Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete — John Shaqi
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, CompleteVarious
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
divided duty, than the portion of manufactured calf-skin appropriated to
the peripatetic purposes of these gentry; they are, in point of fact,
invariably that description of mud-markers known in the purlieus of
Liecester-square, and at all denominations of bootsgreat, little,
red, and yellowas eight-and-sixpenny Bluchers. But the afore-mentioned
drabs are strapped down with such pertinacity as to leave the observer
in extreme doubt whether the Prussian hero of that name is their
legitimate sponsor, or the glorious Wellington of our own sea-girt isle.
Indeed, it has been rumoured that (as there never was a pair of either
of the illustrious heroes) these gentlemen, for the sake of consistency,
invariably perambulate in one of each. We scarcely know whether it be so
or notwe merely relate what we have heard; but we incline to the two
Bluchers, because of the eight-and-six. The only additional expense
likely to add any emolument to the tanners interest (we mean no pun) is
the immense extent of sixpenny straps generally worn. These are
described by a friend of ours as belonging to the great class of
coaxers; and their exertions in bringing (as a nautical man would say)
the trowsers to bear at all, is worthy of notice. There is a legend
extant (a veritable legend, which emanated from one of the fraternity
who had been engaged three weeks at her Majestys theatre, as one of
twenty in an unknown chorus, the chief peculiarity of the affair being
the close approximation of some of his principal foreign words to Tol
de rol, and Fal the ral ra), in which it was asserted, that from a
violent quarrel with a person in the grass-bleached line, the body
corporate determined to avoid any unnecessary use of that commodity. In
the way of wristbands, the malice of the above void is beautifully
nullified, inasmuch as the most prosperous linen-draper could never wish
to have less linen on hand. As we are describing the genus in black and
white, we may as well state at once, those are the colours generally
casing the throats from whence their sweet sounds issue; these ties are
garnished with union pins, whose strong mosaic tendency would, in the
Catholic days of Spain (had they been residents), have consigned them to
the lowest dungeons of the Inquisition, and favoured them with an exit
from this breathing world, amid all the uncomfortable pomp of an auto-
da-fe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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