Volume 101 — A Scene very freely adapted from "The Critic."

Enter Mr. PUNCH, First Commissioner of Police, Inspector, and Constables.

Commissioner. Oh! very valiant Constables: one is the Inspector himself, the others are ordinary P.C.'s. And now I hope you shall hear some better language. I was obliged to be plain and intelligible in my manifesto, because there was so much matter-of-fact ground for remonstrance, and even chiding; but still, 'i faith, I am proud of my men, who, in point of fact, are fine fellows.

Mr. P. Unquestionably! But let us listen—unobserved, if so it may be.

Inspector. How's this, my lads! What cools your usual zeal,

And makes your helméd valour down i' the mouth?

Why dimly glimmers that heroic flame

Whose reddening blaze, by civic spirit fed,

Should be the beacon of a happy Town?

Can the smart patter of a Bobby's tongue

Thus stagnate in a cold and prosy converse,

Or freeze in oathless inarticulateness?

No! Let not the full fountain of your valour

Be choked by mere official wiggings, or

Your prompt consensus of prodigious swearing

Be checked by the philanthropists' foaming wrath,

Or high officialdom's hostility!

Mr. P. There it is, Mr. Commissioner; they admit your by no means soft impeachment.

Commissioner. Nay, listen yet awhile!

1st P.C. No more!—the freshening breeze of your rebuke

Hath filled the napping canvas of our souls!

And thus, though magistrates expostulate,

[All take hands and raise their truncheons.

And hint that ANANIAS dressed in blue,

We'll grapple with the thing called Evidence,

And if we fall, by Heaven! we'll fall together!

Inspector. There spoke Policedom's genius!

Then, are we all resolved?

All. We are—all resolved.

Inspector. To pull—and swear—together?

All. To pull—and swear—together.

Inspector. All?

All. All!

Mr. P. Nem. con. Egad!

Commissioner. Oh, yes! When they do agree in the Force, their unanimity is wonderful!

Inspector. Then let's embrace this resolution, and "Keep it with a constant mind—and now—"

[Kneels.

Mr. P. What the plague, is he going to pray?

Commissioner. Yes—hush! In great emergencies—on the Stage or in the Force—there's nothing like a prayer in chorus.

Inspector. "O MENDEZ PINTO!"

Mr. P. But why should he pray to MENDEZ PINTO?

Commissioner. Oh, "the Knight, PINTO-MENDEZ FERDINANDO," as POE calls him, is the tutelary genius of Bards—and Bobbies! Hush!

Inspector. If in thy homage bred

Each point of discipline I've still observed;

Swearing in squads, affirming in platoons;

Nor but by due promotion, and the right

Of service to the rank P.C. Inspector,

Have risen; assist thy votary now!

1st P.C. Yet do not rise—hear me! [Kneels.

2nd P.C. And me! [Kneels.

3rd P C. And me! [Kneels.

Inspector. Now swear—and pray—all together!

All. We swear!!!

Behold thy votaries submissive beg

That thou wilt deign to grant them all they ask,

Assist them to accomplish all their ends,

And sanctify whatever means they use

To gain them

Mr. P. A very orthodox and harmonious chorus. Their "tutti" is perfection.

Commissioner. Vastly well, is't not? Is that well managed or not? Is the "thin Blue line" well disciplined or not? Have you such absolute perfection of "alltogetherishness" on your lyric stage as the Force voluntarily maintains—in its own interests, and obedient to its own peculiar esprit de corps?

Mr. P. (with significance). Not exactly!

MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

(Punch to Madame La République.)

["The Republic attains its majority to-morrow (Sept. 4). It is the first Government since the Revolution which has had a twenty-first birthday."—The Times.]

HYGEIA OFF THE SCENT.—It is stated that even the charms of a champagne luncheon failed to attract more than one out of twenty-four members of the Hygienic Congress invited to test the merits of sewage-farms by ocular—or should we say nasal?—demonstration. Perhaps the missing three-and-twenty thought that in this case, at least, Mrs. MALAPROP would be both correct and pertinent in saying that "Comparisons are odorous!"

"NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH."

INSPECTOR. "NOW SWEAR! ALL TOGETHER!" CONSTABLES. "WE SWEAR!!"

MR. PUNCH (aside). "DEAR ME, SIR EDWARD; WHEN THEY DO AGREE, THEIR UNANIMITY IS WONDERFUL!."—"The Critic," freely adapted.