Chapter 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING AUGUST 14, 1841.

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THE WIFE CATCHERS.

A LEGEND OF MY UNCLE'S BOOTS.

_In Four Chapters._

CHAPTER III.

THE ROYAL LION AND UNICORN

A DIALOGUE.

"GROUND ARMS!"--_Birdcage Walk._

LION.--So! how do you feel now?

UNICORN.--Considerably relieved. Though you can't imagine the stiffness of my neck and legs. Let me see, how long is it since we relieved the griffins?

LION.--An odd century or two, but never mind that. For the first time, we have laid down our charge--have got out of our state attitudes, and may sit over our pot and pipe at ease.

UNICORN.--What a fate is ours! Here have we, in our time, been compelled to give the patronage of our countenance to all sorts of rascality--have been forced to support robbery, swindling, extortion--but it won't do to think of--give me the pot. Oh! dear, it had suited better with my conscience, had I been doomed to draw a sand-cart!

LION.--Come, come, no unseemly affectation. _You_, at the best, are only a fiction--a quadruped lie.

UNICORN.--I know naturalists dispute my existence, but if, as you unkindly say, I am only a fiction, why should I have been selected as a supporter of the royal arms?

LION.--Why, you fool, for that very reason. Have you been where you are for so many years, and yet don't know that often, in state matters, the greater the lie the greater the support?

UNICORN.--Right. When I reflect--I have greater doubts of my truth, seeing where I am.

LION.--But here am I, in myself a positive majesty, degraded into a petty-larceny scoundrel; yes, all my inherent attributes compromised by my position. Oh, Hercules! when I remember my native Africa--when I reflect on the sweet intoxication of my former liberty--the excitement of the chase--the mad triumph of my spring, cracking the back of a bison with one fillip of my paw--when I think of these things--of my tawny wife with her smile sweetly ferocious, her breath balmy with new blood--of my playful little ones, with eyes of topaz and claws of pearl--when I think of all this, and feel that here I am, a damned rabbit-sucker--

UNICORN.--Don't swear.

LION.--Why not? God knows, we've heard swearing enough of all sorts in our time. It isn't the fault of our position, if we're not first-rate perjurers.

UNICORN.--That's true: still, though we are compelled to witness all these things in the courts of law, let us be above the influence of bad example.

LION.--Give me the pot. Courts of law? Oh, Lord! what places they put us into! And there they expect me--_me_, the king of the animal world, to stand quietly upon my two hind-legs, looking as mildly contemptible as an apoplectic dancing-master,--whilst iniquities, and meannesses, and tyranny, and--give me the pot.

UNICORN:--Brother, you're getting warm. Really, you ought to have seen enough of state and justice to take everything coolly. I certainly must confess that--looking at much of the policy of the country, considering much of the legal wickedness of law-scourged England--it does appear to me a studied insult to both of us to make us supporters of the national quarterings. Surely, considering the things that have been done under our noses, animals more significant of the state and social policy might have been promoted to our places. Instead of the majestic lion and the graceful unicorn, might they not have had the--the--

LION.--The vulture and the magpie.

UNICORN.--Excellent! The vulture would have capitally typified many of the wars of the state, their sole purpose being so many carcases--whilst, for the courts of law, the magpie would have been the very bird of legal justice and legal wisdom.

LION.--Yes, but then the very rascality of their faces would at once have declared their purpose. The vulture is a filthy, unclean wretch--the bird of Mars--preying upon the eyes, the hearts, the entrails of the victims of that scoundrel-mountebank, Glory; whilst the magpie is a petty-larceny vagabond, existing upon social theft. To use a vulgar phrase--and considering the magistrates we are compelled to keep company with, 'tis wonderful that we talk so purely as we do--'twould have let the cat too much out of the bag to have put the birds where we stand. Whereas, there is a fine hypocrisy about us. Consider--am not I the type of heroism, of magnanimity? Well, compelling me, the heroic, the magnanimous, now to stand here upon my hind-legs, and now to crouch quietly down, like a pet kitten over-fed with new milk,--any state roguery is passed off as the greatest piece of single-minded honesty upon the mere strength of my character--if I may so say it, upon my legendary reputation. Now, as for you, though you _are_ a lie, you are nevertheless not a bad-looking lie. You have a nice head, clean legs, and--though I think it a little impertinent that you should wear that tuft at the end of your tail--are altogether a very decent mixture of the quadrupeds. Besides, lie or not, you have helped to support the national arms so long, that depend upon it there are tens of thousands who believe you to be a true thing.

UNICORN.--I have often flattered myself with that consolation.

LION.--A poor comfort: for if you are a true beast, and really have the attributes you are painted with, the greater the insult that you should be placed here. If, on the contrary, you are a lie, still greater the insult to leonine majesty, in forcing me for so many, many years to keep such bad company.

UNICORN.--But I have a great belief in my reality: besides, if the head, body, legs, tail, I bear, never really met in one animal, they all exist in several: hence, if I am not true altogether, I am true in parts; and what would you have of a thick-and-thin supporter of the crown?

LION.--Blush, brother, blush; such sophistry is only worthy of the Common Pleas, where I know you picked it up. To be sure, if both of us were the most abandoned of beasts, we surely should have some excuse for our wickedness in the profligate company we are obliged to keep.

UNICORN.--Well, well, don't weep. _Take_ the pot.

LION.--Have we not been, ay, for hundreds of years, in both Houses of Parliament?

UNICORN.--It can't be denied.

LION--And there, what have we not seen--what have we not heard! What brazen, unblushing faces! What cringing, and bowing, and fawning! What scoundrel smiles, what ruffian frowns! what polished lying! What hypocrisy of patriotism! What philippics, levelled in the very name of liberty, against her sacred self! What orations on the benefit of starvation--on the comeliness of rags! Have we not heard selfishness speaking with a syren voice? Have we not seen the haggard face of state-craft rouged up into a look of pleasantness and innocence? Have we not, night after night, seen the national Jonathan Wilds meet to plan a robbery, and--the purse taken--have they not rolled in their carriages home, with their fingers smelling of the people's pockets?

UNICORN.--It's true--true as an Act of Parliament.

LION.--Then are we not obliged to be in the Courts of Law? In Chancery--to see the golden wheat of the honest man locked in the granaries of equity--granaries where deepest rats do most abound--whilst the slow fire of famine shall eat the vitals of the despoiled; and it may be the man of rightful thousands shall be carried to churchyard clay in parish deals? Then in the Bench, in the Pleas--there we are too. And there, see we not justice weighing cobwebs against truth, making too often truth herself kick the beam?

UNICORN.--It has made me mad to see it.

LION.--Turn we to the Police-offices--there we are again. And there--good God!--to see the arrogance of ignorance! To listen to the vapid joke of his worship on the crime of beggary! To see the punishment of the poor--to mark the sweet impunity of the rich! And then are we not in the Old Bailey--in all the criminal courts! Have we not seen trials _after dinner_--have we not heard sentences in which the bottle spoke more than the judge?

UNICORN.--Come, come, no libel on the ermine.

LION.--The ermine! In such cases, the fox--the pole-cat. Have we not seen how the state makes felons, and then punishes them for evil-doing?

UNICORN.--We certainly have seen a good deal that way.

LION.--And then the motto we are obliged to look grave over!

UNICORN.--What _Dieu et mon droit!_ Yes, that does sometimes come awkwardly in--"God and my right!" Seeing what is sometimes done under our noses, now and then, I can hardly hold my countenance.

LION.--"God and my right!" What atrocity has that legend sanctified! and yet with demure faces they try men for blasphemy. Give me the pot.

UNICORN.--Come, be cool--be philosophic. I tell you we shall have as much need as ever of our stoicism?

LION.--What's the matter now?

UNICORN.--The matter! Why, the Tories are to be in, and Peel's to be minister.

LION.--Then he may send for Mr. Cross for the oran-outan to take my place, for never again do I support _him_. Peel minister, and Goulburn, I suppose--

UNICORN.--Goulburn! Goulburn in the cabinet! If it be so, I shall certainly vacate my place in favour of a jackass.

* * * * *

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.

BACHELOR OF MEDICINE--FIRST EXAMINATION, 1841.

The first examination for the degree of bachelor of medicine has taken place at the London University, and has raised itself to the level of Oxford and Cambridge.

Without doubt, it will soon acquire all the other attributes of the colleges. Town and gown rows will cause perpetual confusion to the steady-going inhabitants of Euston-square: steeple-chases will be run, for the express delight of the members, on the waste grounds in the vicinity of the tall chimneys on the Birmingham railroad; and in all probability, the whole of Gower-street, from Bedford-square to the New-road, will, at a period not far distant, be turfed and formed into a T.Y.C.; the property securing its title-deeds under the arms of the university for the benefit of its legs--the bar opposite the hospital presenting a fine leap to finish the contest over, with the uncommon advantage of immediate medical assistance at hand.

The public press of the last week has duly blazoned forth the names of the successful candidates, and great must have been the rejoicings of their friends in the country at the event. But we have to quarrel with these journals for not more explicitly defining the questions proposed for the examinations--the answers to which were to be considered the tests of proficiency. By means of the ubiquity which Punch is allowed to possess, we were stationed in the examination room, at the same time that our double was delighting a crowded and highly respectable audience upon Tower-hill; and we have the unbounded gratification of offering an exact copy of the questions to our readers, that they may see with delight how high a position medical knowledge has attained in our country:--

SELECTIONS FROM THE EXAMINATION PAPERS.

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

1. State the principal variations found in the kidneys procured at Evans's and the Coal Hole; and likewise name the proportion of animal fibre in the rump-steaks of the above resorts. Mention, likewise, the change produced in the _albumen_, or white of an egg, by poaching it upon toast.

2. Describe the comparative circulation of blood in the body, and of the _Lancet, Medical Gazette_, and _Bell's Life in London_, in the hospitals; and mention if Sir Charles Bell, the author of the "Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand," is the editor of the last-named paper.

MEDICINE.

1. You are called to a fellow-student taken suddenly ill. You find him lying on his back in the fender; his eyes open, his pulse full, and his breathing stertorous. His mind appears hysterically wandering, prompting various windmill-like motions of his arms, and an accompanying lyrical intimation that he, and certain imaginary friends, have no intention of going home until the appearance of day-break. State the probable disease; and also what pathological change would be likely to be effected by putting his head under the cock of the cistern.

2. Was the Mount Hecla at the Surrey Zoological Gardens classed by Bateman in his work upon skin diseases--if so, what kind of eruption did it come under? Where was the greatest irritation produced--in the scaffold-work of the erection, or the bosom of the gentleman who lived next to the gardens, and had a private exhibition of rockets every night, as they fell through his skylight, and burst upon the stairs?

3. Which is the most powerful narcotic--opium, henbane, or a lecture upon practice of physic; and will a moderate dose of antimonial wine sweat a man as much as an examination at Apothecaries' Hall?

CHEMISTRY AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

1. Does any chemical combination take place between the porter and ale in a pot of half-and-half upon mixture? Is there a galvanic current set up between the pewter and the beer capable of destroying the equilibrium of living bodies.

2. Explain the philosophical meaning of the sentence--"He cut away from the crushers as quick as a flash of lightning through a gooseberry-bush."

3. There are two kinds of electricity, positive and negative; and these have a pugnacious tendency. _A_, a student, goes up to the College _positive_ he shall pass; _B_, an examiner, thinks his abilities _negative_, and flummuxes him accordingly. _A_ afterwards meets _B_ alone, in a retired spot, where there is no policeman, and, to use his own expression, "takes out the change" upon _B_. In this case, which receives the greatest shock--_A_'s "grinder," at hearing his pupil was plucked, or _B_ for doing it?