صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

In another article in the same paper, Fun-blank writes the French blessé (wounded) with a single s! Déchéance is written repeatedly without either of the accents, the sure mark of uninformed vulgarity; and chefsd'œuvre is set down with an s to the tail of the latter word (as if one were

to say "masters-pieces," or "pocketshandskerchiefs," which completes the complication of monstrous ignorance. Were we not right in calling this impostor, with his fad Oris, "FŒDUS FUN-BLANK ?" The nasty name will stick.

Fitly the state of France appears
Depicted in the fall of Thiers.

BALD SOUP.

"Holá, he! Madame L'Hôtesse, j'aime les potages chauves!"

Victor Hugo. Notre Dame de Paris.

I like hare soup, not soup that's hairy-
My palate being somewhat chary,

And rayther easy palled;
Pray, landlady, just let your cook
Wear for the future a perruque,
And let the soup be bald!
We are happy to be able to
present our readers with an accu-
rate portrait of the interesting little
stranger, who is expected some of

[ocr errors]

these days at Buckingham Palace. Bless it's darling little face, here it is:

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

THE ELEVENTH LIGHT DRAGOONS.
"How shall we get the kernel out?"
Is asked about the town;
And every body answers straight:
"Oh, crack him on the crown!"

"Paris the capital of the civilized world!" said a speaker at the late public dinner at Toulouse. "The centralized and quintessential dépôt of bloodthirsty barbarians," were more germane to the matter.

-The other day, being deucedly in want of employment, we took up a volume of Ben D'Israeli's puerilities, to wit, Vivian Grey, where our eye lit upon the following passages: "I can perform right skilfully upon the most splendid of musical instruments -the human voice-to make my conceptions beloved by others." 1 vol. p. 59.

[ocr errors]

"This boy was a cunning reader of human hearts, and felt conscious, from experience, that his was a tongue

which was born to guide human beings." Ib. p. 54.

The devil doubt you, Ben, that you felt "conscious," since all the world knows that in Vivian Grey you penned your own self-dandified portrait. Well, what is the result of your "experience?" That you were born "to guide human beings" out of the doors of the House of Commons, the moment you rise to address it. That "tongue which was born to guide human beings," is a charmingly correct image, emanating from a beautiful, blunderbuss, buttermilk brain!

-The late Lord Holland "was never found without a good book in his hand." He never patronized

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Some people would deucedly like to be Dutch,
For of monarchy some have a fillip too much! E. B. M.
upon the Southampton line, the pro-
prietors of which have made them-
selves most conspicuous in converting
the press to a base instrument for the
especial service of their own selfish
purposes.

[ocr errors]

The grand jury which found a true bill against Lord Cardigan, and did not find a true bill against Captain Tuckett, has caused as much ridicule as the Brighton court martial has secured disgust. What right has Captain Tuckett to be exempted? Give the devil his due Cardigan is not more responsible morally and legally for pistolling Tuckett, than Tuckett for shooting at Cardigan. Perhaps the distinction was drawn because one was hit, and the other was not. Sage discrimination! As for the finding of the court martial, it is clearly robbery so far as Captain Reynolds is concerned, and subornation of perjury, so far as the system of terrorism they have established will clap a padlock on the mouth of all future witnesses.

With the customary intelligence of "Crowner's Quest Law," the jury impanelled in the late Southampton Railway accident case, found a disgracefully blundering verdict-"they attribute the accident to the want of proper caution not having been taken." Then, as a matter of course, proper caution was taken, two negatives in English (as every schoolboy knows) making an affirmative. This booby verdict amounts literally to a compliment, instead of a censure!

Since another railway accident was destined to occur, accompanied with horrible circumstances of flagrant neglect, and an implied verdict of general manslaughter against every director and shareholder, who makes money by crushing us to death, we are happy to find that it has occurred

[ocr errors]

-The chosen subjects of the (nowserviceable-only-as-tooth-pick) pens of Ainsworth and Dickens - the freaks of notorious highwaymen and abandoned thieves-Jack Sheppard and Oliver Twist, to wit-remind us very forcibly of the legislators described by Burke: "In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows!"

We beg to commend to Prince Albert's notice the following rather queer, yet most appropriate historical reminiscence, which will probably serve as a warning to H. R. H. to steer clear of politics, and decline taking the chair at future public meetings. Queen Joan of Naples was united on the 26th September, 1383, to her first cousin, Andrew, a son of the King of Hungary. The gentleman took a very active part in politics, and ended his career by being suspended out of a window! Awkward association-the relationship and the initial letters are precisely. the same. A French writer, amongst other lines on Andrew's melancholy end, has the two following, which H. R. H. will take, we hope, in good part:

"Le coquin oubliait qu'il n'était par la loi Que l'epour de la reine, et non pas notre roi !"

"Has Master Clarke, that puling dram: Been damned?" Oh, 'twas not worth a damn! The mountain-brigands of Syria have proved to demonstration the excellence of Lord Ponsonby's policy. They flocked down to the coast in great numbers to take possession of

our English muskets, which will be very serviceable to the aforesaid brigands in their favourite game of "stand and deliver!"

SQUIB FROM THE FLEET.

Pour un bien à venir laisser celui qu'on a,

A mon gré, c'est pure folie!

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;"

But a bottle in hand is still better;

CHATEAUBRIAND.

Pass the claret then, boys; who for bills cares a rush ? May no Setter e'er fetter a debtor!

E.

[graphic][graphic]

B(o)UFFONNERIE: The (British) Lion was ever the king of the forest. The (French) Baboon, with all his jabber, and bubble and squeak, was never more than an impudent monkey at best. The (Constantinopolitan) Turkey requested the Lion's assistance to expel the (Egyptian) Kite from its nest. The Lion being a good-humoured beast, nodded assent. BABOON: Jabber-jabber, gibber, gibber, bubble and squeak. I won't let you!

The Lion paid no manner of attention to the diminutive beast, but quietly sent off the Jackall to the Turkey's assistance.

BABOON (snatching up a filbert and menacing the Lion): I'll hit you!-Jabber, jabber, gibber, gibber, bubble and squeak!

LION: Hee haw! Hee haw! (This is lion-laughter.)

The Jackall, meanwhile, bearing the Lion's high commission, rescues half-a-dozen Turkey-pouts from the Kite's claws.

BABOON (protocolizing once more vis-à-vis the Lion): I won't suffer this! No, damme! Jabber, jabber, gibber, gibber, bubble and squeak, fire and smoke!

He menaces the Lion again with the filbert.

LION: Errrrrrrr!!

His Majesty's tail hereupon becomes tortuous and muscular, and wreathes itself boa-constrictor-wise with portentous energy.

LION: Eat that filbert! Once ! BABOON: Jabber, jabber, gibber, gibber, bubble and squeak!

LION: Eat that filbert! Twice! BABOON: Jab, jab, gib, gib, bub and squ- (His stock of courage has evidently fallen 50 per cent. Vide Bourse transactions, passim.)

t

LION: Eat that filbert! Three

BABOON: Ja-ja- Yes, your Majesty! (He demolishes the offensive missile with an alacrity far exceeding Pistol at his leek.)

LION: "Tis well. Listen! Your cousins, the Kilkenny cats, when they fought in days of yore, demolished each other, all but the tails. Look at my caudal appendage, and take a survey of yours. It is not easy to offend me; but when I'm once roust (as my friend Colonel Wilson has it), it's hard to crub me! You did wisely to breakfast on the filbert. If you had not, by the aforesaid Kilkenny cats, there would have been "nix" remaining of your carcase by this time, except the

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COURTS MARTIAL.
Staff-officers composed the court

(For here to arms must yield the gown),
"Staff-officers-'twas then their forte
To give the prisoner some support?"
Pooh-nonsense-no, to knock him down!"

- IMMENSE PROGRESS.-" Master Humphrey's Clock," which bears so striking a resemblance to the "Auld Toun" of Edinburgh, in containing a multitude of old stories, and all of them flats, and whose razorlike wit would cut the beard-of an oyster-is so oppressed with an unsightly hump of merited unpopularity, that to eke out the attractions of the first volume, just announced, the publishers have found it necessary to acquaint the lieges that it is provided with "marbled edges!!" See the advertisements.

THE PATRIOTIC HUMBUG.-We have awoke from our dream, and found the world still silly enough to have war uppermost in its thoughts for a good quarter of a year, in the middle of the nineteenth century.

We were educated in the conviction, that one Englishman is able to "lick" five Frenchmen. At Crecy and at Agincourt this was proved; but since soldiering has been reduced to the mere pulling of triggers, and heroes are nothing better than food for powder, a French dwarf, bearing a knapsack and a fusil, is quite a match at long shots for a British grenadier: nay, the advantage would appear to be on the side of the French mannikin-for, as he is less in bulk, there is the less chance of hitting him! According to the popular creed of all countries, heroism is exclusively indigenous.

[ocr errors][merged small]

Let the sun shine forth on a field of battle; in each of the rival camps it will be hailed as an omen of victory; "The sun of Austerlitz!" says John Crapaud: "The sun of Waterloo!" exclaims John Bull: "The eye of Vaterland!" quoth the German: meanwhile the sun laughs forth his rays of ridicule, and proceeds tranquilly to ripen the crops of a whole hostile hemisphere.

If the French blockheads have not bid an eternal farewell to reason, they might begin to reflect, that to "fatten their furrows with the blood of the stranger," as the Marseillaise has it, is an expensive and unprofitable description of manure; and that one league of improved soil at home is better than a hundred of an African desert, figuring as meadow in a lying bulletin.

As every country has its patriots, and its patriotic songs, it follows as a natural consequence, that the enemies of France are desirous of employing the blood of Frenchmen also as ma

nure.

Patriotism cannot justly be admired in one country, without tolerating it at least in others. Follow out, then, the patriotic wishes of all mankind, and the carcase of every son of Adam will smoke in a ditch to fatten the adjoining land. Then would there be excellent harvests with no one left to gather them, and none to sing the Marseillaise.

For a practical illustration of the virtue of patriotism, take the case of a man living on the frontier of two countries. You cannot trace the smallest line, of which one-half does not belong to one country, the remaining half to another. The borderer has plainly more affinities and relations in common with his next-door neighbour across the line, than with his "fellow-countryman' "five hundred miles distant.

Still there is upon this border-line a tuft of grass. Of this tuft you love exactly one-half-not a blade more.

« السابقةمتابعة »