and shall have no objection to consider myself regularly under Government.

Yours obediently,

PUNCH.

THE TEA SERVICE ON SEA SERVICE.

LORD JOCELYN, in his recent work upon China, while writing upon the pastimes and amusements of the people, expresses great satisfaction at the entertainment afforded travellers in their private assemblies; though he confesses, as a general principle, he should always avoid making one in the more promiscuous

THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE.

CONTAINS A VERY FAIR BILL OF FARE.

Simultaneously with the last chord of the last quadrille the important announcement was made that supper was ready--a piece of information that produced a visible commotion among the party. Young gentlemen who had incautiously engaged old or ugly partners evinced a decided desire to get rid of them, or, by the expression of their countenances, seemed to be inwardly cursing their unfortunate situation. Young ladies in whose bosoms the first "slight predilection" had taken up a residence, experienced, they knew not why, a mental and physical prostration at the absence of Orlando Sims or Tom Walker, who were doing the gallant to some "horrid disagreeable coquettes." Mamas, who really did like a good supper, and considered it an integral portion of their daily sustenance, crowded towards the door that led to the comestibles, fearing that they might not get eligible situations before the solids, but be placed among the bashful young gentlemen, who linger to the last to pull off their gloves in order to pull them on again, and look as though they considered they ought to be happy and were extremely surprised that they were not.

The arrangement of the supper-table displayed the deep research of Mesdames Applebite and Waddledot in the mysteries of gastronomical architecture. Pagodas of barley-sugar glistened in the rays of thirty-six wax candles and four Argand lamps--parterres of jellies, gravelled round with ratafias or valanced with lemon-peel, trembled as though in sympathy with the agitated bosoms of their delicate concocters--custards freckled with nutmeg clustered the crystal handles of their cups together--sarcophagi of pound cakes frowned, as it were, upon the sweetness which surrounded them--whilst fawn-coloured elephants stood ready to be slaughtered. Huge stratified pies courted the inquiries of appetite. Chickens boiled and roast reposed on biers of blue china bedecked with sprigs of green parsley and slices of yellow lemon. Tanks of golden sherry and

Where the "slight predilection" was reciprocated, the Orlando Simses and the Tom Walkers were squeezing in beside the blushing idols of their worship and circling the waists of their divinities with their arms, in order to take up less room on the rout-stool.

Mamas were shaking heads at daughters who had ventured upon a tenth sip of a glass of sherry. Papas were getting extremely jocular about the probability of becoming grand-dittos. Everybody else was doing exactly what everybody pleased, when Mrs. Applebite's uncle John emerged from behind an epergne, and vociferously commanded everybody to charge their glasses; a requisition which nobody was bold enough to dispute. Uncle John then wiped his lips in the table-cloth, and proceeded to inform the company of a fact that was universally understood, that they had met there to celebrate the first dental dawn of the heir of Applebite. "I have only to refer you," said uncle John, "to the floor of the next room for the response to my request--namely, that you will drain your glasses; and, in the words of nephew Agamemnon Collumpsion Applebite, 'partake of our dental delight.'" This eloquent address was followed by immense cheering and a shower of sherry bottoms, which the gentlemen in their "entusymusy" scattered around them as Hesperus is reported to dispense his tee-total drops.

Nothing could be going on better--no woman could feel prouder than Mrs. Waddledot, when--we hope you don't anticipate the catastrophe--when two of the Argand lamps gave olfactory demonstrations of dissolution. Sperm oil is a brilliant illuminator, but we never knew any one except an Esquimaux, or a Russian, who preferred it to lavender-water as a perfume. Old John was in a muddle of misery--evidently

and was only relieved from his embarrassment by the following fortunate occurrence:--

NEW WORKS NOW IN THE PRESS.

Also, by the same Author, an Ornithological Treatise on the various descriptions of Water-fowl; showing the difference between Russia and other Ducks, and why the former are invariably sold in pairs.

AMERICAN CONGRESS.

We hasten to lay before our readers the following authentic reports of the latest debates in the United States' Congress, which have been forwarded to us by our peculiarly and especially exclusive Reporters.

In Congress great attention is paid to the comfort of the various members, who are all provided with spittoons, though they are by no means compelled to tie themselves down to the exclusive use of those expectorant receptacles; on the contrary, much ingenuity is shown by some of the more practised in picking out other deposits; a vast majority of the Kentuckians will back themselves to "shoot through" the opposition member's nose and eye-glass without touching "flesh or flints."

The prevailing opinion appears to be, that should we come to a fight they will completely alter the costume of the country, and "whop us into fits." Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes. I will now proceed to give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war side--"the renowned Jonathan J. Twang."

"I rather calculate that tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter 'the Old Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical crisis! I conceit their min'stry have got jist about into as considerable a tarnation nasty fix, as a naked nigger in the stocks when the mosquitoes are steaming up a little beyond high pressure. I guess Prince Albert and the big uns don't find their seats quite as soft as buttered eels in a mud bank! Look here--isn't it considerable clear they're all funking like burnt Cayenne in a clay pipe; or couldn't they have made a raise some how to get a ship of their own, or borrow one, to send after that caged-up 'coon of a Macleod? It's my notion, and pretty considerable clear to me, they're all bounce, like bad chesnuts, very well to look at, but come to try them at the fire for a roast, and they turn out puff and shell. They talk of war as the boy did of whipping his father, but like him, they daresn't do it, and why not? why, for the following elegant reasons:--Since they have been used to the advantages of doing their little retail trade with our own go-ahead and carry-all-before-it right slick-up-an-end double-distilled essence of a genuine fine and civilised country, the everlasting 'possums have become habituated to some of the manners of our enlightened inhabitants. We have nothing to do but refuse the supply of cottons, and leave them all with as little shirts to their backs as wool on a skinned eel. Isn't it the intercourse with this here country that enables them to speak their very language with something rayther like a leetle correctness, though they're just about as far behind us as the last jint of the sea-sarpent is from his eye-tooth?

"Doesn't all international law consist in keeping an everlasting bright look-out on your own side, and jamming all other varments slick through a stone wall, as the waggon-wheel used up the lame frog? I say--and mind you I'll stick to it like a starved sloth to the back of a fat babby--I say, gentlemen, this country, the United States , I say, then, this country is considerable like a genuine fac-simile of the waggon-wheel, and the pretty oneasy busted-up old worn-out island of the bull-headed Britishers, ain't nothing more than the tee-totally used-up frog.

"I expect they'd have just as much chance with us as a muzzled monkey with a hiccory-nut. Talk of their fleet! I'll bet six live niggers to a dead 'coon, our genuine Yankee clippers will whip them into as bad a fix as a flying-fish with a gull at his head and a shark at his tail. They're jist about as much out of their reckoning as the pig that took to swimming for his health and cut his throat trying it on.

"It's everlasting strange to me if, to all future posterity coming after us, the word 'Macleod' don't shut up their jaws from bragging of British valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor round a smashed-up buffalo!

EPITAPH ON A CANDLE.

SIBTHORP ON BORTHWICK.

Our Sibthorp, while speaking of the asinine qualities of Peter Borthwick, remarked, that in his opinion that respectable member of the Lower House must be indebted to the celebrated medicine promising extreme "length of ears," and advertised as

FIRE! FIRE!

A REMONSTRANCE WITH THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.

How melancholy an object is a "polished front," that vain-glorious and inhospitable array of cold steel and willow shavings, in which the emancipated hearth is annually constrained by careful housewives to signalise the return of summer, and its own consequent degradation from being a part of the family to become a piece of mere formal furniture. And truly in cold weather, which is all the weather we get in England, the fire is a most important individual in a house: one who exercises a bland authority over the tempers of all the other inmates--for who could quarrel with his feet on the fender? one with whom everybody is anxious to be well--for who would fall out with its genial glow? one who submits with a graceful resignation to the caprices of every casual elbow--and who has never poked a fire to death? one whose good offices have endeared him alike to the selfish and to the cultivated,--at once a host, a mediator, and an occupation.

We have often had our doubts whether it be not possible to carry on a conversation with a fire. With the aid of an evening newspaper by way of interpreter, and in strict confidence, no third party being present, we feel that it can be done. Was there an interesting debate last night? were the ministers successful, or did the opposition carry it? In either case, did not the fire require a vigorous poke just as you came to the division? and did not its immediate flame, or, on the contrary, its dull, sullen glow, give you the idea that it entertained its own private opinions on the subject? And if those opinions seemed contrary to yours, did you not endeavour to betray the sparks into an untenable position, by submitting them to the gentle sophistry of a poker nicely insinuated between the bars? or did you not quench with a sudden retort of small coal its impertinent congratulation at an unfortunate result? until, when its cordial glow, penetrating that unseemly shroud, has given evidence of self-conviction, you felt that you had dealt too harshly with an old friend, and hastened to make it up with him again by a playful titillation, more in jest than earnest.

Surely were not October retrospectively associated with the grateful magnificence of ale, none would be so unpopular as the chilly month. There is no period in which so much of what ladies call "unpleasantness" occurs, no season when that mysterious distemper known as "warming" is so epidemic, as in October. It is a time when, in default of being conventionally cold, every one becomes intensely cool. A general chill pervades the domestic virtues: hospitality is aguish, and charity becomes more than proverbially numb.

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