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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 1 November 13 1841 by Various
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next PageEbook has 165 lines and 18228 words, and 4 pagesVOL. 1. FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 13, 1841. THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord Mayors of Dublin and London. Perhaps, however, it might have been attended with difficulty to follow our advice to the very letter; but we nevertheless think it might have been arranged; though if others think otherwise, we, of course, have nothing further to say upon the matter alluded to. We very much regret to make an announcement, and are glad at being the first to do so, though we are sorry to advert to the subject, touching an alarming symptom in the Princess Royal. Her Royal Highness, ever since the birth of the Prince, whom we think we may now venture to call her brother, has suffered from an affection of the nose, which is said to be quite out of joint since the royal stranger came into existence. FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE. Mr. Baron Nathan and family are still at Kennington. The Baron danced the college hornpipe, last Wednesday, on one leg, before a party of private friends; and the Honourable Miss Nathan went through the Cracovienne, amidst twenty-four coffee-cups and an inverted pitcher, surmounted by a very long champagne-glass. Upon inspecting the cups after the graceful performance was concluded, there was not a chip upon one of them. The champagne glass, though it frequently rattled in its perilous position, retained it through the whole of the dance, and was carefully picked up at its conclusion by the Baroness, who we were happy to find looking in more than her usual health, and enjoying her accustomed spirits. The travelling menagerie at the foot of Waterloo-bridge was visited yesterday by several loungers. Amongst the noses poked through the wires of the cage, we remarked several belonging to children of the mobility. The spirited proprietor has added another mouse to his collection, which may now be pronounced the first--speaking, of course, Surreysideically--in London. SONGS FOR CATARRHS. "The variable climate of our native land," as Rowland the Minstrel of Macassar has elegantly expressed it, like a Roman epicure, deprives our nightingales of their tongues, and the melodious denizens of our drawing-rooms of their "sweet voices." Vainly has Crevelli raised a bulwark of lozenges against the Demon of Catarrh! Soreness will invade the throat, and noses run in every family, seeming to be infected with a sentimental furor for blooming--we presume from being so newly blown. We have seen noses chiseled, as it were, from an alabaster block, grow in one short day scarlet as our own, as though they blushed for the continual trouble they were giving their proprietors; whilst the peculiar intonation produced by the conversion of the nasals into liquids, and then of the liquids ultimately into mutes, leads to the inference that there must be a stoppage about the bridge, and should be placarded, like that of Westminster, "No thoroughfare." It has been generally supposed that St. Cecilia with a cold in her head would be incompetent to "Nix my Dolly;" and this erroneous and popular prejudice is continually made the excuse for vocal inability during the winter months. Now the effect which we have before described upon the articulation of the catarrhed would be, in our opinion, so far from displeasing, that we feel it would amply compensate for any imperfections of tune. For instance, what can be finer than the alteration it would produce in the well-known ballad of "Oh no, we never mention her!"--a ballad which has almost become wearisome from its sweetness and repetition. With a catarrh the words would run thus:-- "O lo, we lever beltiol her, Her labe is lever heard." A SONG FOR A CATARRH. "POSSUM UP A GUM TREE!" AN UNDIVIDED MOIETY. THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE. SHOWS THAT DOCTORS DIFFER. Baylis. To which Mrs. Waddledot replied, "Vaccination, indeed!--as though the child were a calf! I'm sure and certain that the extreme dulness of young people of the present day is entirely owing to vaccination--it imbues them with a very stupid portion of the animal economy." As Agamemnon could not understand her, he again ejaculated--"Vaccination!" "But, my dear," rejoined Mrs. Applebite, "Mama has had so much experience that her opinion is worth listening to; I know that you give the preference to--" "Vaccination!" interrupted Collumpsion. "And so do I; but we have heard of grown-up people--who had always considered themselves secure--taking the small pox, dear." "To be sure we have," chimed in Mrs. Waddledot; "and it's a very dreadful thing, after indulgent and tender parents have been at the expense of nursing, clothing, physicking, teaching music, dancing, Italian, French, geography, drawing, and the use of the globes, to a child, to have it carried off because a misguided fondness has insisted upon--" "Exactly!" continued the "wife's mother." "Now inoculate at once, say I, before the child's short-coated." Agamemnon rose from his seat, and advancing deliberately and solemnly to the table at which his wife and his wife's mother were seated, he slowly raised his dexter arm above his head, and then, having converted his hand into a fist, he dashed his contracted digitals upon the rosewood as though he dared not trust himself with more than one word, and that one was--"Vaccination!" Mrs. Waddledot's first impulse was to jump out of her turban, in which she would have succeeded had not the mystic rolls of gauze which constituted that elaborate head-dress been securely attached to the chestnut "front" with which she had sought for some years to cheat the world into a forgetfulness of her nativity. "Oh! Mama--you really wrong Aggy," exclaimed Theresa. It is really surprising how very sympathetic women are on all occasions of weeping, scolding, and scandalising; and accordingly Mrs. Applebite "opened the fountains of her eyes," and roared in concert with her mama. Agamemnon felt that he was an injured man--injured in the tenderest point--his character for connubial kindness; and he secretly did what many husbands have done openly--he consigned Mrs. Waddledot to the gentleman who is always represented as very black, because where he resides there is no water to wash with. At this agonising moment Uncle Peter made his appearance; and as actors always play best to a good audience, the weeping ladies continued their lachrymose performance with renewed vigour. Uncle Peter was a plain man--plain in every meaning of the word; that is to say, he was very ugly and very simple; and when we tell you that his face resembled nothing but a half-toasted muffin, you can picture to yourself what it must have looked like under the influence of surprise; but nevertheless, both Agamemnon and the ladies simultaneously determined to make him the arbitrator in this very important matter. "Uncle Peter," said Agamemnon. "Brother Peter," sobbed Mrs. Waddledot. "Which are you an advocate for?" hystericised Mrs. Applebite. Now whether Uncle John did clearly understand the drift of the question put to him, or whether he conceived that he was solicited to be the subject of some benevolent experiments for the advantage of future generations, it is certain that no man ever looked more positively than Uncle Peter. At length the true state of the case was made apparent to him; and the conclusion that he arrived at reflects the greatest possible credit upon his judgment. He decided, that as the child was a divided property, for the sake of peace and quietness, the heir of Applebite should be vaccinated in one arm and inoculated in the other. FALSE ALARM. We were paralysed the other day at seeing a paragraph headed "Sibthorpe's conversion." Our nose grew pale with terror; our hump heaved with agitation. We thought there existed a greater genius than ourselves and that some one had discovered that Sibthorp could be converted into anything but a Member for Lincoln, and buffoon-in-waiting to the House of Commons. We found, however, that it alluded to a Reverend, and not to OUR Colonel. Really the newspaper people should be more careful. Such startling announcements are little better than DOING THE STATE SOME SERVICE. THE GENTLEMAN'S OWN BOOK. We will now proceed to the consideration of that indispensable adjunct to a real gentleman--his purse. This little talisman, though of so much real importance, is very limited in the materials of its formation, being confined exclusively to silk. It should generally be of net work, very sparingly powdered with small beads, and of the most delicate colours, such conveying the idea that the fairy fingers of some beauteous friend had wove the tiny treasury. We have seen some of party colours, intended thereby to distinguish the separate depository of the gold and silver coin with which it is to be stored. This arrangement we repudiate; for a true gentleman should always appear indifferent to the value of money, and affect at least an equal contempt for a sovereign as a shilling. We prefer having the meshes of the purse rather large than otherwise, as whenever it is necessary--mind, we say necessary--to exhibit it, the glittering contents shining through the interstices are never an unpleasing object of contemplation. cannot do better than find an excuse for a recurrence to his purse; and then the partial exhibition of the coin alluded to above will be found to be productive of a feeling most decidedly confirmatory in the mind of the landlady that you are a true gentleman. The same cause will produce the same effect with a tradesman whose album--we beg pardon, whose ledger--you intend honouring with your name. A servant should never be rewarded from a purse; it makes the fellows discontented; for if they see gold, they are never satisfied with a shilling and "I must see what can be done for you, James." TREMENDOUS FAILURE. The Editors present their compliments to their innumerable subscribers, and beg to say that, being particularly hard up for a joke, they trust that they will accept of the following as an evidence of A THOROUGH DRAUGHT. The extreme proficiency displayed by certain parties in drawing spurious exchequer-bills has induced them to issue proposals for setting up an opposition exchequer office, where bills may be drawn on the shortest notice. As this establishment is to be cunningly united to the Art-Union in Somerset-House, the whole art of forgery may be there learned in six lessons. The manufacture of exchequer-bills will be carried on in every department, from printing the forms to imitating the signatures; in short, the whole art of THE O'CONNELL PAPERS. 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