Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,359 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,359 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete.

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

* * * * *

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.