Infuriate Captain. "You SCOUNDREL, I'LL HAVE YOU UP AS SURE AS YOU ARE BORN!" Cabby." WHAT! SUMMONSE ME! OH NO, YER WON'T, MY LORD. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE THE TROUBLE." [Exit CABBY with three and sixpence over his fare. MORAL. It is better when you have a difference with a Cabman, to give him your Card, and let him Summon you. THE FORENSIC SCHOOL FOR SLANDER. WHILST the Press must not call a rogue a rogue, the Bar in its wig and gown, is privileged to libel anybody as much as it likes. Mr. Punch has always thought that there ought to be some limit to the lies and slander which counsel are permitted to utter on behalf of their clients. SIR C. CRESSWELL appears to be of the same opinion on this point with Mr. Punch. In the Court of Probate and Divorce, the other day, was tried a suit for dissolution of marriage and damages; SPEDDING (clerk) v. SPEDDING and LANDER. On behalf of the defendant, according to Law report: "DR. WAMBEY addressed the Court in mitigation of damages. This was the first time a clergyman of the Church of England had come forward, without blushing, to ask a jury to appraise his honour, or to avail himself of the action for criminal conversation, an action which an eminent judge had declared to be a disgrace to our law and manners. The probability was, that DR. LANDER was as much the seduced as the seducer; and if the jury gave the reverend gentleman 2,000 farthings it would be 1,999 too many." In summing up, however, SIR C. CRESSWELL said : "There certainly could be no reason why a clergyman in a humble station in the church, who had been left to bring up a family without the assistance of his wife, should blush to ask damages of the adulterer who had deprived him of her society. They might rather ask whether the adulterer ought not to blush, when for the sake of saving his money he instructed his counsel to vilify the woman he had debauched? The co-respondent was not present, but he (SIR C. CRESSWELL) could not help looking to see whether the learned doctor who represented him did not blush when he put forward such an argument. (4 laugh.) The learned doctor had resorted to the common, low, vulgar, and miserable cry that it was the woman who had been the seducer." of what the advocate for the co-respondent asserted, that they found a verdict for the petitioner, with £1,000 damages. Hence at least gentlemen of the long robe and lax principles may derive a warning to take some heed of the service for which they let their tongues, and not befoul their venal mouths with unscrupulous abuse, to the sole end of prejudicing the cause which they have to plead, and obtaining an adverse verdict. MILITARY MERIT REWARDED. WHAT did SIR G. C. LEWIS mean by the subjoined argument, which, if correctly reported, he urged against GENERAL LINDSAY's motion for requiting the services rendered to the public by CAPTAIN GRANT in the invention of cooking apparatus and improvement of cookery for the Army? "CAPTAIN GRANT had already been compensated for all the expenses he had incurred. He was originally on full pay and was now on half-pay, and he could not therefore be said to be unremunerated for his services." SIR G. C. LEWIS's logical abilities oblige us to suspect that there must be some mistake in the last sentence. Should it not have been "He was originally on half-pay and was now on full pay?' That reading surely is required by the deduction which follows-"Therefore he could not be said to be unremunerated for his services." To remunerate an officer by reducing him to half-pay is to grant him the remuneration which was awarded to COLONEL BENTINCK. Is the improvement of army cookery and culinary apparatus a service of the same nature as that of bullying and intimidating an officer? The remuneration which consists in reducing a man's wages looks rather like the reward of demerit. Quorum Pars. Counsel engaged in defending a blackguard before SIR C. CRESSWELL, or any other judge who is both a judge and a gentleman, will perhaps in future beware how they obey their client's instructions to the extent of resorting to a common, low, vulgar, and miserable cry, and venting calumnies which they know to be falsehoods that have been fabricated by him or his attorney, if not by themselves. If their impudence can IN a report of a Country Sessions case, we find that the solicitor for stand the rebuke of a judge, their self-interest may yet mind the the defendant appealed to the feelings of the "Justices, as fathers." decision of a jury. The jury in the case above-cited, believed so much Is this his translation of the above? PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.-AUGUST 2, 1862. HOME INTERVENTION. BRITANNIA. "MY POOR, BRAVE CHILDREN! AT LEAST I MAY INTERVENE HERE." OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. disinclined to believe in any standard but that which Nature and my with the great display of candles-English, French, and German- 66 AFTER trying three and twenty different schemes for seeing the Exhibition systematically, I have come to the conclusion, in a very Dundreary-like humour, that it is one of those things no fellow can accomplish unless it be some one of indomitable patience and a regular "grinding" organ of Individuality, as for instance the ingenious editor of BRADSHAW's Railway Guide, the Perpetual "Grand Vice" of the Statistical Club, or one of those painstaking gentlemen who always know how to do everything better than anybody else. As for me, I roam through the World's Fair as I should like to do through the I don't much care for French art as applied to manufacture. Most world itself, somewhat carelessly-taking things as I find them-hard- of the articles in the S.W. court which ladies admire as elegant and ware, machinery, fine arts, food and clothing, silks and velvets, woollen tasteful," are the silliest gim-cracks ever seen. There is the old leaven and worsted-each and all are interesting in their way, from the rudest of the last century about them-the spirit of Roccoco with its shepfabric of New Zealand to the latest conceit from Sèvres. I wander herds and shepherdesses, its perverted shapes and misplaced ornament. about the great building, I say, note-book in hand, as becomes your I saw a huge carpet representing an episode in the life of NAPOLEON faithful correspondent, on shilling days and half-crown days, and meet THE THIRD, and although, where that potentate is concerned, no one a score of worthies who wag their heads knowingly, and suppose I am knows what may be upon the tapis, I must submit that rugs are not fit registering jokes by the hundred. Only the other morning I encountered vehicles for pictorial illustration. Our English schools of design are LADY MARESNEST (widow of the celebrated civic functionary of that attended by better results. I prefer HART's and HARDMAN's metal name) who, observing me examine some mineral products with atten- work to GAUTIER'S bronzes, and MINTON's majolica to modern Sèvres. tion, thought fit to twit me about getting up an article for Punch. It is in classes 20 and 24 that our Gallic friends are strongest, and Good Heavens, M'am," I said, "what fun can I make out of arsenical when I lead my beloved Unknown to the hymeneal altar she shall don mundic? Do you suppose there is a vein of humour running through a the silks of M. M. SAVOYE AND RAVIER, and wear one of CHEVALIER'S Durham coal-field? " But that is the way with some unreasonable priceless veils. people. I declare ever since I have had the honour of being connected with your journal, I cannot make the commonest observation to certain friends without its being misconstrued, and the other day on asking a young lady whether she had been to see BLONDIN yet, she replied, "Go along, you funny thing-do," a sentence which I have since vainly attempted to interpret. Having heard of the piping bullfinch in Switzerland, I made my way to that department on Saturday last, and found a crowd of people assembled round a little casket, where the automaton songster appears to roost for five days in the week. "Aw! When ith he going to thing?" asks some expectant swell with "Piccadilly weepers" of the most breezy character and beautiful gamboge coloured gloves. Toosdays and Fridays," answers policeman X, who has mentioned those days about ten times over during the last minute. "Aw! Can't he lay an egg now -or do thomething else to-day?" continues he of the whiskers. "Toosdays and Fridays" repeats the peeler very sternly. 'Aw! Vewy well. 'Spose better turn up 'gain;" and here our friend went off muttering something about a mons'ous baw." There must be something peculiarly attractive to our national taste in the ascent of high places. I never met an Englishman at Rouen who did not want to mount the cathedral flêche, nor at Florence but he must go to the top of GIOTTO's tower. So in the International, our countrymen are climbing up the Tasmanian wood trophy, and insist on swarming into the revolving lantern from morn till sunset. Luckily there is no staircase to the Domes, or I am convinced there would be a shower of aerolites in the shape of pocket flasks and catalogues falling from the hands of enthusiasts on our devoted heads below. As it is, we sit in peace under the shadow of the Livistona Borbonica, and listening to MENDELSOHN's famous Wedding March as the music rolls forth from the pipes of WALKER's organ, we can see in one comprehensive glance Zolverein and Hanse Towns, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and France represented under one capacious roof. I look up the S.W. transept, and round its huge window see inscribed these words : "DEUS IN TERRAM RESPEXIT ET IMPLEVIT ILLAM BONIS SUIS." What a cheerful homily might be preached on that text-what a grateful congregation would assemble at such a shrine! I hope the reverend gentleman who is destined to occupy that beautifully carved pulpit from Louvain will remember where it has so long been standing, and shape his first discourse accordingly. If there be sermons in stones, how much more in the countless wonders we see around us here? "Implevit illam Bonis suis," and yet DR. MAW-WORME would have us believe that everything is hateful, ici-bas! I think this world seems to each of us—what we make it, and whenever I hear a man sigh over its earthiness, I fancy he must have been some time grubbing in the soil himself. An ingenious German exhibits some drawings and statuettes to illustrate his theories about the growth of that interesting animal Man-from the age of fifteen to three hundred months, showing what height we ought to be at various stages of our life. Like most of the philosophical propositions emanating from Vaterland, this seems a little far-fetched, and how our statistical friend could have arrived at his average without separately studying the various effects of climate, parentage, gymnastics and premature grog-to say nothing of such exceptions as TOM THUMB and the Cremorne giant-it would puzzle anyone to imagine. For my part, having completed my 300th month, and standing, as I do, about sixty-five inches in my Balmorals, I am ELIXIRS OF LONG LIFE. perhaps be derived from HUFELAND and FLOURENS, but by far the subjoined extract from the Times relative to DUKE PASQUIER, who most eligible way of attaining to a good old age is indicated in the has just departed this life at that of 96. MUCH valuable information on the Art of Prolonging Life may "THE VIRTUES OF A GOOD DINNER.-The fashionable Paris journal Le Sport mourns over the death of DUC PASQUIER as an irretrievable loss to the lovers of good dinners. He was remarkable for his hospitality, and was particularly fond of having at his table three times in each week members of the Académie Française, and was known at la fourchette d'or.' His dinners were remarkable for their taste. He was fond of good living, and attributed his long life to his alimentation. He presided over the organisation of his kitchen himself, leaving the manipulation He looked upon the digestion as the centre of all the affections, feelings, and ideas. to a female. His excellent dinners were said to have had much influence during his Ministry." Biography, in the foregoing paragraph, is gastronomy teaching by example. Old CORNARO dieted himself, and so it seems did old PASQUIER, but on a more scientific and much preferable principle. CORNARO put himself on low diet, eating nothing that could hurt him; PASQUIER on full, taking care that all he ate should do him good. As to old PARR, with whose name certain Life Pills are associated, it is probable that he owed his length of days to taking no pills nor any other medicine, and to not eating any delicious Revalenta Arabica Food instead, for if in his time there had been any food of the kind to eat, it would have done him no good, and certainly there were no such pills to swallow. LORD BYRON mentions early rising as conducive to longevity, and pleasantly tells you that you may "When coffin'd at fourscore, Engrave upon your plate you rose at four." PASQUIER was coffined at fourscore and sixteen, and his executors might have engraved upon his plate, which ought to have been a dinner plate, that he dined at seven, or whatever was his dining-hour, and used always to have the best dinner that he could obtain. DUKE PASQUIER appreciated the importance of digestion. He knew thatexcuse the variation of a cherished couplet― "Sauces and spice, and all meats nice, Are what the greatest men are made of." Our food turns into our blood, our blood into our solid substance, including our brain, and as our brains are, so are our minds. Mentally and bodily our quality depends upon what we eat and drink. The digestion is, as PASQUIER believed, the centre of all the affections, feelings, and ideas. There we consume the fuel that works the whole machine. Let us mind how we stoke ourselves. In PASQUIER's long life we see the fruits of good living. We should endeavour to follow his admirable example. Let us preside over the organisation of our kitchens ourselves, and leave only the manipulation to a female. What is to hinder us from adopting that salutary system but the want of time and means? But so it is, unfortunately with some of us, whose best and wisest resolutions are frustrated by an excess of occupation and a deficiency of £ s. d. Happy is he who can afford to be his own head cook. It is in no witch's kitchen that the elixir of life is brewed. Every gentleman can concoct it in his own. "PAX IN BELLO."-The Dogs of War. i AN OVATION TO AN AMBASSADOR. ACCORDING to a news letter from Rome: At Frascati the national party offered an ovation to COUNT KISSELEFF, Russian Minister, on the occasion of the recognition of the kingdom of Italy by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg." The statement that certain persons offered a man an ovation is something new in the phraseology of penny-a-lining. It is generally said that So-and-so received, or that his admirers gave him, an ovation. That may mean that the people gave him a pelting with stale eggs, as we have before suggested. Even at Rome the Romans themselves would now no longer decree an ovation or minor triumph to a general for having gained a small victory, that is to say, if they had any generals of their own to honour; though they would doubtless be ready enough to give any one of the generals who dragoon them under the POPE an ovation of the other kind. Such an unsavoury ovation as that, however, is not the sort of ovation which the liberal Frascatians could possibly have offered to COUNT KISSELEFF On the strength of the recognition by Russia of the Italian Kingdom, or indeed to anybody on any account whatever, because it is an ovation which everybody would decline. The ovation offered by them to the Russian Minister must have been one which they expected that his Excellency would accept; a savoury not an unsavoury ovation: perhaps it was a savoury omelet. A Poem to Patti. O CHARMING ADELINA! How seldom has there been a But to tell the praise I mean a- DIVERSIONS OF DRILL. FACETIOUS SERGEANT. " and at the word 'dismiss' you all immediately 'slope' without further word o' command." PURITANS AND PLAYERS. (From the "Quarterly Review" for August, 1885.) THE Bicentenary Celebration of 1862 by which (as we showed at the time) the Dissenters of all classes, in imitation of the POPE OF ROME, sought to consolidate their forces, was productive of the most brilliant results, and did great honour to the prescience of the farsighted MIALL, VAUGHAN, and BRIGHT. In a few years their triumph was complete, and the Church of England was reformed, church organs were destroyed, the beadle was dressed in decent black, and prayer-books ceased to be adorned with velvet and gold. Perhaps, had the new Puritan Fathers stopped here, there would not have been much to complain of, but the intolerant spirit broke out into violence, and, as in old days, ruthless war was waged against all who differed from the fierce bigots in power. As heretofore, the poor Player was the victim of the persecuting Puritan. In spite of the intercession of the benevolent but feeble LORD EBURY, his now tyrannical allies proclaimed war against the Theatres. SHAKSPEARE, SHERIDAN, KNOWLES, and TALFOURD Were for a time allowed to be performed, but all lighter representations were suppressed. MIALL himself, hymn-book in hand, rushed upon the stage of the Lyceum at the thousand and second representation of Peep o' Day, and with a savage joke made, as he said, "shipwreck of FALCONER." DR. VAUGHAN, attended by a violent mob of fanatical young students from Homerton, broke into the Princess's Theatre during a performance, and though for a moment delayed by the belief that MR. KEAN was preaching, they no sooner discovered that the Corsican Brothers was being played, than they rushed upon the stage, scattered the affrighted actresses, and even the tears of CARLOTTA LECLERCQ only so far softened the rugged schismatics as to permit her and her sister-performers to depart unharmed on condition of their immediately joining the Abimelech Congregational Union. At the Haymarket, Bubbles of the Day was attempted, but BRIGHT suddenly entered, and with the voice of CROMWELL (at whom he now dressed) he cried, "Take away those Bubbles." The gallant LORD DUNDREARY, as became a Cavalier THE WEATHER AGAIN. HEINE said, (exulting in the cool gloom of a cathedral in a real July) that Roman Catholicism was a very good religion for the Summer. If so, no wonder the POPE feels discouraged this year. of long descent, drew a pistol, and but that his habitual unacquaintance with technicalities made him fire it into the ceiling instead of at the tyrant, the triumph of the latter might have been brief, had not the Earl also forgotten to put in any bullet. The hardships sustained by some of the actors were very sad. The Adelphi theatre was seized by SPURGEON, who contumeliously offered MR. PAUL BEDFORD (with a flippant jest at his Christian name, after the manner of Elephant Chapel) the place of clerk, but the brave actor punched his head, likened him to PUNSHON, and escaped. Less fortunate was MR. TOOLE, who was consigned to the Tabernacle Museum, and compelled to explain Otaheitan idols and other heathen curiosities, to the penny visitors, for nearly eight years, when he sprang out of window into a hay cart, and was carried into South Wales. MR. ROBSON was brought before the Court of Star Chamber, (an odious memory revived in honour of MR. BRIGHT'S paper,) and commanded to assume a real Porter's Knot, and carry tracts from Clapham to Islington. The fine elocutionary powers of MRS. STIRLING were made a pretext for setting her to teach reading to a wretched school class, where MISS LOUISA PYNE was also sent to instruct the jeering urchins in DR. WATTS'S Songs. MR. BUCKSTONE vowed a revenge, and, affecting to be convinced of the error of his ways by the arguments of DR. VAUGHAN, succeeded in so far blinding his persecutors that they actually allowed him to address a crowded attendance of the Band of Hope and Juvenile Abstainers, when he suddenly sang the Country Fair," threw his audience into convulsions, and sent home a thousand youthful missionaries to clamour in their households for reasonable recreation. For this offence BUCKSTONE was set in the pillory, but the people pelted him with roses, and cast bonbons into his mouth with affectionate precision of aim. MR. BOUCICAULT, having joined the Baptists, was permitted for some time to give the "Water Cave Scene" under a pretext that he was teaching the doctrine of his new sect, but his underhand device did not prosper, and the theatre was taken by the Board as a place for practising the lungs and oratory of youthful preachers. The Dramatic Authors would no doubt have equally suf fered, only there were none, a machine having been invented and 66 |