The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities
David Hume · en
Then c-c-come, did-did-dearest, n-n-n-never say "nun-nun-nun-nun——nay;"
I'll tit-tit-treat you, my love, to a "bub-bub-bub——buss,"
Tis but thrup-pip-pip-pip——pence a pip-pip——piece all the way,
To see the hip-pip-pip—(I beg your pardon)—
To see the hip-pip-pip-pip—(ahem!)
The hip-pip-pip-pip——pop-pop-pop-pop—(I mean)
The hip-po-po-po——(dear me, love, you know)
The hippo-pot-pot-pot——('pon my word I'm quite ashamed of myself).
The hip-pip-pop——the hip-po-pot.
To see the Hippop——potamus.
THE CENSUS OF 1851.
The earnest care of the Government to know the exact number of people
that the parish of Clumpley-cum-Bogglesmere contained on an especial
night—how many folks slept in 43, Parson's Court, Upper Bloater Street,
Chandler's Market, on the same occasion: who populated the police-cells;
who put up at hotels; who dozed the night away in cabs and coffee-shops—
on billiard-tables and heaps of cabbages—anywhere, everywhere, and
nowhere—this great investigation of those who cannot believe their
Census any longer, is about to come off again, and again to furnish its
utterly false returns.
We say utterly false, for the means taken to insure correctness, as to
the number of persons who slept in a particular place on a particular
night, are contemptibly inefficient. With the smallest foresight, we can
furnish a number of tables proving its inaccuracy; and from the mass of
evidence taken by the Census Committee of Inquiry after the last return
(which evidence has never been made public) we can also bring forward
conclusive facts. To show the futility of expecting a correct return
from houses we subjoin the following information, taken quite at random,
from different individuals.
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CASE 1.—_Mr. Mark Lane._—I am a single man, and on the Corn Exchange. I
never slept anywhere on the night in question. I went to dine at the
Divan, and then I went to the play, and then I went to the Albion, and
then I went to the Cyder Cellars, and then I went about, and then I went
to a coffee-house, and then I went to Westminster Bridge to see the sun
rise, and then I went to my office and then I went to bed on the
counting-house table, and upset the inkstand into the wafers; and then I
went to sleep till the clerk came.
[Illustration:
TAKING THE CENSUS.
]