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.
feeling of 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 “boots”—­great, little, red, and yellow—­as 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 not—­we 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 tanner’s 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 Majesty’s 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.

It is a fact on record, that no one of the body ever had a cold in his head; and this peculiarity, we presume, exempts them from carrying pocket-handkerchiefs, a superfluity we never witnessed in their hands, though they indulge in snuff-boxes which assume the miniture form of French plum-cases, richly embossed, with something round the edges about as much in proportion to the box as eighteen insides are to a small tax-cart.  This testimonial is generally (as the

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