Chapter XXIX: Book I: —DEFINITIONS. A point in politics is that which always has place (6)

It must not, however, be supposed that the student now neglects visiting the dissecting-room. On the contrary, he is unremitting in his attendance, and sometimes the first there of a morning, more especially when he has, to use his own expression, been going it rather fast than otherwise the evening before, and comes to the school very early in the morning to have a good wash and refresh himself previously to snatching a little of the slumber he has forgotten to take during the night, which he enjoys very quietly in the injecting-room down stairs, amidst a heterogeneous assemblage of pipkins, subjects, deal coffins, sawdust, inflated stomachs, syringes, macerating tubs, and dried preparations. The dissecting-room is also his favourite resort for refreshment, and he broils sprats and red herrings on the fire-shovel with consummate skill, amusing himself during the process of his culinary arrangements by sawing the corners off the stone mantel-piece, throwing cinders at the new man, or seeing how long it takes to bore a hole through one of the stools with a red-hot poker. Indeed, these luckless pieces of furniture are always marked out by the student as the fittest objects on which to wreak his destructive propensities; and he generally discovers that the readiest way to do them up is to hop steeple-chases upon them from one end of the room to the othera sporting amusement which shakes them to pieces, and irremediably dislocates all their articulations, sooner than anything else. Of course these pleasantries are only carried on in the absence of the demonstrator. Should he be present, the industry of the student is confined to poking the fire in the stove and then shutting the flue, or keeping down the ball of the cistern by some abdominal hooks, and then, before the invasion of smoke and water takes place, quietly joining a knot of new men who are strenuously endeavouring to dissect the brain and discover the hippocampus major, which they expect to find in the perfect similitude of a sea-horse, like the web-footed quadrupeds who paw the reality in the area usually devoted to illusion, or tank, at the Adelphi Theatre.

If one of the professors of his medical school chances to be addicted to making anti-Martin experiments on animals, or the study of comparative anatomy, the pursuits offer an endless fund of amusement to the jocose student. He administers poison to the toxicological guinea-pigs; hunts the rabbit kept for galvanism about the school; lets loose in the theatre, by accident, the sparrows preserved to show the rapidly fatal action of choke-damp upon life; turns the bladders, which have been provided to tie over bottles, into footballs; and makes daily contributions to the plate of pebbles taken from the stomach of the ostrich, and preserved in the museum to show the mode in which these birds assist digestion, until he quadruples the quantity, and has the quiet satisfaction of seeing exhibited at lecture, as the identical objects, the heap of small stones which he has collected from time to time in the garden of the school, or from any excavation for pipes or paving which he may have passed in his route from his lodgings.

The second or middle course of the three winter sessions which the medical student is compelled to go through, is the one in which he most enjoys himself, and indulges in those little outbreaks of eccentric mirth which eminently qualify him for his future professional career. During the first course he studies from noveltyduring the last from compulsion; but the middle one passes in unlimited sprees and perpetual half-and-half. The only grand project he now undertakes is going up for his Latin, provided he had not courage to do so upon first coming to London. For some weeks before this period he is never seen without an interlined edition of Celsus and Gregory; not that he debars himself from joviality during the time of his preparation, but he judiciously combines study with amusementnever stirring without his translation in his pocket, and even, if he goes to the theatre, beguiling the time between the pieces by learning the literal order of a new paragraph. Every school possesses circulating copies of these works: they have been originally purchased in some wild moment of industrious extravagance by a new man; and when he passed, he sold them for five shillings to another, who, in turn, disposed of them to a third, until they had run nearly all through the school. The student grinds away at these until he knows them almost by heart, albeit his translation is not the most elegant. He readsSanus homo, a sound man; qui, who; et, also; bene valet, well is in health; et, and; suæ spontis, of his own choice; est, is, &c. This, however, is quite sufficient; and, accordingly, one afternoon, in a rash moment, he makes up his mind to go up. Arrived at Apothecaries Halla building which he regards with a feeling of awe far beyond the Bow-street Police Officehe takes his place amongst the anxious throng, and is at last called into a room, where two examiners politely request that he will favour them by sitting down at a table adorned with severe-looking inkstands, long pens, formal sheets of foolscap, and awfully-sized copies of the light entertaining works mentioned above. One of the aforesaid examiners then takes a pinch of snuff, coughs, blows his nose, points out a paragraph for the student to translate, and leaves him to do it. He has, with a prudent forethought, stuffed his cribs inside his double-breasted waistcoat, but, unfortunately, he finds he cannot use them; so when he sticks at a queer word he writes it on his blotting-paper and shoves it quietly on to the next man. If his neighbour is a brick, he returns an answer; but if he is not, our friend is compelled to take shots of the meaning and trust to chancea good plan when you are not certain what to do, either at billiards or Apothecaries Hall. Should he be fortunate enough to get through, his schedule is endorsed with some hieroglyphics explanatory of the auspicious event; and, in gratitude, he asks a few friends to his lodgings that night, who have legions of sausages for supper, and drink gin-and-water until three oclock in the morning. It is not, however, absolutely necessary that a man should go up himself to pass his Latin. We knew a student once who, by a little judicious change of appearancefirst letting his hair grow very long, and then cutting it quite shortat one time patronizing whiskers, and at another shaving himself perfectly cleannow wearing spectacles, and now speaking through his nosebeing, withal, an excellent scholar, passed a Latin examination for half the men in the hospital he belonged to, receiving from them, when he had succeeded, the fee which, in most cases, they would have paid a private teacher for preparing them.

The medical student does not like dining alone; he is gregarious, and attaches himself to some dining-rooms in the vicinity of his school, where, in addition to the usual journals, they take in the Lancet and Medical Gazette for his express reading. He is here the customer most looked up to by the proprietor, and is also on excellent terms with Harriet, who confidentially tells him that the boiled beef is just up; indeed, he has been seen now and then to put his arm round her waist and ask her when she meant to marry him, which question Harriet is not very well prepared to answer, as all the second season men have proposed to her successively, and each stands equally well in her estimation, which is kept up at the rate of a penny per diem. But Harriet is not the only waiting domestic with whom he is upon friendly terms. The Toms, Charleses, and Henrys of the supper-taverns enjoy equal familiarity; and when Nancy, at Knights, brings him oysters for two and asks him for the money to get the stout, he throws down the shilling with an expression of endearment that plainly intimates he does not mean to take back the fourpence change out of the pot. Should he, however, in the course of his wanderings, go into a strange eating-house, where he is not known, and consequently is not paid becoming attention, his revenge is called into play, and he gratifies it by the simple act of pouring the vinegar into the pepper-castor, and emptying the contents of the salt-cellar into the water-bottle before he gets up to walk away.

EXPRESS FROM AMERICA. We are authorised to state there is a man in New Orleans so exceedingly bright, that he uses the palm of his hand for a looking-glass.

[pg 186] POLITICS OF THE OUTWARD MAN! Wisdom is to be purchased only of the tailor. Morality is synonymous with millinery; whilst Truth herselfpictured by the poetry of the olden day in angelic nakednessmust now be full-dressed, like a young lady at a royal drawing-room, to be considered presentable. You may believe that a man with a gash in his heart may still walk, talk, pay taxes, and perform all the other duties of a highly civilised citizen; but to believe that the same man with a hole in his coat can discourse like a reasoning animal, is to be profoundly ignorant of those sympathetic subtleties existing between a mans brain and a mans broad-cloth. Party politics have developed this profound truththe divine reason of the immortal creature escapes through ragged raiment; a fractured skull is not so fatal to the powers of ratiocination as a rent in the nether garments. GODS image loses the divine lustre of its origin with its nap of super- Saxony. The sinful lapse of ADAM has thrown all his unfortunate children upon the mercies of the tailor; and that mortal shows least of the original stain who wraps about it the richest purple and the finest linen. Hence, if you would know the value of a mans heart, look at his waistcoat.

Philosophers and anatomists have quarrelled for centuries as to the residence of the soul. Some have vowed that it lived heresome there; some that, like a gentleman with several writs in pursuit of him, it continually changed its lodgings; whilst others have lustily sworn that the soul was a vagrant, with no claim to any place of settlement whatever. Nevertheless, a vulgar notion has obtained that the soul dwelt on a little knob of the brain; and that there, like a vainglorious bantam-cock on a dunghill, it now claps its wings and crows all sorts of triumphand now, silent and scratching, it thinks of nought but wheat and barley. The first step to knowledge is to confess to a late ignorance. We avow, then, our late benighted condition. We were of the number of sciolists who lodged the soul in the head of man: we are now convinced that the true dwelling place of the soul is in the heads antipodes. Let SOLOMON himself return to the earth, and hold forth at a political meeting; SOLOMON himself would be hooted, laughed at, voted an ass, a nincompoop, if SOLOMON spoke from the platform with a hole in his breeches!

PLATO doubtless thought that he had imagined a magnificent theory, when he averred that every man had within him a spark of the divine flame. But, silly PLATO! he never considered how easily this spark might be blown out. At this moment, how many Englishmen are walking about the land utterly extinguished! Had men been made on the principle of the safety-lamp, they might have defied the foul breath of the worlds opinionbut, alas! what a tender, thin-skinned, shivering thing is man! His coveringthe livery of original sin, bought with the pilfered applesis worn into a hole, and Opinion, that sour-breathed hag, claps her blue lips to the broken web, gives a puff, andout goes mans immortal spark! From this moment the creature is but a carcase: he can eat and drink (when lucky enough to be able to try the experiment), talk, walk, and no more; yes, we forgothe can work; he still keeps precedence of the ape in the scale of creationfor he can work for those who, thickly clothed, and buttoned to the throat, have no rent in their purple, no stitch dropped in their superfine, to expose their precious souls to an annihilating gust, and who therefore keep their immortal sparks like tapers in burglars dark-lanthorns, whereby to rob and spoil with greater certainty!

Gentle reader, think you this a fantastic chapter on holes? If so, then of a surety you do not read those instructive annals of your country penned by many a TACITUS of the daily pressby many a profound historian who unites to the lighter graces of stenography the enduring loveliness of philosophy.

Some days since a meeting was held in the parish of Saint Pancras of the Young Mens Anti-Monopoly Association. The place of gathering, says the reporter, was a ruined penny theatre! It is evident in the brain of the writer that the small price at which the theatre was ruined made its infamy: to be blighted for a penny was the shame. Drury Lane and Covent Garden have been ruined over and over againbut then their ruin, like PHRYNES, has ever been at a large price of admission; hence, like court harlots, their ruin has been dignified by high remuneration. What, however, could be expected from a theatre that, with inconceivable wickedness, suffered itself to be undone for a penny? Let the reporter answer:

FORSTER, Esq., advanced, and, assuming a teapot position on the stage, moved the first resolution, to the effect That the bread-tax was the cause of all distress, and that they should use their strenuous efforts to remove it. Ladies (there was one old woman in a shocking bad black and white straw bonnet present) and gentlemen (said he), this is a public meeting to all intents and purposes.

For ourselves we care not for an orators standing like a teapot, if what he pours out be something better than mere hot-water or dead small beer. If, however, we were to typify orators in delf, there are many Tory talkers whom we would associate with more ignominious shapes of crockery than that of a teapotsenators who are taken by the handle, and by their party used for the dirtiest offices.

We now come to the bad old woman whose excess of iniquity was blazoned in her bad black and white straw bonnet. This woman might have been an ASPASIA, a DE STAEL, a Mrs. SOMERVILLE,nay, the SYBILLA CUMEA herself. What of that? The bad bonnet must sink the large souled Grecian to a cinder-wench, make the Frenchwoman a trapes from the Palais Royal, our fair astronomer a gipsy of Greenwich Park, and the fate-foretelling sybil a crone crawled from the worst garret of Battle-bridge. The head is nothing; the bonnets all. Think you that Mrs. Somerville could have studied herself into reputation, that the moon and stars would have condescended to smile upon her, if she had not attended their evening parties in a handsome turban, duly plumed and jewelled?

Come we now to the next recorded atrocity:

There jumped now upon the stage a red-haired, laughing-hyena faced, fustian-coated biped, exclaimingMy name is Wall! I have a substantive amendment to move to the resolution now proposed(Go off, off! ooh, ooh, ooh! turn him out, out, out!) We are met in a place where religion is taught (groans). Well, then, we are met where they teach the young idea how to shoot(laughter, groans, and Go on, Wall.) Turning to the young gents on the platform, You, quoth Mr. Wall, have not read history: you clerks at 16s. a week, with your gold chains and pins.

Red hair was first made infamous by JUDAS ISCARIOT; hence the reporter not only shows the intensity of his Christianity, but his delicate knowledge of human character, by the fine contempt cast upon the felon locks of the speaker. Red hair is doubtless the brand of Providence; the mark set upon guilty man to give note and warning to his unsuspicious fellow-creatures. Like the scarlet light at the North Foreland, it speaks of shoals, and sands, and flats. The emperor Commodus, who had all his previous life rejoiced in flaxen locks, woke, the morning after his first contest in the arena, a red-haired man! But then, with a fine knowledge of the wholesome prejudices of the world, he turned the curse upon his head into a beauty; for hepowdered it with gold-dust. Could Mr. WALL, of the penny theatre, induce the Master of the Mint to play his coiffeur, how would the reporter fall on his knees and worship the divinity!

Mr. WALL, being of the opposite faction, in addition to the unpowdered ignominy of his hair, has also the face of a hyena! This fact opens a question too vast for our one solitary page. We lack at least the amplitude of a quarto to prove that all men are fashioned, even in the womb, with features that shall hereafter beautifully harmonise with the politics of the grown creature. Now WALL, being ordained a poor man and a Chartist, is endowed with a laughing hyena countenance. He even loses the vantage ground of our common humanity, and is sunk by his poverty and his politics to the condition of a beast, and of a most unamiable beast into the bargain. However, the vast enfolding iniquity is yet to be displayed and duly shuddered at; for WALL, the biped hyena, wearsa fustian coat!

As journalists, we trust we have our common sharewhich is no littleof human vanity. Nevertheless, with the highest private opinion of our own powers, we feel we can add nothing to the picture drawn by the reporter. The fustian coat, with a tongue in every button-hole, discourses on its own inwoven infamy.

We recognise with great pleasure a growing custom on the part of political reporters to merge the orators and listeners at public meetings in their several articles of dress. This practice has doubtless originated in a most philosophical consideration of the sympathies between the outer and the inner man, and has its source in the earliest records of human life. The patriarchs rent their garments in token of the misery that lacerated their souls: then rags and tatters were ennobled by sorrowthere was a deep sentiment in sackcloth and ashes. We have, however, improved upon the ignorance of primitive days; and though we still admit the covering of man to be typical of his condition of mind, we wisely keep our respect for super-Saxony, and expend contempt and ridicule on corduroy and fustian. We yet hope to see the day when certain political meetings will be briefly reported as follow:

Faded Blue Coat, with tarnished Brass Buttons, took the chair.

Velveteen Jacket moved the first resolution, which was seconded by Check Shirt and Ankle-jacks.

Brown Great Coat, with holes in elbows, moved the second resolutionseconded by Greasy Drab Breeches and Dirty Leather Gaiters.

After thanks to Blue Coat had been moved by Brown Surtout and Crack under both Arms, the Fustian Jackets departed.

Would not this be quite sufficient? Knowing the philosophy of appearance in England, might we not by our imagination supply a truer speech to every orator than could be taken down by the most faithful reporter?

Q.

[pg 187] PUNCHS PENCILLINGS.No. XVI. A group of men in masons garb. THE NEW PARLIAMENTARY MASONS.

WE HAVE A PLAN, WHICH, FROM ITS ORIGINALITY, SHOULD DRAW DOWN UPON US THE GRATITUDE OF THE NATION . WE PROPOSE THAT, DURING THE PROROGATION, AT LEAST, MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, SHOULD, LIKE BEAVERS, BUILD THEIR OWN HOUSES.

Vide PUNCH

[pg 189] LIST OF THE PREMIUMS AWARDED BY THE HOOKHAM-CUM-SNIVEY LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY, FOR THE YEAR 1841. FIRST PREMIUM. MANAGEMENT OF LANDED PROPERTY. To Count DOrsay, for the most approved Essay on Cultivating a Flower Pot, and the Expediency of growing Mignionette in preference to Sweet Pea on the Window-sills

The Pasteboard Medal of the Society.

SECOND PREMIUM. METHOD OF GROWING PERMANENT WHISKERS. To Colonel Sibthorp, for a Report of several successful Experiments in laying down his own Cheeks for a permanent growth of Whisker, with a description of the most approved Hair-fence worn on the Chin, and the exact colour adapted to all seasons

The Pasteboard Medal and a Bottle of Balm of Columbia.

THIRD PREMIUM. IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE POOR, BY INVENTING A VALUABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR MEAT, BREAD, VEGETABLES, AND OTHER MASTICATORY ALIMENT. To the Poor-Law Commissioners, for their valuable Essay on Cheap Feeding, and an Account of several Experiments made in the Unions throughout the Kingdom; by which they have satisfactorily demonstrated that a man may exist on stewed chips and sawdustalso for their original receipt for making light, cheap workhouse soup, with a gallon of water and a gooseberry

The Pasteboard Medal and a Mendicity Ticket.

FOURTH PREMIUM. QUANTITY OF BRAINS REQUIRED TO MAKE A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. To Peter Borthwick, for his ingenious Treatise, proving logically that a Member requires no Brains, instancing his own case, where the deficiency was supplied by the length of his ears

The Pewter Medal, and a Copy of Enfield's Speaker.

FIFTH PREMIUM. AMOUNT OF CASH REQUIRED BY A GENTLEMAN TO KEEP A WALKING- STICK, A PAIR OF MOUSTACHES, AND A CIGAR. To the Society of Law Clerks, for the best Account of how Fifteen Shillings a week may be managed, to enable the Possessor to draw it rather brisk after office-hours in Regent-street, including board and lodging for his switch and spurs, and Warrens jet for his Wellingtons

The Tin Medal and a Penny Cuba.

SIXTH PREMIUM. FATTENING ALDERMEN. To Sir Peter Laurie, for a Bill of Fare of the various viands demolished at the Lord Mayors Dinners for the last ten yearsalso, for an account of certain experiments made to ascertain the contents of the Board of Aldermen at City Feasts, by the application of a new regulating-belt, called the Gastronometer

A German Silver Medal and a Gravy Spoon.

PUNCHS REVIEW. THE MEMOIRS OF MADAME LAFFARGE. The title, I think, will strike. The fashion, you know, now, is to do away with old prejudices, and to rescue certain characters from the illiberal odium with which custom has marked them. Thus we have a generous Israelite, an amiable cynic, and so on. Now, Sir, I call my playThe Humane Footpad.SYLVESTER DAGGERWOOD.

Some four or five seasons since, the eccentric Buckstone produced a three-act farce, which, by dint of its after titleThe School for Sympathyand of much highly comic woe, exhibited in the acting of Farren and Nisbett, was presented to uproariously-affected audiences during some score nights. The hinge of the mirth was made to turn upon the irresistible drollery of one mans running away with another mans wife, and the outrageous fun of the consequent suicide of the injured husband; the bons mots being most tragically humorous, and the aphorisms of the several characters facetiously concatenative of the nouns contained in the leading name of the pieceLove and Murder.

Now this was a magnificent ideaone of those brilliant efforts which cannot but tend to lift the theatre in the estimation of every man of delicacy and education. A new source of attraction was at once discovered,a vast fund of available fuel was suddenly found to recruit the cinerulent embers of the drama withal. It became evident that, after Joe Miller, the ordinary of Newgate was the funniest dog in the world. Manslaughter, arson, and the more practical jokes in the Calendar, were already familiar to the stage; it was a refinement of the Haymarket authors to introduce those livelier sallies of witcrim. con. and felo- de-se. The immense coalitions of all manner of crimes and vices in the subsequent highway schoolthe gradual development of every unnatural tendency in the youthful Jack Sheppard (another immor-t-al work by the author of the afore-lauded comedy)the celebration, by a classic chaunt, of his reaching the pinnacle of depravity; this was the ne plus ultra of dramatic invention. Robbers and murderers began to be treated, after the Catholic fashion, with extreme unction; audiences were intoxicated with the new drop; sympathy became epidemic; everybody was bewildered and improved; and nobody went and threw themselves off the Monument with a copy of the baleful drama in his pocket!

But the magnificence of the discovery was too large to be grasped by even the gluttonous eye of the managers, The Adelphi might overflowthe Surrey might quake with reiterated pitsfullstill there remained over and above the feast-crumbs sufficient for the battenings of other than theatrical appetites. Immediately the press-gangwe beg pardon, the pressarose, and with a mighty throe spawned many monsters. Great drama! Greater Press! GREATEST PUBLIC!

Now this was all excellent well as far as it went; but still there was something wanted of more reality than the improvisations of a romancist. Ainsworth might dip his pen in the grossest epithets; Boz might dabble in the mysterious dens of Hebrew iniquity; even Bulwer might hash up to us his recollections of St. Giless dialogue; and yet it was evident that they were all the while only shammingonly cooking up some dainty dish according to a recipe, or, as it is still frequently pronounced, a receipt,which last, with such writers, will ever be the guide-post of their track.

But something more was wanted; and here it ishere, in the Memoirs of Marie Cappelle.

This lady, perhaps the most remarkable woman of her age, has published a bookhalf farce, half novelin which she treats by turns with the clap- trap agony of a Bulwer, the quaint sneer of a Dickens, and the effrontery of an Ainsworth, that serious charge which employed the careful investigation of the most experienced men in France for many weeks, and which excited a degree of interest in domestic England almost unexampled in the history of foreign trials. This work is published by a gentleman who calls himself Publisher in ordinary to her Majesty, and may be procured at any book-sellers by all such as have a guinea and a days leisure at the mercy of the literary charlatan who contrived it.

In the strictest confidence we would suggest, that if a treaty could be ratified with Madame Marie Cappelle Laffarge, we do not doubt that our nurseryyea, our laundrymaids would learn to spell the precious sentences, to their own great edification and that of the children placed under their charge.

OUR TRADE REPORT. Coals are a shade blacker than they were last week, but not quite so heavy; and turnips are much lighter than they have been known for a very considerable period.

Great complaints are made of the ticketing system; and persons going to purchase shawls, as they supposed, at nine-pence three-farthings each, are disgusted at being referred to a very small one pound sixteen marked very lightly in pencil immediately before the 9¾d., which is very large and in very black ink. There were several transactions of this kind during the whole morning.

The depressed state of the Gossamer-market has long been a subject of conversation among the four-and-niners who frequent the cheap coffee- shops in the City; but no one knows the cause of what has taken place, nor can they exactly state what the occurrence is that they are so loudly complaining of.

Bones continue to fetch a penny for two pounds; but great murmurs are heard of the difficulty of making up a pound equal to the very liberal weights which the marine-store keepers use when making their purchases; they, however, make up for it by using much lighter weights when they sell, which is so far fair and satisfactory.

The arrivals in baked potatoes have been very numerous; fifty cans were entered outwards on Saturday.

RELATIVE GENTILITY. Two ladies of St. Giless disputing lately on the respectability of each others family, concluded the debate in the following way:Mrs. Doyle, maam, Id have you know that Ive an uncle a bannister of the law. Much about your bannister, retorted Mrs. Doyle; havent I a first cousin a corridor in the navy?

KEEPING IT DARK. Jim Bones, a free nigger of New York, has a child so exceedingly dark that he cannot be seen on the lightest day.

[pg 190] THE GENTLEMANS OWN BOOK. REVENONS A NOS MOUTONSi.e. (for the benefit of country members) to return to our mutton, or rather the trimmings. The ornaments which notify the pecuniary superiority of the wearer include chains, rings, studs, canes, watches, and purses. Chains should be of gold, and cannot be too ostentatiously displayed; for a proper disposition of these braveries is sure to induce the utmost confidence in the highly useful occupants of Pigots and Robsons Directory. We have seen some waistcoats so elaborately festooned, that we would stake our inkstand that the most unbelieving money-lender would have taken the personal security of the wearer without hesitation. The perfection to which mosaic-work has arrived may possibly hold out a strong temptation to the thoughtless to substitute the shadow for the reality. Do not deceive yourself; an experienced eye will instantly detect the imposition, though your ornaments may be

A bald man in a frilly shirt applies carmine to his cheeks. FRESH EVERY DAY;

for, we will defy any true gentleman to preserve an equanimity of expression under the hinteither visual or verbalthat (to use the language of the poet) you are a man of brass.

We have a faint recollection of a class of gentlemen who used to attach an heterogeneal collection of massive seals and keys to one end of a chain, and a small church-clock to the other. The chain then formed a pendulum in front of their small-clothes, and the dignified oscillation of the appendages was considered to distinguish the gentleman. They were also used as auxiliaries in argument; for whenever an hiatus occurred in the discussion, the speaker, by having resort to his watch-chain, could frequently confound his adversary by commencing a series of rapid gyrations. But the fashion has descended to merchants, lawyers, doctors, et sui generis, who never drive bargains, ruin debtors, kill patients, et cetera, without having recourse to this imposing decoration.

Rings are the next indicators of superfluous cash. As they are merely ornamental, they should resemble vipers, tapeworms, snakes, toads, monkeys, deaths heads, and similar engaging and pleasing subjects. The more liberally the fingers are enriched, the greater the assurance that the hand is never employed in any useful labour, and is consequently only devoted to the minisitration of indulgences, and the exhibition of those elegant productions which distinguish the highly-civilised gentleman from the highly-tattooed savage.

Mourning-rings have an air of extreme respectability; for they are always suggestive of a legacy, and of the fact that you have been connected with somebody who was not buried at the expense of the parish.

Studs should be selected with the greatest possible care, and in our opinion the small gold ones can only be worn by a perfect gentleman; for whilst they perform their required office, they do not distract the attention from the quality and whiteness of your linen. Some that we have seen were evidently intended for cabinet pictures, rifle targets and breast-plates.

Pins.These necessary adjuncts to the cravat of a gentleman have undergone a singular revolution during late years; but we confess we are admirers of the present fashion, for if it is desirable to indulge in an ornament, it is equally desirable that everybody should be gratified by the exhibition thereof. We presume that it is with this commendable feeling that pins-heads (whose smallness in former days became a proverb) should now resemble the apex of a beadles staff; and, as though to make assurance doubly sure, a plurality is absolutely required for the decoration of a gentleman. In these times, when political partisanship is so exceedingly violent, why not make the pins indicative of the opinions of the wearer, as the waistcoat was in the days of Fox. We could suggest some very appropriate designs; for instance, the heads of Peel and Wakley, connected by a very slight linkSibthorp and Peter Borthwick by a series of long-car ringsMuntz and DIsraeli cut out of very hard wood, and united by a hair-chain; and many others too numerous to mention.

HAMLETS SOLILOQUY. PARODIED BY A XX TEETOTALLER. To drink, or not to drink? That is the question.

Whether tis nobler inwardly to suffer

The pangs and twitchings of uneasy stomach,

Or to take brandy-toddy gainst the colic,

And by imbibing end it? To drink,to sleep,

To snore;and, by a snooze, to say we end

The head-ache, and the mornings parching thirst

That drinkings heir to;tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wishd. To drink,to pay,

To pay the waiters bill?Aytheres the rub;

For in that snipe-like bill, a stop may come,

When we would shuffle off our mortal score,

Must give us pause. Theres the respect

That makes sobriety of so long date;

For who could bear to hear the glasses ring

In concert clearthe chairmans ready toast

The pops of out-drawn corksthe hip hurrah!

The eloquence of claretand the songs,

Which often through the noisy revel break,

When a manmight his quietus make

With a full bottle? Who would sober be,

Or sip weak coffee through the live-long night;

But that the dread of being laid upon

That stretcher by policemen borne, on which

The reveller reclines,puzzles me much,

And makes me rather tipple ginger beer,

Than fly to brandy, or to

A man with his foot caught in a trap. HODGES SIN?

Thus poverty doth make us Temprance men.

TRY OUR BEST SYMPATHY. It is a fact, when the deputation of the distressed manufacturers waited upon Sir Robert Peel to represent to him their destitute condition, that the Right Honourable Baronet declared he felt the deepest sympathy for them. This is all very finebut we fear greatly, if Sir Robert should be inclined to make a commercial speculation of his sympathy, that he would go into the market with

A merchant hands stockings to a little girl. A VERY SMALL STOCK-IN(G) TRADE.

[pg 191] THE MAN OF HABIT. I meet with men of this character very frequently, and though I believe that the stiff formality of the past age was more congenial than the present to the formation and growth of these peculiar beings, there are still a sufficient number of the species in existence for the philosophical cosmopolite to study and comment upon.

A true specimen of a man of habit should be an old bachelor,for matrimony deranges the whole clock-work system upon which he piques himself. He could never endure to have his breakfast delayed for one second to indulge his souls far dearer part with a prolonged morning dream; and he dislikes children, because the noisy urchins make a point of tormenting him wherever he goes. The Man of Habit has a certain hour for all the occupations of his life; he allows himself twenty minutes for shaving and dressing; fifteen for breakfasting, in which time he eats two slices of toast, drinks two cups of coffee, and swallows two eggs boiled for two and a half minutes by an infallible chronometer. After breakfast he reads the newspaper, but lays it down in the very heart and pith of a clever article on his own side of the question, the moment his time is up. He has even been known to leave the theatre at the very moment of the dénouement of a deeply-interesting play rather than exceed his limited hour by five minutes. He will be out of temper all day, if he does not find his hat on its proper nail and his cane in its allotted corner. He chooses a particular walk, where he may take his prescribed number of turns without interruption, for he would prefer suffering a serious inconvenience rather than be obliged to quicken or slacken his pace to suit the speed of a friend who might join him. My uncle Simon was a character of this cast. I could take it on my conscience to assert that, every night for the forty years preceding his death, he had one foot in the bed on the first stroke of 11 oclock, and just as the last chime had tolled, that he was enveloped in the blankets to his chin. I have known him discharge a servant because his slippers were placed by his bed-side for contrary feet; and I have won a wager by betting that he would turn the corner of a certain street at precisely three minutes before ten in the morning. My uncle used to frequent a club in the City, of which he had become the oracle. Precisely at eight oclock he entered the roomtook his seat in a leather-backed easy chair in a particular cornerread a certain favourite journaldrank two glasses of rum toddysmoked four pipesand was always in the act of putting his right arm into the sleeve of his great-coat, to return home, as the clock struck ten. The cause of my uncles death was as singular as his life was whimsical. He went one night to the club, and was surprised to find his seat occupied by a tall dark-browed man, who smoked a meerschaum of prodigious size in solemn silence. Numerous hints were thrown out to the stranger that the seat had by prescriptive right and ancient custom become the property of my uncle; he either did not or would not understand them, and continued to keep his possession of the leather-backed chair with the most imperturbable sang-froid. My uncle in despair took another seat, and endeavoured to appear as if nothing had occurred to disturb him,but he could not dissimulate. He was pierced to the heart,and

A man is eating on a bench. I SAW THE IRON ENTER HIS SOLE.

My uncle left the club half-an-hour before his time; he returned homewent to bed without winding his watchand the next morning he was found lifeless in his bed.

PUNCHS POLITICAL ECONOMY. The subject of political economy is becoming so general a portion of education, that it will doubtless soon be introduced at the infant schools among the other eccentric evolutions or playful whirls of Mr. Wilder-spin. At it is the fashion to comprehend nothing, but to have a smattering of everything, we beg leave to smatter our readers with a very thin layer of political economy. In the first place, political means political, and economy signifies economy, at least when taken separately; but put them together, and they express all kinds of extravagance. Political economy contemplates the possibility of labouring without work, eating without food, and living without the means of subsistence. Social, or individual economy, teaches to live within our means; political economy calls upon us to live without them. In the debates, when more than usual time has been wasted in talking the most extravagant stuff, ten to one that there has been a good deal of political economy. If you bother a poor devil who is dying of want, and speak to him about consumption, it is probably political economy that you will have addressed to him. If you talk to a man sinking with hunger about floating capital, you will no doubt have given him the benefit of a few hints in political economy: while, if to a wretch in tattered rags you broach the theory of rent, he must be an ungrateful beast indeed if he does not appreciate the blessings of political economy. That labour is wealth forms one of the most refreshing axioms of this delicious science; and if brought to the notice of a man breaking stones on the road, he would perhaps wonder where his wealth might be while thinking of his labour, but he could not question your proficiency in political economy. In fact, it is the most political and most economical science in the world, if it can only be made to achieve its object, which is to persuade the hard-working classes that they are the richest people in the universe, for their labour gives value, and value gives wealth; but who gets the value and the wealth is a consideration that does not fall within the province of political economy.

There is another branch of the subject at which we shall merely glance; but one hint will open up a wide field of observation to the student. The branch to which we allude is the tremendous extent to which political economy is carried by those who interfere so much in politics with so very little political knowledge, and who consequently display a most surprising share of political economy,

As a very little goes a great way, and particularly as the most diminutive portion of knowledge communicated by ourselves is, like the one small pill constituting a dose, much more efficacious than the 40 Number Ones and 50 Number Twos of the mere quacks, we close for the present our observations on Political Economy.

ON THE KEY-VIVE. There can be no doubt as to the primâ facie evidence of the hostile intentions of the destroyed American steamer, with respect to the disaffected on Navy Island, as, from the acknowledged inquisitiveness of the gentler sex, there can be no doubt that Caroline would have a natural predilection for

A maid listens at a door. PRIVATE (H)EERING.

LAST NEW SAYINGS. Come, none of your raillery; as the stage-coach indignantly said to the steam-engine.

That strain again; as the Poor-law Commissioner generously said to the water-gruel sieve.

I paid very dear for my whistle; as the steam-engine emphatically said to the railroad.

Peel for ever! as the church bells joyously said to Conservative hearts.

There is at present a man in New York whose temper is so exceedingly hot that he invariably reduces all his shirts to tinder.

[pg 192] PUNCHS THEATRE. THE MAID OF HONOUR. The Adelphi Correspondent from Paris has favoured that Theatre with an adaptation of Scribes Verre dEau, which he has called The Maid of Honour.

Everybody must remember that, last year, the trifling affair of the British Government was settled by the far more momentous consideration of who should be Ladies of the Bed-chamber. The Parisians, seeing the dramatic capabilities of this incident, put it into a farce, resting the whole affair upon the shoulders of a former Queen whose Court was similarly circumstanced. This is the piece which Mr. Yates has had the daring to get done into English, and transplanted into Spain, and interspersed with embroidery, confectionary, and a Spanish sentence; the last judiciously entrusted to that accomplished linguist, Mr. John Saunders.

Soon after the rising of the curtain, we behold the figure of Mr. Yates displayed to great advantage in the dress usually assigned to Noodle and Doodle in the tragedy of Tom Thumb. He represents the Count Ollivarez, and the head of a political partythe opposition. The Court faction having for its chief the Duchess of Albafurez, who being Mistress of the Queens robes is of course her favourite; for the millinery department of the country which can boast of a Queen Regnant is of far higher importance than foreign or financial affairs, justice, police, or warconsequently, the chief of the wardrobe is far more exalted and better beloved than a mere Premier or Secretary of State. The Count is planning an intrigue, the agents of which are to be Henrico, a Court page, and Felicia, a court milliner. Not being able to make much of the page, he turns over a new leaf, and addresses himself to the dress- maker; so, after a few preliminary hems, he draws out the thread of his purpose to her, and cuts out an excellent pattern for her guidance, which if she implicitly follow will assuredly make her a Maid of Honour.

A comedy without mystery is Punch without a joke; Yates without a speech to the audience on a first night; or Bartleys pathos without a pocket- handkerchief. The Court page soon opens the book of imbroglio. He is made a Captain of the Queens Guard by some unknown hand; he has always been protected by the same unseen benefactor, who, as if to guard him from every ill that flesh is heir to, showers on him his or her favours upon condition that he never marries! Happy man, exclaims the Count. Not at all, answers the other, I am in love with Felicia! Nobody is surprised at this, for it is a rule amongst dramatists never to forbid the banns until the banned, poor devil, is on the steps of the altar. Henrico, now a Captain, goes off to flesh his sword; meets with an insult, and by the greatest good luck kills his antagonist in the precincts of the palace; so that if he be not hanged for murder, his fortune is made. The victim is the Counts cousin, to whom he is next of kin. Good Heavens! ejaculates Ollivarez, You have made yourself a criminal, and mea Duke! Horrible!

By the way, this same Henrico, as performed by that excellent swimmer (in the water-piece), Mr. Spencer Forde, forms a very entertaining character. His imperturbable calmness while uttering the heart-stirring words, assigned by the author to his own description of the late affair- of-honourable assassination, was highly edifying to the philosophic mind. The pleasing and amiable tones in which he stated how irretrievably he was ruined, the dulcet sweetness of the farewell to his hearts adored, the mathematical exactitude of his position while embracing her, the cool deliberation which marked his exitoffered a picture of calm stoicism just on the point of tumbling over the precipice of destruction not to be equallednot, at least, since those halcyon dramatic days when Osbaldiston leased Covent Garden, and played Pierre.

Somehow or otherfor one must not be too particular about the wherefores of stage political intriguesFelicia is promoted from the office of making dresses for the Queen to that of putting them on. Behold her a maid of honour and of all-work; for the Queen takes her into her confidence, and in that case people at Court have an immense variety of duties to perform. The Duchesss place is fast becoming a sinecure, and she trembles for her influenceperhaps, in case of dismissal, for her next quarters salary to bootso she shakes in her shoes.

It is at this stage of the plot that we perceive why the part of Henrico was entrusted to the gentleman who plays it,the mystery we have alluded to being by this arrangement very considerably increased; for we now learn that no fewer than three ladies in the piece are in love with him, namely, Felicia, the Queen, and the Duchess. Now the most penetrating auditor would never, until actually informed of the fact, for a moment suspect a Queen, or even a Duchess, of such bad taste; for, as far as our experience goes, we have generally found that women do not cast their affections to men who are sheepish, insensible, cold, ungainly, with small voices, and not more than five feet high. Surprise artfully excited and cleverly satisfied is the grand aim of the dramatist. How completely is it here fulfilled! for when we discover that the personator of Henrico is meant for an Adonis, we are astonished.

The truth is then, that the secret benefactor of this supposed-to-be irresistible youth has always been the Duchess Albafurez, who, learning from Ollivarez that her pet has new claims upon her heart for having killed her friend the Duke, determines to assist him to escape, which however is not at all necessary, for Ollivarez is entrusted with the warrant for apprehending the person or persons unknown who did the murder. But could he injure the man who has made him a Duke by a lucky coup-dépée? No, no. Let him cross the frontier; and, when he is out of reach, what thundering denunciations will not the possessor of the dukedom fulminate against the killer of his cousin! It is shocking to perceive how intimately acquainted old Scribe must be with manners, customs, and feelings, as they exist at Court.

The necessary passports are placed before the Queen for her signature (perhaps her Spanish Majesty cant afford clerks); but when she perceives whom they threaten to banish from behind her chair, she declines honouring them with her autograph. The Duchess thus learns her secret. She, too, love Henrico? Well I never! About this time a tornado of jealousy may be expected; but court etiquette prevents it from bursting; and the Duchess reserves her revenge, the Queen sits down to her embroidery frame, and one is puzzled to know what is coming next.

This puzzle was not on Monday night long in being resolved. Ollivarez entered, and a child in the gallery commenced crying with that persevering quality of tone which threatens long endurance. Mr. Yates could not resist the temptation; and Ollivarez, the newly-created Duke of Medina, promised the baby a free admission for four, any other night, if it would only vacate the gallery just then. These terms having been assented to by a final screech, the infant left the gallery. After an instants pauseduring which the Manager tapped his forehead, as much as to say, Where did I leave off?the piece went on.

We had no idea till last night how difficult it was for a Queen to indulge in a bit of flirtation! A most elaborate intrigue is, it seems, necessary to procure for her a tender interview with her innamorato. A plan was invented, whose intricacy would have bothered the inventor of spinning-jennies, whereby Henrico was to be closeted with her most Christian Majesty,its grand accomplishment to take place when the Queen called for a glass of ice (the original Scribe wrote water, but the Adelphi adapter thought ice would be more natural, for fear the piece should run till Christmas). The Duchess overhears the entire plot, but fails in frustrating it. Hence we find Henrico, Felicia, and the Queen together, going through a well-contrived and charmingly-conducted scene of equivoquethe Queen questioning Henrico touching the state of his heart, and he answering her in reference to Felicia, who is leaning over the embroidery frame behind the Queen, and out of her sight.

This felicitous situation is interrupted by the spiteful Duchess; the lover escapes behind the window curtains to avoid scandalis discovered, and his sovereigns reputation is only saved by the declaration of Felicia, that the Captain is there on her account. Ollivarez asserts that they are married, to clench the fibthe Queen sees her follythe Duchess is disgracedall the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word finisMrs. Yates speaks a very neat and pointed tagand thats all.

For this two-act Comidetta, dear Yates, we pronounce absolution and remission of thy sins, so wickedly committed in the washy melo-drama, and cackling vaudeville, thou hast recently affronted common-sense withal! Thine own acting as the courtier was natural, except when thou didst interpolate the dialogue with the babya crying sin, believe us. Else, thy bows were graceful; and thy shoulder-shrugsare they not chronicled in the minds eye of thy most distant admirers? The little touches of humour that shone forth in the dialogue assigned to thee, were not exaggerated by the too-oft-indulged-in grimacesin short, despite thy too monstrous chapeau-braswhich was big enough for a life- boatthou lookedst like a Duke, a gentleman, and what in truth thou really artan indefatigable intriguant. Thy favoured help-mate, too, gave a reality to the scene by her captivating union of queenly dignity and feminine tenderness. But most especially fortunate art thou in thy Felicia. Alas for our hunch and our hatchet nose! but O, alas! and alas! that we have a Judy! for never did we regret all three so deeply as while Miss Ellen Chaplin was on the stage. In our favourite scene with the Queen and her lover, how graceful and expressive were her dumb answers to what ought to have been Henricos eloquent declarations, spoken through the Queen. We charge thee, dear friend, to call her on Monday morning at eleven, and to rehearse unto her what we are going to say. Tell her that as she is young, a bright career is before her if she will not fall into the sin of copying some other favourite actresssay, for instance, Mrs. Yatesinstead of our arch-mistress, Nature; say, moreover, that at the same time, she must be unwearying in acquiring art; lastly, inform her, that Punch has his eye upon her, and will scold her if she become a backslider and an imitator of other peoples faults.

As to poor Mr. Spencer Forde, he, too, is young; and you do wrong, O Yates! in giving him a part he will be unequal to till he grows big enough for a coat. A smaller part would, we doubt not, suit him excellently.

Lastly, give our best compliments to Mrs. Fosbroke, to the illustrious Mr. Freeborn, to Mr. John Saunders, and our especial commendations to thy scene-painter, thy upholsterer, and the gentleman lamp-lighter thou art so justly proud of; for each did his and her best to add a charm to The Maid of Honour.