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.

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THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY.

This useful society will shortly publish its Report; and, though we have not seen it, we are enabled to guess with tolerable accuracy what will be the contents of it: 

In the first place, we shall be told the number of pins picked up in the course of the day, by a person walking over a space of fifteen miles round London, with the number of those not picked up; an estimate of the class of persons that have probably dropped them, with the use they were being put to when they actually fell; and how they have been applied afterwards.

The Report will also put the public in possession of the number of pot-boys employed in London; what is the average number of pots they carry out; and what is the gross weight of metal in the pots brought back again.  This interesting head will include a calculation of how much beer is consumed by children who are sent to fetch it in jugs; and what is the whole amount of malt liquor, the value of which reaches the producer’s pocket, while the mouth of the consumer, and not that of the party paying for it, receives the sole benefit.

There are also to be published with the Report elaborate tables, showing how many quarts of milk are spilt in the course of a year in serving customers; what proportion of water it contains; and what are the average ages and breed of the dogs who lap it up; and how much is left unlapped up to be absorbed in the atmosphere.

When this valuable Report is published, we shall make copious extracts.

* * * * *

A NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT.

DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

Novelty is certainly the order of the day.  Anything that does not deviate from the old beaten track meets with little encouragement from the present race of amusement-seekers, and, consequently, does not pay the entrepreneur.  Nudity in public adds fresh charms to the orchestra, and red-fire and crackers have become absolutely essential to harmony.  Acting upon this principle, Signor Venafra gave (we admire the term) a fancy dress ball at Drury-lane Theatre on Monday evening last, upon a plan hitherto unknown in England, but possibly, like the majority of deceptive delusions now so popular, of continental origin.  The whole of the evening’s entertainment took place in cabs and hackney-coaches, and those vehicles performed several perfectly new and intricate figures in Brydges-street, and the other thoroughfares adjoining the theatres.  The music provided for the occasion appeared to be an organ-piano, which performed incessantly at the corner of Bow-street, during the evening.  Most of the elite of Hart-street and St. Giles’s graced the animated pavement as spectators.  So perfectly successful was the whole affair—­on the word of laughing hundreds who came away saying they had never been so amused in their lives—­that we hear it is in agitation never to attempt anything of the kind again.

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