THE OLD AND NEW YEAR. HOULD we shake hands with Time, we spoil a clock, Or thus would we the parting year embrace; If years have fists in cordial frip to lock, Which is considered not to be the case,For the past twelvemonths, certainly, is one Out of the common run. It is not every day we kill a pig, Observes a rustic saw; not every year With such a national event is big As that just ended; and it claims a cheer. In nineteen hundred, less French, Austrians, Russians, Prussians, Danes, and Dutch, The new year comes, and happy may it be! PUNCII'S EVERY-DAY BOOK. January.-This month derives its name from JANUS, who had two faces, one sad and the other smiling; the former contemplating the Christmas Bills, the latter looking on at the festivities of the season. In ancient prints, January is sometimes represented as a veteran with a woodman's axe-perhaps the identical one that the old year has just cut his stick with. January 1st.-The practice of giving presents on New Year's Day is as old as the Romans, who gave each other figs and dates; but the precise date cannot be ascertained, nor is the earliest fig to be found in any collection of facts and figures. In QUEEN ELIZABETH's time, all the royal servants presented Her Majesty with gifts, and her pastrycook gave her some tarts; but in these days puffs are, happily, not acceptable to royalty. Suitors in the Courts of Law frequently gave gloves as New Year's Gifts to the Judges, who, as they did not always come into court with clean hands, found the gift acceptable. The First of January is dedicated, in the Roman Calendar, to ST. FULGENTIUS, who used to walk barefooted, to the great injury of his sole, and who, never eating meat, lived upon pulse, which reduced his own pulse to a state of extreme feebleness. Though his only food consisted entirely of vegetables, he reached a green old age, which was, perhaps, natural. January 2nd.-This day is dedicated by the Roman Catholics, to ST. MACARIUS, who was once stung by a gnat, which he killed inadver tently. The Saint went into the marshes to do penance, when he was stung by so many flies, that his body was covered with tumors, and he came back such a thorough swell that nobody knew him. WE Congratulate Westminster on the state of its Representation. What we say is no compli ment to the constituents of EVANS or LUSHINGTON. It is a just tribute to MESSIEURS PARMENO, PHEDRIA, GNATHO, CHEEA, THRASO, DORIAS,-to MELLES. THAIS and PYTHIAS, and to the rest of the young amateurs, who have been earning all the laurels that Christmas can muster, by performing the Eunuchus of TERENCE. We allude, in fact, to the Westminster Play-not to the Westminster electors. We witnessed that performance with a vast deal of pleasure, considerably heightened by the profound conviction that the actors would hereafter acquit themselves quite as creditably in the parts of physicians, barristers, judges, bishops, captains, colonels, field-marshals, members of parliament, merchants, and other leading characters, on the more serious boards of real life. If some ancient Roman could have arisen from the Shades, and exchanged the pleasures of the Elysian Fields for the gratification of witnessing TERENCE, as interpreted by the Westminster scholars, he would, no doubt, have been considerably more amused than he ever was_by the same play in his own time and country. For the levities of the Latin MOмUS are somewhat ponderous; and we suspect that much more fun was got out of our author, in the dormitory of Westminster school, than ever was elicited from him on the Roman stage. Indeed, the Westminster boys turn a dormitory into a theatre, and we suspect that the ancient Romans did precisely the reverse. We fervently hope that some of our humbler British dramatists may have witnessed the Eunuchus of TERENCE, as the performance might have suggested to them a flattering idea of the A bill for the re-establishment of Protection will be immortality which may be reserved for a fifthintroduced, next Session, by MR. COBDEN, simulta-rate comedy, "adapted from the French." It neously with SIR CHARLES WOOD's motion for the is strange that a play should have so long survived wherein there is little that is remarkable except the plot-that being remarkable only from the circumstance that the young actors, with all their scholarship, could not possibly translate it to their sisters, insomuch that the virtuous LORD CHAMBERLAIN would, probably, refuse to allow such a piece to be performed in plain English. THE Continental despots have been, it is said, remonstrating with our Government for harbouring revolutionary refugees. This is a very short-sighted complaint; for there is no place in the world where the anarchists are so likely to learn the principles of order as they are here; no atmosphere in which Red men so soon change their colour, and acquire a reveIt is earnestly hoped that their Lordships will rence for the policeman. Members of the "Mountain," after a very brief enjoyment of English endeavour to acquire, in regard to the points quiet, look with the same respect at our constables' staves, as their countrymen at home at the above specified, those clear and accurate views not much more brilliant, and much less efficient, staff which surrounds the French President. which are so necessary in the direction of nautical As to any plots that exotic democrats may hatch, we believe they are as harmless as the incu- affairs, and especially in the regulation of naval bation which is carried on in the neighbourhood of the exiles by MR. CANTELO in Leicester architecture; as it is very desirable that no more Square. For the satisfaction of the ambassadors of arbitrary powers, MR. CANTELO might add mistakes should occur in the enlargement and to his present establishment an exhibition of Socialist and Communist conspirators hatching repair of our wooden walls which the dangerous plots by smoke. Such sitting never comes to anything; no chickens are produced in England state of affairs on the Continent may render from what may be termed Gallic cocks' eggs. GROSS INSULT. UNIVERSITY MAN HAVING SPENT A FEW DAYS IN TOWN AT THE END OF TERM, IS ABOUT TO GO HOME. Enter WAITER. Waiter (condescendingly). "GOING HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, SIR?" University MAN (hurling himself into Hansom). "EuSTON SQUA-A-A-RE!" THE MARBLE ARCH. SHAKSPEARE has taught us to read "sermons in stones;" and most significant are the sermons to be found in every bit of the Marble Arch, in its origin and its late removal. When first erected by GEORGE THE FOURTH, it preached to us a Royal Sermon; discoursing to tax-paying Englishmen the magnificent contempt of their gorgeous potentate for the vulgarity of cash expense. Not a marble block that had not a tongue in it, eloquently talking to apprehensive ears, of the barbaric taste(costly and monstrous as a rich jewel in the nose of an Ethiopian prince) -of the selfish prodigality of GEORGE THE FOURTH, now fast on his way to oblivion. The spendthrift king was, in the fulness of time, set aside on his shelf in St. George's Chapel, and still the Marble Arch held forth a continual sermon on the folly and wastefulness of its dead projector. At length the Arch is to be removed; to be tumbled down, and on some most appropriate site, where the marble shall, architecturally, sound a most harmonious key to the scene, to be again set up. Happily, or oddly enough, the Marble Arch is carted from St. James's Park, and block by block put together again where its beauties may come full upon the house of the present DUKE OF SOMERSET; the house of the future Duke, now the Minister for Woods and Forests! Surely, we can read a sermon in the marble on this final incident. But here is another sermon-a sermon with £ s. d. for the text-quoted from the newspapers: "THE MARBLE ARCH.-From an official document just issued, it is shown that the cost of taking down, removing, and re-instating the Marble Arch, was little short of €11,000." Had this sum, together with the proceeds of the old marble, been granted to DOCTOR LAYARD, who, starved by the Government, has been GOG'S PIROUETTE. DOGGEREL FOR DIRTY DOGS. GREAT GOG was a mighty Giant, And his meals cost thousands of pounds, Had caused him to limp and hobble, Full twenty miles-no shorter !- Was considered by the City So they came to the decision, To increase his monstrous waist. The Hack Blade of the Protectionists. MR. BALL (of Buwell) asked of the Protectionist Meeting at the London Tavern, if "There was any man whose sword had been more notched than MR. DISRAELI'S?" We do not see that a sword is any the better for being so dreadfully notched, unless it is for the purpose of turning it into a saw; and Protection is not exactly celebrated for its "wise saws." We suppose MR. BALL wanted the farmers to believe that MR. DISRAELI was a first-rate blade, only with a number of notches; and in our opinion, the worst notch in the Blade is the notch of Protection. compelled for awhile to give up further excavation in Assyria,-we do not think it impossible that exhumed treasures, a few more winged bulls, would have given us something better for our money than the restored blunder, the huge bull of GEORGE THE FOURTH. fligate extravagance of the Sybarite GEORGE, and, at the cost of However, the government has a venerating sympathy for the pro£11,000, will perpetuate it. On the other hand, what will the Government subscribe towards the means of preserving one WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE's house? The Art Union shall tell us : "SHAKSPEARE'S HOUSE.-The Government have refused to take upon themselves the guardianship of the birth-place of the poet of England; the debt of £400 still remains liquidated by the committee who effected its purchase; affairs are, therefore, in The account then stands thus: statu quo." Throwing your Money into the Gutter. IT has been said that "the man who goes to law might as well throw his money into the gutter." Now the Commissioners of Sewers have been going to law; and, in so doing, have spent no less a sum than £5800, which, for any good which it has done the Commissioners or the Sewers, might as well have been thrown into the gutter. It strikes us strongly that the public money was entrusted to them to throw into more profitable gutters than that of going to law! country. THE POLITICAL CROTCHET-BOOK. A YOUNG gentleman who (in a state of infatuation) has recently been meddling with those queer little works called CrochetBooks, has suddenly conceived the idea of producing a book of a similar character to illustrate the working of POLITICAL CROTCHETS. In the present state of European affairs the art is a very useful one. The following is a specimen of his performance; the pattern is clearly French: "PATTERN, No.FOR EDGING - towards absolute power. Make Buy-to price you're not confined- Buy some onions-just a taste- THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING. AIR. "Jeannette and Jeannot.” a chain of sausages of If you wish to make the pudding in which every one delights, the length required, allow- Of a dozen new-laid eggs you must take the yolks and whites; Beat them well up in a basin till they thoroughly combine, And shred and chop some suet up particularly fine; ing a quarter of a pound of pork to each sausage; turn back (from your oath) and work the "First Row of bayonets. Pass the row up and down the street. Work the bayonet through the front entrances of houses, and out at the back windows-which will make your pattern firm. Loop up your generals, and cut off communication between the different ends of your "N.B. This pattern is tolerably simple, and chiefly requires that the bayonet shall be of the regulation size. After the First Row of bayonets has been brought into form, a Second Row (pronounced to rhyme with "vow") will require to be arranged for. Various other rows will have to follow; the general directions, however, for dealing with all of them, are as follows: "4th, 5th, and 6th Row. Continue passing the bayonet as before; work 1 plain (act of force); 2, or more, doubles (of falsehood); 2 hooks (of representatives by bribery); repeat to the end. "So the work must go forward "to the end," when your absolute Crotchet will be pretty completely done to your satisfaction. The colour of the stuff will be blood colour." Query by Professor Punch.-Will it wash? THE POETRY OF COOKERY. CONSIDERING the high position that Cookery has lately taken among the arts, we feel that there is a demand for something more than the mere prose in which the science has been hitherto taught, and we beg to offer a few specimens of a POETICAL COOKERY BOOK. IRISH STEW. Irish stew, Irish stew! I'd have a dish of thee. Mutton chops, and onion slice, Ne'er from thee, my taste will stray. Take a pound of well-stoned raisins, and a pound of currants dried, THE "PAIL" OF CIVILISATION; AND HOW IT IS FILLED DIFFERENTLY BY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. THE Rich Man fills it with champagne, and the best spirits, and the warmest cordials; and the Poor Man with gruel, or beer, or vegetables, or whatever scraps he can throw into it. With the Benevolent, it is a large Milk-pail, overflowing with human kindness with the Selfish, it is nothing better than a monster Ice-pail to freeze everything that is put into it. The Teetotaller deluges it with Tea-and so does the Washerwoman -and also a large number of ladies; but the Hospitable Man, who is neither in his tastes a Teetotaller nor a Washerwoman, fills it to overflowing with generous wine, which he invites his friends to come and enjoy with him. The melancholy Drunkard replenishes it, time after time, with Gin, or Brandy, or Whiskey-and-water, or spirits of some sort; but the Sober Man is perfectly content if it contains nothing stronger for his palate than Toast-and-Water. Those who are Charitable fill it with Soup, which they give away to the Poor; and those who combine Charity with Politics, fill it with Stones, which, they tell the Poor, as soon as they are broken, shall be exchanged for so many loaves of bread. With the Good, the Pail of Civilisation is one large, loving cup, which they pass round and round, inviting every one to drink, and pledge his neighbour in fellowship; with the Bad, it is an impure vessel of strong and maddening drinks that debase all those who put their lips to it. To Some it is a fountain of Purity, filled with the sweetest waters drawn from the Well of Truth; to Others it is a deadly poison cup, which, offered treacherously in the holy name of Civilisation, is moral death to all who taste it. But the day will surely come when the "Pail" of Civilisation will be a source of goodness and health to all who partake of it; and, though it may be a long time before Civilisation will be able to get all Mankind to drink out of the same "Pail," yet that day will assuredly come, and we only hope that we may be there in order to have, what is vulgarly called, a "good long pull" out of it! INSCRIPTION TO BE PLACED OVER THE STOCK EXCHANGE.-" Bear and For-Bear." |