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Various

VOLUME THE FIRST.

INTRODUCTION.

This Guffawgraph is intended to form a refuge for destitute wit—an asylum for the thousands of orphan jokes—the superannuated Joe Millers—the millions of perishing puns, which are now wandering about without so much as a shelf to rest upon! It is also devoted to the emancipation of the JEW d’esprits all over the world, and the naturalization of those alien JONATHANS, whose adherence to the truth has forced them to emigrate from their native land.

has the honour of making his appearance every SATURDAY, and continues, from week to week, to offer to the world all the fun to be found in his own and the following heads:

POLITICS.

“PUNCH” has no party prejudices—he is conservative in his opposition to Fantoccini and political puppets, but a progressive whig in his love of small change.

FASHIONS.

This department is conducted by Mrs. J. Punch, whose extensive acquaintance with the élite of the areas enables her to furnish the earliest information of the movements of the Fashionable World.

POLICE.

This portion of the work is under the direction of an experienced nobleman—a regular attendant at the various offices—who from a strong attachment to “PUNCH,” is frequently in a position to supply exclusive reports.

REVIEWS.

To render this branch of the periodical as perfect as possible, arrangements have been made to secure the critical assistance of John Ketch, Esq., who, from the mildness of the law, and the congenial character of modern literature with his early associations, has been induced to undertake its execution.

FINE ARTS.

Anxious to do justice to native talent, the criticisms upon Painting, Sculpture, &c., are confided to one of the most popular artists of the day—“Punch’s” own immortal scene-painter.

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA.

These are amongst the most prominent features of the work. The Musical Notices are written by the gentleman who plays the mouth-organ, assisted by the professors of the drum and cymbals. “Punch” himself does the Drama.

SPORTING.

A Prophet is engaged! He foretells not only the winners of each race, but also the “VATES” and colours of the riders.

THE FACETIÆ

Are contributed by the members of the following learned bodies:—

THE COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL AND THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY:—THE TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION AND THE WATERPROOFING COMPANY:—THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND THE HIGHGATE CEMETERY:—THE DRAMATIC AUTHORS’ AND THE MENDICITY SOCIETIES:—THE BEEFSTEAK CLUB AND THE ANTI-DRY-ROT COMPANY.

Together with original, humorous, and satirical articles in verse and prose, from all the

FUNNY DOGS WITH COMIC TALES.

INTRODUCTION.

VOLUME I.—JULY TO DECEMBER, 1841.

POLITICAL SUMMARY.

Early in the month of July, 1841, a small handbill was freely distributed by the newsmen of London, and created considerable amusement and inquiry. That handbill now stands as the INTRODUCTION to this, the first Volume of Punch, and was employed to announce the advent of a publication which has sustained for nearly twenty years a popularity unsurpassed in the history of periodical literature. Punch and the Elections were the only matters which occupied the public mind on July 17, 1842. The Whigs had been defeated in many places where hitherto they had been the popular party, and it was quite evident that the Meeting of Parliament would terminate their lease of Office. [Street Politics.] The House met on the 19th of August, and unanimously elected MR. SHAW LEFEVRE to be Speaker. The address on the QUEEN’S Speech was moved by MR. MARK PHILLIPS, and seconded by MR. DUNDAS. MR. J.S. WORTLEY moved an amendment, negativing the confidence of the House in the Ministry, and the debate continued to occupy Parliament for four nights, when the Opposition obtained a majority of 91 against the Ministers. Amongst those who spoke against the Government, and directly in favour of SIR ROBERT PEEL, was MR. DISRAELI. In his speech he accused the Whigs of seeking to retain power in opposition to the wishes of the country, and of profaning the name of the QUEEN at their elections, as if she had been a second candidate at some petty poll, and considered that they should blush for the position in which they had placed their Sovereign. MR. BERNAL, Jun., retorted upon MR. DISRAELI for inveighing against the Whigs, with whom he had formerly been associated. SIR ROBERT PEEL, in a speech of great eloquence, condemned the inactivity and feebleness of the existing Government, and promised that, should he displace it, and take office, it should be by walking in the open light, and in the direct paths of the constitution. He would only accept power upon his conception of public duty, and would resign the moment he was satisfied he was unsupported by the confidence of the people, and not continue to hold place when the voice of the country was against him. [Hercules tearing Theseus from the Rock to which he had grown.] LORD JOHN defended the acts of the Ministry, and denied that they had been guilty of harshness to the poor by the New Poor Law, or enemies of the Church by reducing “the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY to the miserable pittance of £15,000 a year, cutting down the BISHOP OF LONDON to no more than £10,000 a year, and the BISHOP OF DURHAM to the wretched stipend of £8,000 a year!” He twitted PEEL for his reticence upon the Corn Laws, and denounced the possibility of a sliding scale of duties upon corn. He concluded by saying, “I am convinced that, if this country be governed by enlarged and liberal counsels, its power and might will spread and increase, and its influence become greater and greater; liberal principles will prevail, civilisation will be spread to all parts of the globe, and you will bless millions by your acts and mankind by your union.” Loud and continued cheering followed this speech, but on division the majority was against the Ministers. When the House met to recommend the report on the amended Address, MR. SHARMAN CRAWFORD moved another amendment, to the effect that the distress of the people referred to in the QUEEN’S Speech was mainly attributable to the non-representation of the working classes in Parliament. He did not advocate universal suffrage, but one which would give a fair representation of the people. From the want of this arose unjust wars, unjust legislation, unjust monopoly, of which the existing Corn Laws were the most grievous instance. There was no danger in confiding the suffrage to the working classes, who had a vital interest in the public prosperity, and had evinced the truest zeal for freedom.

The amendment was negatived by 283 to 39.

At the next meeting of the House LORD MARCUS HILL read the Answer to the Address, in which the QUEEN declared that “ever anxious to listen to the advice of Parliament, she would take immediate measures for the formation of a new Administration.” [Punch and Peel.] LORD MELBOURNE, in the House of Lords, announced on the 30th of August that he and his colleagues only held office until their successors were appointed. [Last Pinch.] The House received the announcement in perfect silence, and adjourned immediately afterwards. On the same night, in the House of Commons, LORD JOHN RUSSELL made a similar announcement, and briefly defended the course he and his colleagues had taken, and in reply to some complimentary remarks from LORD STANLEY, approving of LORD JOHN’S great zeal, talent, and perseverance, denied that the Crown was answerable for any of the propositions contained in the Speech, which were the result of the advice of HER MAJESTY’S Ministers, and for which her Ministers alone were responsible. This declaration was necessary in consequence of the accusation of the Conservatives, that the Ministry had made an unfair use of the QUEEN’S name in and out of Parliament. [Trimming a Whig.] The new Ministry [The Letter of Introduction] was formed as follows:—

THE CABINET.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON (without office); First Lord of the Treasury, SIR R. PEEL; Lord Chancellor, LORD LYNDHUHST; Chancellor of the Exchequer, RIGHT HON. H. GOULBURN; President of the Council, LORD WHARNCLIFFE; Privy Seal, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; Home Secretary, SIR JAMES GRAHAM; Foreign Secretary, EARL OF ABERDEEN; Colonial Secretary, LORD STANLEY; First Lord of the Admiralty, EARL OF HADDINGTON; President of the Board of Control, LORD ELLENBOROUGH; President of the Board of Trade, EARL OF RIPON; Secretary at War, SIR H. HARDINGE; Treasurer of the Navy and Paymaster of the Forces, SIR E. KNATCHBULL.

NOT IN THE CABINET.

Postmaster-General, LORD LOWTHER; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, LORD G. SOMERSET; Woods and Forests, EARL OF LINCOLN; Master-General of the Ordnance, SIR G. MURRAY; Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, W.E. GLADSTONE; Secretary of the Admiralty, HON. SYDNEY HERBERT; Joint Secretaries of the Treasury, SIR G. CLERK and SIR T. FREMANTLE; Secretaries of the Board of Control, HON. W. BARING and J. EMERSON TENNENT; Home Under-Secretary, HON. C.M. SUTTON; Foreign Under-Secretary, LORD CANNING; Colonial Under-Secretary, G.W. HOPE; Lords of the Treasury, ALEXANDER PRINGLE, H. BARING, J. YOUNG, and J. MILNES GASKELL; Lords of the Admiralty, SIR G. COCKBURN, ADMIRAL SIR W. GAGE, SIR G. SEYMOUR, HON. CAPTAIN GORDON, HON. H.L. COREY; Store-keeper of the Ordnance, J.R. BONHAM; Clerk of the Ordnance, CAPTAIN BOLDERO; Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, COLONEL JONATHAN PEEL; Attorney-General, SIR F. POLLOCK; Solicitor-General, SIR W. FOLLETT; Judge-Advocate, DR. NICHOLL; Governor-General of Canada, SIR C. BAGOT; Lord Advocate of Scotland, SIR W. RAE.

IRELAND.

Lord Lieutenant, EARL DE GREY; Lord Chancellor, SIR E. SUGDEN; Chief Secretary, LORD ELIOT; Attorney-General, MR. BLACKBURNE, Q.C.; Solicitor-General, SERJEANT JACKSON.

QUEEN’S HOUSEHOLD.

Lord Chamberlain, EARL DELAWARR; Lord Steward, EARL OF LIVERPOOL; Master of the Horse, EARL OF JERSEY; Master of the Buckhounds, EARL OF ROSSLYN; Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, MARQUIS OF LOTHIAN; Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, LORD FORESTER; Vice-Chamberlain, LORD ERNEST BRUCE; Treasurer of the Household, EARL JERMYN; Controller of the Household, HON. D. DAMER; Lords in Waiting, LORD ABOYNE, LORD RIVERS, LORD HARDWICKE, LORD BYRON, EARL OF WARWICK, VISCOUNT SYDNEY, EARL OF MORTON, and MARQUIS OF ORMONDE; Groom in Waiting, CAPTAIN MEYNELL; Mistress of the Robes, DUCHESS OF BUCCLEUCH; Ladies of the Bedchamber, MARCHIONESS CAMDEN, LADY LYTTELTON, LADY PORTMAN, LADY BARHAM, and COUNTESS OF CHARLEMONT.

PRINCE ALBERT’S HOUSEHOLD.

Groom of the Stole, MARQUIS OF EXETER; Sergeant-at-Arms, COLONEL PERCEVAL; Clerk Marshal, LORD C. WELLESLEY.

The members of the new Government were re-elected without an exception, and the House of Commons met again on September 16. SIR ROBERT PEEL made a statement to the House, in which he merely intimated that he should adopt the Estimates [Playing the Knave] of his predecessors, and continue the existing Poor-Law and its Establishment to the 31st of July following. He declined to announce his own financial measures until the next Session, and continued in this determination unmoved by the speeches of LORD JOHN RUSSELL, LORD PALMERSTON, and other Members of the Opposition. MR. FIELDEN moved that no supplies be granted until after an inquiry into the distress of the country; but the motion was negatived by a large majority. Continual reference was made by MR. COBDEN, MR. VILLIERS, and others to the strong desire of the people for a Repeal of the Corn Laws, and which had been loudly expressed out of the House for more than four years. MR. BUSFIELD FERRAND denied the necessity for any alteration, and accused the manufacturers of fomenting the agitation for their own selfish ends, and to increase their power of reducing the wages of the already starving workmen. MR. MARK PHILLIPS, in a capital speech, disproved all MR. FERRAND’S statements. SIR ROBERT PEEL brought in a Bill to continue the Poor Law Commission for six months, and MR. FIELDER’S Amendment [The Well Dressed and the Well to Do] to reject it was negatived by 183 to 18. LORD MELBOURNE attacked, in the House of Lords, the Ministerial plan of finance, and their silence as to the future [Mr. Sancho Bull and his State Physician], and invited the DUKE OF WELLINGTON to bring forward a measure for an alteration of the Corn Laws, promising him a full House if he would do so. The Duke declined the invitation, as he never announced an intention which he did not entertain, and he had not considered the operation of the Corn Laws sufficiently to bring forward a scheme for the alteration of them. This statement led on a subsequent evening to an intimation from the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, in reply to the EARL OF RADNOR, that a consideration of the Corn Laws was only declined “at the present time.” On the 7th of October Parliament was prorogued until November 11th, the Lords Commissioners being the LORD CHANCELLOR, the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, the EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, and LORD WHARNCLIFFE.

NOTES.

Hume’s Terminology.—Defeat at Leeds.

W. BECKETT

2076

W. ALDAM

2043

T. HUME

2033

VISCOUNT JOCELYN

1926

Lessons in Punmanship.—THOMAS HOOD, the distinguished Poet and Wit, died May 3, 1845.

Court Circular.—MASTER JONES, better known as the “Boy JONES,” was a sweep who obtained admission on more than one occasion to Buckingham Palace in a very mysterious manner. He gave great trouble to the authorities, and was at length sent into the Royal Navy.

Mrs. Lilly was the nurse of the PRINCESS ROYAL.

Mr. Moreton Dyer, a stipendiary Magistrate, removed from the Commons on a charge of bribing electors.

A Public Conveyance.—THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD was then a man about town, and frequently before the public in connection with some extravagance.

“The Black-Balled Of The United Service” refers to proceedings connected with the EARL OF CARDIGAN. Exception had been taken to the introduction of black bottles at the mess-table at Brighton, and a duel was subsequently fought by LORD CARDIGAN and MR. HARVEY TUCKETT.

An Ode.—Kilpack’s Divan, now the American Bowling Alley, in King Street, Covent Garden, continues to be the resort of minor celebrities. As the club was a private one, we do not feel justified in more plainly indicating the members referred to as the “jocal nine.”

Mrs. H.—MRS. HONEY, a very charming actress.

Court Circular.—DEAF BURKE was a pugilist who occasionally exhibited himself as “the Grecian Statues,” and upon one occasion attempted a reading from SHAKSPEARE. As he was very ignorant, and could neither read nor write, the effect was extremely ridiculous, and helped to give the man a notoriety.

The Harp, a tavern near Drury Lane, was a favourite resort of the Elder KEAN, and in 1841 had a club-room divided into four wards: Gin Ward, Poverty Ward, Insanity Ward, and Suicide Ward, the walls of which were appropriately illustrated, and by no mean hand. The others named (with the exception of PADDY GREEN) were pugilists.

An an-tea Anacreontic.—RUNDEL was the head of a large Jeweller’s firm on Ludgate Hill.

Monsieur Jullien was the first successful promoter of cheap concerts in England. He was a clever conductor, and affected the mountebank. He was a very honourable man, and hastened his death by over-exertion to meet his liabilities. He died 1860.

Punch and Peel.—SIR ROBERT PEEL stipulated, on taking office, for an entire change of the Ladies of the Bedchamber.

William Farren, the celebrated actor of Old Men.

Colonel Sibthorp was M.P. for Lincoln, and more distinguished by his benevolence to his constituency than his merits as a senator. He was very amusing.

Fashionable Movements.—COUNT D’ORSAY, an elegant, accomplished, and kind-hearted Frenchman, was a leader of Fashion, long resident in England. He was the friend and adviser of Louis NAPOLEON during his exile in this country. COUNT D’ORSAY died in Paris.

Jobbing Patriots.—MR. GEORGE ROBINS was an auctioneer in Covent Garden, and celebrated for the extravagant imagery of his advertisements. His successors have offices in Bond Street.

Shocking Want of Sympathy.—SIR P. LAURIE, a very active City magnate, continually engaged in “putting down” suicide, poverty, &c.

Sir F. Burdett, long the Radical member for Westminster. His political perversion took every one by surprise.

New Stuffing for the Speaker’s Chair.—MR. PETER BORTHWICK had been an actor in the Provinces.

Inquest.—The Eagle Tavern, City Road, was built by MR. ROUSE—“Bravo, ROUSE!” as he was called.

Lady Morgan, the Authoress of The Wild Irish Girl, and many other popular works, died 1860.

The Tory Table d’Hote.—“BILLY” HOLMES was whipper-in to the Conservatives in the House of Commons.

The Legal Eccalobeion.—BARON CAMPBELL had been appointed Chancellor of Ireland a few days before the Dissolution (1841). He is now Lord Chancellor of England (1861). The Eccalobeion was an apparatus for hatching birds by steam, but was too costly to be successful commercially.

The State Doctor.—SIR R. PEEL, in his speech at Tamworth, had called himself “the State Doctor,” who would not attempt to prescribe until regularly called in.

Curious Coincidence.—Certain gentlemen, feeling themselves aggrieved and unfairly treated by the managers of the London Theatres, had for some time been abusing the more fortunate dramatists, whose pieces had found acceptance with the public, until at last they resolved upon the course here set forth, and commented upon.

Animal Magnetism.—LORDS MELBOURNE, RUSSELL, and MORPETH, and MR. LABOUCHERE at the window, SIR R. PEEL and the DUKE OF WELLINGTON mesmerising the Lion.

Mr. Muntz, M.P. for Birmingham, wore a very large beard, and in 1841 such hirsute adornments were very uncommon.

General Satisfaction.—The Morning Herald had acquired the sobriquet of “My Grandmother.”

Done Again.—MR. DUNN, a barrister, subjected Miss BURDETT COUTTS to a series of annoyances which ultimately led to legal proceedings, and to MR. DUNN’S imprisonment.

Bernard Cavanagh was an impostor who pretended he could live for many weeks without food. He attracted much attention at the time, and was ultimately detected concealing a cold sausage, when he confessed his imposture, and was imprisoned by the MAYOR OF READING.

Taking The Hodds.—“Holy Land,” the cant name for a part of St. Giles’s, now destroyed. BANKS owned a public-house frequented by thieves of both sexes, and whom he managed to keep under perfect control. A visit to “Stunning JOE BANKS” was thought a fast thing in 1841.

Feargus O’Connor, M.P. for Nottingham, was the leader of the Chartists and projector of the Land Scheme for securing votes to the masses. The project failed. MR. O’CONNOR was a political enthusiast, ultimately became insane, and died in an Asylum.

Die Hexen am Rhein.—MR. FREDERICK YATES was an admirable actor, and the proprietor and manager of the favourite “little Adelphi” Theatre, in the Strand.

Prospectus.—We believe this article suggested the existing Accident Assurance Company.

Mr. Silk Buckingham was a voluminous writer and founder of the British and Foreign Institute, in George Street, Hanover Square.

Parliamentary Masons.—The masons employed in building the New Houses of Parliament struck for higher wages.

The Improvident.—LORD MELBOURNE and MR. LABOUCHERE, MR. D. O’CONNELL, LORDS RUSSELL and MORPETH.

Promenade Concerts.—M. MUSARD was the originator in Paris of this class of amusement. Their popularity induced an imitation in England by M. JULLIEN.

To Benevolent and Humane Jokers.—TOM COOKE was the leader and composer at the Theatres Royal, and a remarkable performer on a penny trumpet. He occasionally made use of this toy in his pantomime introductions. He was also a very “funny” fellow.

Coming Events Cast their Shadows before.—SIR JAMES CLARKE, Accoucheur to the QUEEN.

Savory Con. by Cox.—COX AND SAVORY, advertising silversmiths and watchmakers.

New Parliamentary Masons.—In the foreground COL. SIBTHORP, SIR R. PEEL, and MR. O’CONNELL. At the back SIR JAMES GRAHAM, DUKE OF WELLINGTON, and LORD STANLEY.

“Rob Me the Exchequer, Hal.”—A person of the name of SMITH forged a great amount of Exchequer Bills at this time.

The Fire at the Tower on October 31, 1841. Immense damage was done to the building, and a great quantity of arms were destroyed. (See Annual Register.)

Sir Robert Macaire.—Robert Macaire was a French felonious drama made famous by the admirable acting of LEMAITRE, and, from some supposed allusion to LOUIS PHILIPPE, MACAIRE’S friend and scapegoat always appears with a large umbrella.

The O’Connell Papers.—D. O’CONNELL was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1841.

Harmer Virumque Cano.—ALDERMAN HARMER, Proprietor of the Weekly Dispatch, and for that and other reasons, was not elected Lord Mayor.

Cutting at the Root of the Evil.—MR. HOBLER was for many years Principal Clerk to the Magistrates at the Mansion House.

Olivia’s (Lord Brougham’s) Return to her Friends.—LORDS RUSSELL, MELBOURNE, MORPETH, D. O’CONNELL, CORDEN, and LABOUCHERE.

A Barrow Knight.—SIR VINCENT COTTON was a well-known four-in-hand whip, and for some little time drove a coach to Brighton. SIR WYNDHAM ANSTRUTHER (WHEEL OF FORTUNE) was another four-in-hand celebrity.

Seeing Nothing.—DANIEL WHITTLE HARVEY.

Barber-ous Announcement.—MR. TANNER’S shop was part of one of the side arches of Temple Bar, and so reached from that obstruction to Shire Lane, which adjoins it on the City side.

Fashionable Intelligence.—The PADDY GREEN so frequently referred to was a popular singer and an excellent tempered man. He was unfairly treated by Punch at this time, because really unknown to the writer. MR. JOHN GREEN is now the well known and much respected host and proprietor of Evans’s Hotel, Covent Garden.

Kings and Carpenters.—DON LEON, shot for insurrection in favour of the Ex-Regent CHRISTINA.

Cupid out of Place.—LORD PALMERSTON, from his very engaging manner, was long known as “Cupid.”

Jack Cutting his Name on the Beam.—LORD JOHN RUSSELL, after GEORGE CRUIKSHANK’S etching of Jack Sheppard.

Sibthorp’s Con. Corner.—BRYANT was publisher of Punch, 1841.

Punch, or the London Charivari

for the week ending

July 17, 1841 October 9, 1841 July 24, 1841 October 16, 1841 July 31, 1841 October 23, 1841 August 7, 1841 October 30, 1841 August 14, 1841 November 6, 1841 August 21, 1841 November 13, 1841 August 28, 1841 November 20, 1841 September 5, 1841 November 27, 1841 September 12, 1841 December 4, 1841 September 18, 1841 December 11, 1841 September 25, 1841 December 18, 1841 October 2, 1841 December 25, 1841

INDEX.

• A Barrister’s Card, 33
• A Bitter Draught—Jonathanisms, 47
• A Bower of Bliss in Stangate, 120
• A Barrowknight, 226
• A Card, 106
• A Chapter on Politics, 216
• A Classical Inscription for a Cigar-case, 29
• A Chapter on Boots, 16
• A Con., 15, 23, 29, 48, 209, 221, 241, 252
• A Constant Pair, 76
• A Count and his Schneider, 76
• A Curious Error, 155
• A Cruel Disappointment, 81
• Active Benevolence, 231
• A Cut by Sir Peter, 273
• A Dab for Laurie, 251
• A Deer Bargain, 275
• A Dictionary for the Ladies, 264
• A Dose of Castor, 218
• A Dress Rehearsal, 59
• Advantages of Animal Magnetism, 47
• Advantages of Style, 69
• Advice Gratis, 74
• A Familiar Epistle from John Stump, Esq., 237
• A Fair Offer, 33
• A Few more veritable Jonathans, 24
• Affairs in China, 143
• A Great Card, 143
• A Hint for Politicians, 101
• A Hint to the new Lord Chamberlain, 83
• A Hint to the Ugly, 48
• Alarming Destitution, 52
• Alarming Prospects of the Country, 218
• A Legend of the Tower (not London), 220
• A Mail Due, 173
• A Manual of Dénouements, 145
• A Matter of Course, 83
• A Matter of Taste, 52
• A Mayor’s Nest, 184
• A Meeting of Old Acquaintances, 252
• A Mesmeric Advertisement, 122
• A Moving Scene, 35
• A Modern Method of forming a New Budget, 13
• An Alligator Chairman, 10
• An Alarming Strike, 122
• An-Tea Anacreontic, 4, 13, 40, 53
• An Atrocious Pun, 98
• An Appropriate Name, 97
• An Advertisement, 85
• A Natural Deduction, 37
• A Natural Inference, 52
• An Appropriate Gift, 173
• An Acute Angle, 73
• An Extract from the Spectator, 202
• An Extensive Sacrifice, 129
• An Exclusive Appointment, 87
• A New Theory of Pockets, 113
• A New Milky Way, 228
• A New Conjuring Company, 129
• A New Version of Belshazzar’s Feast, 66
• A New Wine, 257
• An Imminent Breach, 82
• An Inquiry from Deaf Burke, Esq., 58
• Animal Magnetism, 28
• An important Discovery, 64
• Announcement Extraordinary, 274
• An Ode picked up in the Divan, 11
• A Novel Entertainment, 110
• An Undivided Moiety, 205
• A Party of Medallers, 15
• A Pair of Ducks, 179
• A Pair of Fools, 76
• A Pæan for Dan, 208
• A Perfect Vacuum Proved, 252
• A Pleasant Assurance, 149
• A Private Box, 93
• A Pro and Con, 101
• A Prudent Change, 34
• A Prudent Reason, 125
• A Public Convenience, 6
• A “Punch” Testimonial, 227
• A Pun from the Row, 83
• A Quarter-day Cogitation, 5
• “Are ye sure the News is True?” 218
• Artistic Execution, 83
• Arrived at Last, 173
• “A Ring! a Ring!!” 145
• American Congress, 172
• A Royal Duck, 134
• A Scandalous Report, 194
• A Short Treatise of Dramatic Casualties, 131
• A Singular Inadvertence, 90
• A Slap at John Chinaman’s Chops, 180
• A Slight Contrast, 256
• A Spoke in Stanley’s Wheel, 52
• A Spoon Case, 251
• Assertion of the Unintelligible, 111
• A Strong Resemblance, 34
• A Suggestion, 182
• A Thing unfit to a(p)pear, 64
• A Thorough Draught, 207
• A Try-Angle, 170
• A Trifle from Little Tommy, 81
• Awful Accident, 69, 81
• A Wood-cut, 23
• Authentic, 40
• A Voice from the Area, 100

• Bad either Way, 76
• Ballads of the Briefless, 273
• Barber-ous Announcement, 228
• Bartholomew Fair Show-Folks, 88
• Beginning Early, 75
• Bernard Cavanagh, 124
• Birth of the Prince of Wales, 205
• Black and White, 52
• “Blow Gentle Breeze,” 193
• Brandy and Waterford (a Go!), 226
• Breach of Privilege, 29
• Buffoon’s Natural History, 256
• Bunks’s Discoveries in the Thames, 129
• Burke’s Heraldry, 182

• Calumny Refuted, 52
• Capital Illustration, 88
• Cause and Effect, 202, 238
• Caution to Gourmands, 81
• Caution to Sportsmen, 97
• Certainly not,—“Better Late than Never,” 255
• Characteristic Correspondence, 17
• Charles Kean’s “Cheek”, 53
• Chaunt to Old Father Time, 23
• Chelsea, 71
• Christianity.—Price Fifteen Shillings, 150
• Civilization, 27
• Clar’ de Kitchen, 15
• Comic Credentials, 40
• Coming Events cast their Shadows before, 177
• Commentary on the Elections, 9
• Commercial Intelligence, 1
• Cons.—A Query, 54
• Cons, by O’Connell, 167
• Con. by Theodore Hook, 81
• Cons. by Our Own Colonel, 155
• Conundrums by Col. Sibthorp, 21
• Con. by Sibthorp and Stultz, 245
• Con. by an X M.P., 29
• Cons, worth Conning, 227
• Conundrum by the Lord Mayor, 216
• Concerts d’Eté, 96
• Condensed Parliamentary Report, 133
• Continuations from China, 157
• Conversation between Two Hackney-coach Horses, 5
• Coombe’s Lungs and Learning, 161
• Correspondence, 35
• Correspondence Extraordinary, 61
• Coventry’s Wise Precaution, 157
• Court Circular, 5, 13
• Crimes of Eating, 250
• Cross Readings, 23
• Cupid’s Bow, 255
• Curious Ambiguity, 144
• Curious Coincidence, 65, 87
• Curious Synonymes, 173
• Curiosity Hunters, 137
• Custom-House Sale, 145
• Cutting at the Root of the Evil, 218
• Cutting it rather Short, 251

• Decidedly Unpleasant, 87
• Devilled Drumsticks, 226
• Dialogue. George Canning and Sir Robert Peel, 111
• Diary of a Lord Mayor, 26
• Discovery of Valuable Jewels, 238
• Distress of the Country, 215
• Doctor Peel taking time to Consult, 126
• Doing the State some Service, 206
• Domestic Economy, 183
• Done again, 110
• Draw it Gently, 255
• Dyer Ignorance, 135

• Eccentricities of the Minor Drama, 137
• Ecclesiastical Transportation, 21
• Elegant Phrases, 261
• Eligible Investments! 209
• Encouragement of Native Talent, 114
• Enjoyment, 108
• English and American Produce, 61
• Epigrams, 14, 21, 24, 61, 89, 97, 173, 198
• Epitaph on a Candle, 172
• Errata in the “Times,” 141
• Exclusive Interference, 28
• Express from America, 185
• Express from Windsor, 134
• Extra Fashionable News, 90
• Extraordinary Assize Intelligence, 52
• Extraordinary Operation, 52

• False Alarm, 206
• Fancied Fair, 95
• Fashions, 83, 257, 270
• Fashionable Arrivals, 21, 74
• Fashionable Intelligence, 47, 130, 205, 221, 232, 257
• Fashionable Movements, 255
• Fearful State of London, 99
• Fine Arts, 9, 33, 108, 112
• Fine Arts External Exhibitions, 65
• Fire! Fire! 173
• Fire at the Adelphi Theatre, 249
• Fish Sauce, 118
• Foreign Affairs, 42, 95
• French Living, 232
• From the London Gazette, Nov. 16, 232

• Galvanism Outdone, 101
• General Satisfaction, 85
• Geology of Society, 157
• “Go along, Bob,” 155
• Grant’s Meditations among the Coffee-cup, 263
• Gravesend—from our own Correspondent, 121
• Great Annual Michaelmas Jubilee, 135

• (H)all is lost now! 123
• “Habit is second Nature,” 147
• Hamlet’s Soliloquy by a XX Teetotaller, 190
• Happy Land, 173
• Hard and Fast, 203
• Hard to Remember, 209
• Harmer Virumque Cano, 215
• Heavy Lightness, 83
• High Life Below Stairs, 134
• Hints on Popping the Question, 233
• Hints to New Members, 82
• Hints on Melo-dramatic Music, 17
• Hints how to enjoy an Omnibus, 250
• His Turn now, 237
• Hitting the Right Nail on the Head, 52
• Hostilities in Private Life, 178
• Humane Suggestion, 111
• Hume’s Terminology, 1
• Hume’s Day-school, 11
• Hume Leeds—Wakley Follows, 180
• Humfery Cheat-’em, 45

• “I Do Adjure you, Answer me!” 154
• If I had a Thousand a Year, 63
• Imperial Parliament—The Queen’s Speech, 78
• Important News from China, 74
• Important Intelligence, 269
• Important Invention, 130
• Inauguration of the Image of Shakspere, 106
• Injured Innocence, 54
• Inquest, 41
• Inquest Extraordinary, 87
• Inquest Extraordinary on a Coroner, 155
• Inquest—not Extraordinary, 78
• Irish Intelligence.—Awful State of the Country, 220
• Irish Particular, 52
• It was before I married, 57

• Jocky Jason, 57
• Joe Hume’s Forthcoming Work, 221
• Joe Hum(e)anity, 123
• Jonathans, 24, 37

• Keeping it dark, 189
• Kidnapping Extraordinary, 179
• Kings and Carpenters, 234

• Labours of the British Association, 57
• Labours of the Session, 159
• Lady Morgan’s Little One, 49
• Lam(b)entations, 71
• Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, 142
• Last New Sayings, 191
• Laurie’s Raillery, 252
• Laurie’s Essay on the Pharmacopœia, 168
• Laurie on Geography, 161
• Lays of the “Beau Monde,” 141
• Lays of the Lazy, 70
• Legal Pugilism, 41
• Lessons in Punmanship, 2
• Letter of Introduction, 90
• Like Master Like Man, 154
• Lines on Miss Adelaide Kemble, 255
• Looking on the Black Side of Things, 99
• List of Outrages, 142
• Literary Queries and Replies, 24
• Lord Melbourne’s Letter-beg, 70
• Lord Johnny Licking the Birse, 54
• Love and Hymen, 244
• Loyalty and Insanity, 258
• Linen-drapers of Ludgate, 166
• List of the Premiums at the H.S. Soc., 189
• Literary Recipes, 39

• Madame Tussaud’s, 96
• Magisterial Axioms, 226
• Major Beniowsky’s New Art of Memory, 149
• Making a Composition with one’s Ancestors, 135
• Marriage and Christening Extraordinary, 22
• Matinée Mesmerique, 123
• Matrimonial Agency, 59
• Maternal Solicitude, 70
• “Matters in Fact” and “Matters in Law,” 59
• Metropolitan Improvements, 141
• Michaelmas Day, 142
• Modern Wat Tylers, 26
• Molar and Incisor, 136
• Monsieur Jullien, 15
• More Ways than One, &c., 15
• Morbid Sympathy for Criminals, 227
• More Sketches of London Life, 231
• More Fashionable Intelligence, 227
• Mr. Punch, Artist in Philosophy and Fireworks, 202
• Musical News (Noose), 243
• “My Name’s the Doctor,” 40
• Myself, Punch, and the Keeleys, 217

• Napoleon’s Statue at Boulogne, 81
• National Distress, 251
• Native Swallows, 1
• Narrative of an Awful Case of Extreme Distress, 77
• New Code of Signals, 57
• News for the Syncretics, 101
• New Parliamentary Returns, 83
• New Annuals and Republications, 238
• News of Extraordinary Interest, 15
• New Swimming Apparatus, 99
• New Works now in the Press, 171
• New Stuffing for the Speaker’s Chair, 41
• Nigger Peculiarities, 184
• Nobody Cares and Nobody Nose, 250
• Nothing Wonderful, 26
• Nothing New, 159
• “Not Exactly,” 256
• Not a Step Fa(r)ther, 173
• Nouveau Manuel du Voyageur, 28
• Novel Experiment—Great Screw, 82
• Novel Subscriptions, 123
• Nursery Education Report, 54
• Nursery Education Report—No. 2, 62

• Official Report of the Fire at the Tower, 241
• Oh! Day and Night! 132
• Oh! Gemini! 228
• Old Bailey, 41
• Ominous, 22
• “One Good Turn deserves Another,” 218
• On Dits of the Clubs, 53
• On Snuff, and the Different Ways of Taking it, 256
• On the Introduction of Pantomime into the English Language, 10
• On Sir E.L. Bulwer, Bart., 28
• On the Science of Electioneering, 110
• On the Key-Vive, 191
• On the Popularity of Mr. Ch—s K—n, 48
• Our City Article, 39, 245
• Our Foreign Relations, 118
• Our Trade Report, 189
• Our Weathercock, 241
• Out of School, 275
• Out of Season, 98

• Parliamentary Intentions, 90
• Parliamentary Masons—Parliamentary Pictures, 162
• Peel’s Pre-existence, 198
• Peel “regularly called in,” 102
• Pen and Palette Portraits, 262, 274
• Peter the Great (Fool?), 250
• Philanthropy, Fine Writing, and Fireworks, 77
• Physiology of the Lond. Med. Student, 142, 154, 165, 177, 185, 201, 213, 225, 229, 244, 253, 265
• Pictorial History of Parliament, 174
• Pleasures of Hope (rather expensive), 83
• Please to remember the Fifth of November, 195
• Poached Egotism, 143
• Poetry on an Improved Principle, 25
• Political Naturalist’s Library, 143
• Political Euclid, 149, 166
• Politics of the Outward Man, 186
• Political Intelligence, 264
• Poor Jack, 158
• Poor John Bull, 34
• Popish Red-dress, 251
• “’Possum up a Gum Tree,” 205
• Pray don’t tell the Governor, 28
• Present Crops Abroad, 82
• Private, 13
• Proper Precaution, 222
• Prospectus for a Provident Annuity Company, 81
• Prospectus for a New Hand-book of Jesters, 238
• Prospectus of a New Grand Railroad Accident and Partial Mutilation Provident Society, 159
• Private Correspondence, 155
• Providing for Evil Days, 107
• Promenade Concerts, 168
• Public Affairs on Phrenological Principles, 57
• Punch and Peel, 18
• Punch and Peel—the New Cabinet, 30
• Punch and Sir John Pollen, 45
• Punch and the Swiss Giantess, 245
• Punchlied—Song for Punch Drinkers, 268
• Punch’s Catechism of Geography, 214
• Punch’s Commission to Inquire into the General Distress, 170
• Punch’s Correspondence, 17
• Punch’s Extra Dramatic Intelligence, 69
• Punch’s Essence of Guffaw, 122
• Punch’s Guide to the Watering Places—Brighton, 145
• Punch’s Histrionic Readings in History—England, 136
• Punch’s Information, 41, 58, 82, 119, 179, 261
• Punch’s Lecture on Morality, 119
• Punch’s Letter-Writer, 255
• Punch’s Literature, 86
• Punch’s Literary Intelligence, 276
• Punch’s New General Letter-Writer, 160
• Punch’s Pæan to the Princelet, 209
• Punch’s Political Economy, 191
• Punch’s Random Recoll. of the House of Lords, 52
• Punch’s Review: Madame Laffarge, 189
• Punch’s Stomachology, Lecture I., 232
• PUNCH’S THEATRE, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 95, 107, 113, 131, 132, 144, 156, 167, 180, 192, 203, 204, 216, 239, 240, 252, 264, 276

• Q.E.D., 133
• Qualifications for an M.P., 12
• Queer Queries, 269
• Questions by the Disowned of Nottingham, 23

• Rather Ominous, 83
• Rather Suicidal, 82
• Reasons Ne Plus Ultra, 76, 97
• Recollections of a Trip in Mr. Hampton’s Balloon, 99
• Railway Accidents, Prevention of, 165
• Reconciling a Difference, 241
• Recreation for the Public, 130
• Reform your Lawyer’s Bills, 197
• Regularly Called in and Bowled out, 225
• Rejected Address of the Melancholy Whigs, 54
• Relative Gentility, 189
• Revenge is Sweet, 23
• Review, 23
• “Rob me the Exchequer, Hal,” 194
• Roebuck defying the “Thunderer,” 134
• Romance of a Teacup, 221, 233, 245
• Root and Branch, 142
• Royal Nursery Education Report, No. 3, 105
• Rumball the Comedian, 41

• Sayings and Doings in the Royal Nursery, 239
• Savory Con. by Cox, 178
• Schools of Design, 83, 159
• Seeing Nothing, 226
• Shall Great Olympus to a Molehill Stoop? 89
• Shocking want of Sympathy, 29
• Should this meet the Eye, 203
• Sibthorpiana, 144
• Sibthorp’s Corner, 233, 251, 267
• Sibthorp on Borthwick, 172
• Sibthorp on the Corn Laws, 118
• Sibthorp’s Very Best, 75
• Sibthorpian Problems, 180
• Signs of the Times, 253
• Sir Francis Burdett’s Visit to the Tower, 197
• Sir Peter Laurie, 210
• Sir Robert Peel and the Queen, 93
• Sir Robert Peel (Loquitur), 155
• “Slumber, my Darling,” 237
• Some things to which the Irish would not swear, 177
• Something Warlike, 1
• So much for Buckingham, 159
• Songs for Catarrhs, 205
• Songs for the Sentimental, 6, 22, 37, 49, 81, 85, 123, 143, 149, 202, 233, 252, 262, 267
• Songs of the Seedy, 93, 155, 167, 179, 184, 251
• Soup, à la Julien, 264
• Spanish Politics, 167
• Sparks from the Fire—All is not Lost, 214
• Speech from the Hustings, 24
• Sporting—the Knocker Hunt, 14
• Sporting Face, 145
• Sporting in Downing-street, 69
• Starvation Statistics for Sir Robert Peel, 267
• Stenotypography, 15
• Street Politics—Punch and his Stage-Manager, 6
• “Stupid as a Post,” 241
• Supreme Court of the High Inquisitor Punch, 40, 69
• Surrey Zoological Gardens, 109
• “Syllables which breathe of the Sweet South,” 22
• Syncretic Literature, 100, 112, 124
• Synopsis of Voting according to Cant, 3
• Sweet Autumn Days, 153

• Taking the Hodds, 133
• Taking a Sight at the Fire, 220
• Theatrical Intelligence, 107
• TALES, SKETCHES, &c.
  • A Day-Dream at my Uncle’s, 193
  • A Rail-Road Novel, 2
  • Father O’Flynn and his Congregation, 125
  • My Uncle Bucket, 64
  • My Friend Tom, 101
  • Say it was “me,” 148
  • “Take Care of Him,” 268
  • The Barber of Stocksbawler, 161
  • The Currah Cut, 76
  • The Gold Snuff-box, 183
  • The Great Creature, 169
  • The Heir of Applebite, 73, 89, 97, 109, 121, 146, 171, 182, 194, 206, 219
  • The Man of Habit, 191
  • The Omen Outwitted, 117
  • The Professional Singer, 4
  • The Puff Papers, 230, 242, 254, 266
  • Tom Connor’s Dilemma, 153
  • The Sailor’s Secret, 22
  • The Tiptoes, 133
  • The Wife Catchers, 34, 37, 49, 61
• Theatre-Royal Drury Lane, 47
• The Above-bridge Navy, 35
• The Amende Honorable, 107
• The Bane and Antidote, 241
• The Beauty of Brass, 111
• The Boy Jones’s Log, 46
• The Broth of a Boy, 269
• The Battle and the Breeze, 130
• The Corn Laws and Christianity, 114
• The Cheroot, 273
• The Copper Captain, 267
• The Corsair; a Poem to be read on Railroads, 241
• The Dinnerology of England, 78
• The Destruction of the Aldermen, 215
• The Desire of Pleasing, 181
• The Election of Ballinafad, 21
• The Entire Animal, 12
• The Explosive Box, 28
• The Evil most to be Dreaded, 143
• The Fastest Man, 267
• The Fasting Phenomenon, 130
• “The force of Fancy could no further go,” 216
• The Fêtes for the Polish, 249
• The Fire at the Tower, 195
• The Gent’s Own Book, 63, 75, 85, 98, 147, 190, 207
• The Great Cricket Match at St. Stephen’s, 87
• The Golden-square Revolution, 99
• The Geology of Society, 178
• The High-road to Gentility, 257
• The Knatchbull Testimonial, 243
• The late Promotions, 264
• The Legal Eccalobeion, 52
• The Lord Mayor’s Fool, 214
• The Lord Mayors and the Queen, 202
• The Loves of the Plants, 26
• The Lost Med. Papers of the British Assoc., 94
• The Limerick Mares, 231
• The Lambeth Demosthenes, 219
• The Light of all Nations, 130
• The Minto House Manifesto, 45
• The Ministerial TOP, 123
• The Mansion-house Parrot, 58
• The Money Market, 69
• The Moral of Punch, 1
• The Male Dalilah, 227
• The Masons and the Stone Jug, 216
• The Ministry’s Ode to the Passions, 93
• The New Doctor’s System, 132
• The Normandie “No-go,” 29
• The New Administration, 100
• The New House, 29
• The New State Stretcher, 173
• The O’Connell Papers, 208
• The Prince of Wales, 226
• The Packed Jury, 87
• The Pensive Peel, 183
• The Prince of Wales—his Future Times, 222
• The Prince’s Extra, 216
• The Rival Candidates, 196
• The Rape of the Lock-up, 228
• The Royal Bulletins, 226
• The Rich Old Buffer, 77
• The Rising Sun, 17
• The Royal Lion and Unicorn—a Dialogue, 50
• The Statistical Society, 110
• The School of Design at Hookham-cum-Snivey, 269
• The Star System, 231
• The Speakership, 58
• The Two Fatal Chiropedists, 89
• The Two Macbeths, or the Haymarket Gemini, 47
• The Tory Peacocks and the Finsbury Daw, 139
• The Tory Table d’Hôte, 52
• The Thorny Premier, 144
• The Tea-service on Sea-service, 170
• The Two New Equity Judges, 202
• The Two last Important Sittings, 180
• The Unkindest Cut of All, 221
• The very “next” Jonathan, 157
• The Value of Stocks—Last Quotation, 166
• The Wheels of Fortune, 226
• The Wise Man of the East, 250
• The “Well-dressed” and the “Well-to-do,” 138
• The War with China, 168
• The “Weight” of Royalty—the Social “Scale,” 270
• The Wapping Deluge, 178
• The Whigs’ last Dying Speech, 66
• Those Diving Belles! those Diving Belles! 158
• To the Laughter-loving Public, 23
• “Try our best Sympathy,” 190
• To bad Jokers, 40
• To benevolent and humane Jokers, 168
• To Fancy Builders and Capitalists, 38
• To Mr. Green, the Inspector of Highways, 74
• To Professors of Languages who give Long Credit, 144
• To Punsters and others, 274
• To Sir Rhubarb Pill, M.P. and M.D., 123
• To Sir F—s B—t, 39
• To Sir Robert, 149
• To the Black-balled of the United Service, 9
• Transactions of the Soc. of Hookham-cum-Snivey, 141
• Transactions and Yearly Report of do., 105, 118
• Tremendous Failure, 207

• University of London, 51
• Vocal Evasion, 83
• Verses on Miss Chaplin, 238
• “Very Like a Whale,” 173

• War to the Nail, 136
• Waterford Election, 29
• W(h)at Tyler, 122
• What, ho! Apothecary, 23
• “When Vulcan Forged,” &c., 197
• Whig-Waggeries, 13
• Who are to be the Lords in Waiting, 99
• Wit without Money, 38, 71

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

DECEMBER 25, 1841.

HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under-marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY.

There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND,

SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON.

Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third-floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to-morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal-hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean,
Yours very considerably,
JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW.

Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT.

MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR.

PATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half-annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box-wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.