Volume 25 — A CHAUNT.
Reading edition
BY A TEETOTALLER.
Hence away, loathed Melancholy! Friends around again we see: Banish care, and let's be jolly, Eating muffins, drinking tea.
Round the social board we'll cluster, (That which names from tea I mean), And wash down the festive "buster" With deep draughts of Black and Green.
What care we for Beer-kings' prices? Or the bitters of the vat? Adam's pale ale never rises, There's no strychnine, boys, in that!
What to us the size of bottles? Pint or quart, who cares a jot? While we to tea confine our throttles, Ours will always be a Pot.
(Only mind lest "Fine Young Hyson" Be a synonyme for "sloe:" And beware the aqueous poison Which from filthy Thames doth flow.)
Jovial boys, come pass the Sally Lunn, nor let the crumpet stand: Round the jocund kettle rally, And silence for its song demand.
Water from its dumpy level Shall elevate each thirsty soul: And if dull care approach our revel, We'll drown it in the sugar bowl.
Thus we'll pass each festive season, From all indigestion free: And enjoy the feast of reason, Coupled with the flow of tea.
Walker!
Women—they so like matches of any sort—have taken to walking-matches. A Mrs. Dunn, of Hartshill, is walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. Another lady, one Miss Mew, of Cateaton Street, has also offered to do the same distance in the same time with this additional difficulty—she offers to walk in walnut-shells. Friends who know her best back her at long odds.
AN AUSTRALIAN CLIPPER.
Lighting accidentally on an Australian paper, we were struck by an advertisement of a steamer for sale at Sydney, which really seems worth attention. It professes to be so complete in every department that, if it should happen to go to pieces, there are ample arrangements on board for building another vessel as a substitute. There is "a double set of machinery;" and, in fact, there appears to be everything in duplicate, so that, if the vessel should unhappily go down, there is a counterpart on board to supply the defect.
We do not quite understand the mode by which this desirable state of things has been effected, but we have long ceased to be surprised at anything, and should not be astonished if we were to see the announcement of a ship with a double set of officers, and even a double supply of passengers, so that if anything happened to either there would be sufficient substitutes at hand. Considering that the announcement comes from a land in which the gold mania is at its height, we cannot wonder at the duplicity of the speculation, since double-dealing is thought nothing remarkable where all are thinking of nothing but getting gold.
The Governesses in Despair.
"Dear Mr. Punch,—The Chinese language will no doubt be added to the already long list of acquirements necessary to a governess. The advertisements are even now frightful to read. When, and how am I to learn such words as will soon be expected of me? How am I to afford a journey to China in order to get the right pronunciation? I am told everything is to be taught through the medium of the Chinese: our only chance seems to be to get the Pekin twang as fast as possible.
"Yours truly,
Julia."
AN ABODE OF BLISS.
We wish we were on visiting terms with the family, the heads of which have put into a Manchester contemporary the subjoined advertisement:—
TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS.—WANTED, in a family, a respectable YOUNG PERSON, as Seamstress and Upper Nurse, and to make herself useful. It is expected that a comfortable home, and the opportunity of improvement, will be considered equivalent to her services for the first twelve months.—Address, M., 27, at the Printers'.
Were we in the habit of friendly intercourse with these nice people, they would sometimes—often, we should hope—ask us to dinner. And what a dinner it would be! Moreover, if we stopped to sleep, what luxurious accommodation would be provided for us in a house where the comforts of home are considered equivalent to the services of a Seamstress or Upper Nurse! O the turtle! O the venison! O the superior descriptions of French and Rhine wine! O the profundity of bliss in sinking to slumber in an abyss of down! But O the victuals! O the dinner!—in the first place—if dinner can be depended upon in an establishment wherein the cook most likely gets no wages.
A Warning to Vegetarians.
One J. J. Daw—alias, we presume, Jack Jack-daw—has been up at Guildhall to profess himself a convert to the Jewish faith. "He is not insane," says the medical authority; "but is a vegetarian." The truth is, the cause of the poor man's conversion is simply this: he has lived upon roots only, and they have got into his head and taking great interest there, have become Hebrew ones.