Chapter 3

Consider the wasp, oh, STANLEY! mark its nest of paper.--(it is said, on wasp's paper you are wont to write your thoughts on Ireland)--and resolutely seize a trowel!

Look to the bee, oh, COLONEL SIBTHORP! See how it elaborates its virgin wax, how it shapes its luscious cone--and though we would not trust you to place a brick upon a brick, nevertheless you may, under instruction, mix the mortar!

Ponder on the rat and its doings, most wise BURDETT--see how craftily it makes its hole--and though you are too age-stricken to carry a hod, you may at least do this much--sift the lime.

But wherefore thus particular--why should we dwell on individuals? Pole-cat, weasel, ferret, hedgehog, with all your vermin affinities, come forth, and staring reproachfully in the faces of all prorogued Members, bid them imitate your zeal and pains, and--the masons having struck--build their Houses for themselves.

(We make this proposal in no thoughtless--no bantering spirit. He can see very little into the most transparent mill-stone who believes that we pen these essays--essays that will endure and glisten as long, ay as long as the freshest mackerel--if he think that we sit down to this our weekly labour in a careless lackadaisical humour. By no means. Like Sir LYTTON BULWER, when he girds up his loins to write an apocryphal comedy, we approach our work with graceful solemnity. Like Sir LYTTON, too, we always dress for the particular work we have in hand. Sir LYTTON wrote "Richelieu" in a harlequin's jacket (sticking pirate's pistols in his belt, ere he valorously _took_ whole scenes from a French melo-drama): _we_ penned our last week's essay in a suit of old canonicals, with a tie-wig askew upon our beating temples, and are at this moment cased in a court-suit of cut velvet, with our hair curled, our whiskers crisped, and a masonic apron decorating our middle man. Having subsided into our chair--it is in most respects like the porphyry piece of furniture of the Pope--and our housekeeper having played the Dead March in Saul on our chamber organ (BULWER wrote "The Sea Captain" to the preludizing of a Jew's-harp), we enter on our this week's labour. We state thus much, that our readers may know with what pains we prepare ourselves for them. Besides, when BULWER thinks it right that the world should know that the idea of "La Vailière" first hit him in the rotonde of a French diligence, modest as we are, can we suppose that the world will not be anxious to learn in what coloured coat we think, and whether, when we scratch our head to assist the thought that sticks by the way, we displace a velvet cap or a Truefitt's scalp?)

Reader, the above parenthesis may be skipped or not. Read not a line of it--the omission will not maim our argument. So to proceed.

If we cast our eyes over the debates of the last six months, we shall find that hundreds of members of the House of Commons have exhibited the most extraordinary powers of ill-directed labour. And then their capacity of endurance! Arguments that would have knocked down any reasonable elephant have touched them no more than would summer gnats. Well, why not awake this sleeping strength? Why not divert a mischievous potency into beneficial action? Why should we confine a body of men to making laws, when so many of them might be more usefully employed in wheeling barrows? Now there is Mr. PLUMPTRE, who has done so much to make English Sundays respectable--would he not be working far more enduring utility with pickaxe or spade than by labouring at enactments to stop the flowing of the Thames on the Sabbath? Might not D'ISRAELI be turned into a very jaunty carpenter, and be set to the light interior work of both the Houses? His logic, it is confessed, will support nothing; but we think he would be a very smart hand at a hat-peg.

As for much of the joinery-work, could we have prettier mechanics than Sir James GRAHAM and Sir Edward KNATCHBULL? When we remember their opinions on the Corn Laws, and see that they are a part of the cabinet which has already shown symptoms of some approaching alteration of the Bread Tax--when we consider their enthusiastic bigotry for everything as it is, and Sir Robert PEEL'S small, adventurous liberality, his half-bashful homage to the spirit of the age--sure we are that both GRAHAM and KNATCHBULL, to remain component members of the Peel Cabinet, must be masters of the science of dove-tailing; and hence, the men of men for the joinery-work of the new Houses of Parliament.

Again how many members from their long experience in the small jobbery of committees--from their profitable knowledge of the mysteries of private bills and certain other unclean work which may, if he please, fall to the lot of the English senator--how many of these lights of the times might build small monuments of their genius in the drains, sewerage, and certain conveniences required by the deliberative wisdom of the nation? We have seen the plans of Mr. BARRY, and are bound to praise the evidence of his taste and genius; but we know that the structure, however fair and beautiful to the eye, must have its foul places; and for the dark, dirty, winding ways of Parliament--reader, take a list of her Majesty's Commons, and running your finger down their names, pick us out three hundred able-bodied labourers--three hundred stalwart night workmen in darkness and corruption. We ask the country, need it care for the strike of Peto's men (the said Peto, by the way, is in no manner descended from _Falstaff's_ retainer), when there is so much unemployed labour, hungering only for the country's good?

We confess to a difficulty in finding among the members of the present Parliament a sufficient number of stone-squarers. When we know that there are so few among them who can look upon more than _one side_ of a question, we own that the completion of the building may be considerably delayed by employing only members of Parliament as square workmen: the truth is, having never been accustomed to the operation, they will need considerable instruction in the art. Those, however, rendered incapable, by habit and nature, of the task, may cast rubbish and carry a hod.

We put it to the patriotism of members of Parliament, whether they ought not immediately to throw themselves into the arms of Peto and Grissell, with an enthusiastic demand for tools. If they be not wholly insensible of the wants of the nation and of their own dignity, Monday morning's sun will shine upon every man of her Majesty's majority, for once laudably employed in the nation's good. How delightful then to saunter near the works--how charming then to listen to members of Parliament! What a picture of senatorial industry! For an Irish speech by STANLEY, have we not the more dulcet music of his stone-cutting saw? Instead of an oration from GOULBURN, have we not the shrill note of his ungreased parliamentary barrow? For the "hear, hear" of PLUMPTRE, the more accordant tapping of the hammer--for the "cheer" from INGLIS, the sweeter chink of the mason's chisel?

And then the moral and physical good acquired by the workmen themselves! After six days' toil, there is scarcely one of them who will not feel himself wonderfully enlightened on the wants and feelings of labouring man. They will learn sympathy in the most efficient manner--by the sweat of their brow. Pleasant, indeed, 'twill be to see CASTLEREAGH lean on his axe, and beg, with _Sly_, for "a pot of the smallest ale."

Having, we trust, remedied the evils of the mason's strike--having shewn that the fitness of things calls upon the Commons, in the present dilemma, to build their own house--we should feel it unjust to the government not to acknowledge the good taste which, as we learn, has directed that an estimate be taken of the disposable space on the walls of the new buildings, to be devoted to the exalted work of the historical painter. Records of the greatness of England are to endure in undying hues on the walls of Parliament.

This is a praiseworthy object, but to render it important and instructive, the greatest judgment must be exercised in the selection of subjects; which, for ourselves, we would have to illustrate the wisdom and benevolence of Parliament. How beautifully would several of the Duke of WELLINGTON'S speeches paint! For instance, his portrait of a famishing Englishman, the drunkard and the idler, no other man (according to his grace) famishing in England! And then the Duke's view of the shops of butchers, and poulterers, and bakers--all in the Dutch style--by which his grace has lately proved, that if there be distress, it can certainly not be for want of comestibles! But the theme is too suggestive to be carried out in a single paper.

We trust that portraits of members will be admitted. BURDETT and GRAHAM, half-whig, half-tory, in the style of Death and the Lady, will make pretty companion pictures.

To do full pictorial justice to the wisdom of the senate, Parliament will want a peculiar artist: that gifted man CAN be no other than the artist to PUNCH!

Q.

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PUNCH'S PENCILLINGS.--No. XIV.

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THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT.

III.--OF HIS GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT.

For the first two months of the first winter session the fingers of the new man are nothing but ink-stains and industry. He has duly chronicled every word that has fallen from the lips of every professor in his leviathan note book; and his desk teems with reports of all the hospital cases, from the burnt housemaid, all cotton-wool and white lead, who set herself on fire reading penny romances in bed, on one side of the hospital, to the tipsy glazier who bundled off his perch and spiked himself upon the area rails on the other. He becomes a walking chronicle of pathological statistics, and after he has passed six weeks in the wards, imagines himself an embryo Hunter.

To keep up his character, a new man ought perpetually to carry a stethoscope--a curious instrument, something like a sixpenny toy trumpet with its top knocked off, and used for the purpose of hearing what people are thinking about, or something of the kind. In the endeavour to acquire a perfect knowledge of its use he is indefatigable. There is scarcely a patient but he knows the exact state of their thoracic viscera, and he talks of enlarged semilunar valves, and thickened ventricles with an air of alarming confidence. And yet we rather doubt his skill upon this point; we never perceived anything more than a sound and a jog, something similar to what you hear in the cabin of a fourpenny steam-boat, and especially mistrusted the "metallic tinkling," and the noise resembling a blacksmith's bellows blowing into an empty quart-pot, which is called the _bruit de soufflet_. Take our word, when medicine arrives at such a pitch that the secrets of the human heart can be probed, it need not go any further, and will have the power of doing mischief enough.

The new man does not enter much into society. He sometimes asks a few other juniors to his lodgings, and provides tea and shrimps, with occasional cold saveloys for their refection, and it is possible he may add some home-made wine to the banquet. Their conversation is exceedingly professional; and should they get slightly jocose, they retail anatomical paradoxes, technical puns, and legendary "catch questions," which from time immemorial have been the delight of all new men in general, and country ones in particular.

But diligent and industrious as the new man may be, he is mortal after all, and being mortal, is not proof against temptation--at least, after five or six weeks of his pupilage have passed. The good St. Anthony resisted all the endeavours of the Evil One to lure him from the proper path, until the gentleman of the discoloured _cutis vera_ assumed the shape of a woman. The new man firmly withstands all inducements to irregularity until his first temptation appears in the form of the Cyder-cellars--the convivial Rubicon which it is absolutely necessary for him to pass before he can enrol himself as a member of the quiet, hard-working, modest fraternity of the Medical Student of our London Hospitals.

_Facilis descensus Averni._--The steps that lead from Maiden-lane to the Cyder-cellars are easy of descent, although the return is sometimes attended with slight difficulty. Not that we wish to compare our favourite _souterrain_ in question to the "Avernus" of the Latin poet; oh, no! If Æneas had met with roast potatoes and stout during his celebrated voyage across the Styx to the infernal regions, and listened to songs and glees in place of the multitude of condemned souls, "horrendum stridens," we wager that he would have been in no very great hurry to return. But we have arrived at an important point in our physiology--the first launch of the new man into the ocean of his London life, and we pause upon its shore. He has but definite ideas of three public establishments at all intimately connected with his professional career--the Hall, the College, and the Cyder-cellars. There are but three individuals to whom he looks with feelings of deference--Mr. Sayer of Blackfriars, Mr. Belfour of Lincoln's-inn-fields, and Mr. Rhodes of Maiden-lane. These are the impersonation of the Fates--the arbitrators of his destinies.

As it is customary that an attendance in the Theatre of Lectures should precede the student's determination to "have a shy at the College," or "go up to the Hall," so is it usual for a visit to one of the theatres to be paid before going down to the Cyder-cellars. The new man has been beguiled into the excursion by the exciting narratives of his companions, and beginning to feel that he is behind the other "chaps" (a new man's term) in knowledge of the world, he yields to the attraction held out; not because he at first thinks it will give him pleasure so to do, as because it will put him on a level with those who have been, on the same principle as our rambling compatriots go to Switzerland and the Rhine. His Mentor is ready in the shape of a third-season man, and under his protecting influence he sallies forth.

The theatres have concluded; every carriage, cab, and "coach 'nhired" in their vicinity is in motion; venders of trotters and ham-sandwiches are in full cry; the bars of the proximate retail establishments are crowded with thirsty gods; ruddy chops and steaks are temptingly displayed in the windows of the supper-houses, and the turnips and carrots in the freshly-arrived market-carts appear astonished at the sudden confusion by which they are surrounded. Amidst this confusion the new man and his friends arrive beneath the beacon which illumines the entrance of the tavern. He descends the stairs in an agony of anticipation, and feverishly trips up the six or eight succeeding ones to arrive at the large room. A song has just concluded, and he enters triumphantly amidst the thunder of applause, the jingling of glasses, the imperious vociferations of fresh orders, and an atmosphere of smoke that pervades the whole apartment, like dense clouds of incense burning at the altar of the genius of conviviality.

The new man is at first so bewildered, that it would take but little extra excitement to render him perfectly unconscious as to the probability of his standing upon his _occipito-frontalis_ or _plantar fascia_. But as he collects his ideas, he contrives to muster sufficient presence of mind to order a Welsh rabbit, and in the interim of its arrival earnestly contemplates the scene around him. There is the room which, in after life, so vividly recurs to him, with its bygone _souvenirs_ of mirth, when he is sitting up all night at a bad case in the mud cottage of a pauper union. There are its blue walls, its wainscot and its pillars, its lamps and ground-glass shades, within which the gas jumps and flares so fitfully; its two looking-glasses, that reflect the room and its occupants from one to the other in an interminable vista. There also is Mr. Rhodes, bending courteously over the backs of the visiters' chairs, and hoping everybody has got everything to their satisfaction, or bestowing an occasional subdued acknowledgment upon an _habitué_ who chances to enter; and the professional gentlemen all laying their heads together at the top of the table to pitch the key of the next glee; and the waiters bustling up and down with all sorts of tempting comestibles; and the gentleman in the Chesterfield wrapper smoking a cigar at the side of the room, while he leans back and contemplates the ceiling, as if his whole soul was concentrated in its smoke-discoloured mouldings.

The new man is in ecstasies; he beholds the realization of the Arabian Nights, and when the harmony commences again, he is fairly entranced. At first, he is fearful of adding the efforts of his laryngeal "little muscles with the long names" to swell the chorus; but, after the second glass of stout and a "go of whiskey," he becomes emboldened, and when the gentleman with the bass voice sings about the Monks of Old, what a jovial race they were, our friend trolls out how "they laughed, ha, ha!" so lustily, that he gets quite red in the face from obstructed jugulars, and applauds, when it has concluded, until everything upon the table performs a curious ballet-dance, which is only terminated by the descent of the cruets upon the floor.

The precise hour at which the new man arrives at home, after this eventful evening, has never been correctly ascertained; having a latch-key, he is the only person that could give any authentic information upon this point; but, unfortunately, he never knows himself. Some few things, however, are universally allowed, namely, that in extreme cases he is found asleep on the rug at the foot of the stairs next morning, with the rushlight that was left in the passage burnt quite away, and all the solder of the candlestick melted into little globules. More frequently he knocks up the people of the neighbouring house, under the impression that it is his own, but that a new keyhole has been fitted to the door in his absence; and, in the mildest forms of the disease, he drinks up all the water in his bed-room during the night, and has a propensity for retiring to rest in his pea-coat and Bluchers, from the obstinate tenacity of his buttons and straps. The first lecture the next morning fails to attract him; he eats no breakfast, and when he enters the dissecting-room about one o'clock, his fellow-students administer to him a pint of ale, warmed by the simple process of stirring it with a hot poker, with some Cayenne pepper thrown into it, which he is assured will set to rights the irritable mucous lining of his stomach. The effect of this remedy is, to send him into a sound sleep during the whole of the two o'clock anatomical lecture; and awakened at its close by the applause of the students, he thinks he is still at the Cyder-cellars, and cries out "Encore!"

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

Having been particularly struck by the infernal smashes that have recently taken place on several railroad lines, and having been ourselves forcibly impressed by a tender, which it must be allowed was rather hard (coming in collision with ourselves), we have thought over the subject, and have now the following suggestions to offer:--

Behind each engine let there be second and third class carriages, so that, in the event of a smash, second and third class lives only would be sacrificed.

Let there be a van full of stokers before the first class carriages; for, as the directors appear to be liberal of the stokers' lives, it is presumed that every railway company has such a glut of them that they can be spared easily.

As some of the carriages are said to oscillate, from being too heavy at the top, let a few copies of "Martinuzzi" be placed as ballast at the bottom.

In order that the softest possible lining may be given to the carriages, let the interior be covered with copies of Sibthorp's speeches as densely as possible.

We have not yet been able to find a remedy for the remarkable practice which prevails in some railways of sending a passenger, like a bank-note, _cut in half_, for better security.

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THE POLITICAL EUCLID.--NO. 2.

PROP. I.--PROBLEM.

_To describe an Independent Member upon a given indefinite line of politics._

With the centre Reform, and at the distance of Conservatism, describe G B and M--or Graham, Brougham, and Melbourne--the extremes of the Whig Administration of 1834.

With the centre Conservatism, and at the distance of Reform, describe G B and P--or Graham, Buckingham, and Peel--the extremes of the Tory Administration of 1841.

From the point Graham, where the administrations cut one another, draw the lines Graham and Reform, and Graham and Conservatism.

Then Graham and Conservative Reform is an independent member.

For because Reform was the centre of the Whig Administration, Graham, Brougham, and Melbourne

Therefore Graham and Reform was the same as Reform with a shade Conservatism.

And because Conservatism is the centre of the Tory Administration, Graham, Buckingham, and Peel

Therefore Graham and Conservatism is the same as Conservatism with a shade Reform

Therefore Graham and Conservatism is the same as Graham and Reform

Therefore Graham is either a Conservative or a Reformer, as the case may require.

And therefore he is a Conservative Reformer--

Wherefore, having three sides, which are all the same to him--viz. Reform, Conservatism, and himself--he is an independent member, and has been described as a Conservative Reformer.

_Quod erat_ double-_face-iendum_.

PROP. II.--PROBLEM.

_From a given point to draw out a Radical Member to a given length._

Let A or his ancestors be the given point, and an A s s the given length; it is required to draw out upon the point of his ancestors a Radical member equal to an A s s.

Connect the A s s with A, his ancestors.

On the A s s and A his ancestors, describe an independent member S R I, Sir Robert Inglis.

Then with S R I, Sir Robert Inglis, draw out the A s s to G L and S A, or great literary and scientific attainments.

And with S R I, Sir Robert Inglis, let R Roebuck, be got into a line upon A, his ancestors.

With the A s s in the middle, describe the circulation of T N, or "Times" newspaper.

And with SRI, Sir Robert Inglis, as the centre, describe the Circle of the H of C, or House of Commons.

Then R A, or Roebuck on his ancestors, equals an A s s.

For because the A s s was in the middle of T N, or "Times" newspaper.

Therefore the rhodomontade of G L and S A, or great literary and scientific attainments, was equal to the braying of an A s s.

And because S R I, or Sir Robert Inglis, was in the centre of H C, or House of Commons.

Therefore S R I on G L and S A, or Sir Robert Inglis on the great literary and scientific attainments, was only to be equalled by S R I and R, or Sir Robert Inglis and Roebuck.

But Sir R I is always equal to himself.

Therefore the remainder, A R, or Roebuck on his ancestors, is equal to the remaining G L and S A, or great literary and scientific attainments.

But G L and S A, or the great literary and scientific attainments, have been shown to be equal to those of an A s s.

And therefore R A, or Roebuck on his ancestors, is equal to an A s s.

Wherefore, from a given point, A, his ancestors, has been drawn out a Radical member, R, Roebuck, equal to an A s s.

_Quod erat_ sheep-_face-iendum_.

PROP. III.--PROBLEM