Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 2

They, too, sing and laugh, and
appear jocund, but the heart can ever hear the ring of the bars.
We never looked upon a lark in a cage, and heard him trilling out his
music as he sprang upwards to the roof of his prison, but we felt
sickened with the sight and sound, as contrasting, in our thought, the
free minstrel of the morning, bounding as it were into the blue caverns
of the heavens, with the bird to whom the world was circumscribed.
May the time soon arrive, when every prison shall be a palace of the
mind--when we shall seek to instruct and cease to punish. PUNCH has
already advocated education by example. Look at his dog Toby! The
instinct of the brute has almost germinated into reason. Man has reason,
why not give him intelligence?
We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher--the
gallows! that accursed tree which has its root in injuries. How clearly
PUNCH exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the
destruction of life! PUNCH sometimes destroys the hangman: and why

not? Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man's blood
to rest? None can answer! To us there is but ONE disposer of life. At
other times PUNCH hangs the devil: this is as it should be. Destroy the
principle of evil by increasing the means of cultivating the good, and
the gallows will then become as much a wonder as it is now a jest.
We shall always play PUNCH, for we consider it best to be merry and
wise--
"And laugh at all things, for we wish to know, What, after all, are all
things but a show!"--_Byron._
As on the stage of PUNCH'S theatre, many characters appear to fill up
the interstices of the more important story, so our pages will be
interspersed with trifles that have no other object than the moment's
approbation--an end which will never be sought for at the expense of
others, beyond the evanescent smile of a harmless satire.
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
There is a report of the stoppage of one of the most respectable
_hard-bake_ houses in the metropolis. The firm had been speculating
considerably in "Prince Albert's Rock," and this is said to have been the
rock they have ultimately split upon. The boys will be the greatest
sufferers. One of them had stripped hia jacket of all its buttons as a
deposit on some _tom-trot_, which the house had promised to supply
on the following day; and we regret to say, there are whispers of other
transactions of a similar character.
Money has been abundant all day, and we saw a half-crown piece and
some halfpence lying absolutely idle in the hands of an individual, who,
if he had only chosen to walk with it into the market, might have
produced a very alarming effect on some minor description of
securities. Cherries were taken very freely at twopence a pound, and
Spanish (liquorice) at a shade lower than yesterday. There has been a
most disgusting glut of tallow all the week, which has had an alarming
effect on dips, and thrown a still further gloom upon rushlights.
The late discussions on the timber duties have brought the match
market into a very unsettled state, and Congreve lights seem destined to
undergo a still further depression. This state of things was rendered
worse towards the close of the day, by a large holder of the last-named
article unexpectedly throwing an immense quantity into the market,

which went off rapidly.
* * * * *
SOMETHING WARLIKE.
Many of our readers must be aware, that in pantomimic pieces, the
usual mode of making the audience acquainted with anything that
cannot be clearly explained by dumb-show, is to exhibit a linen scroll,
on which is painted, in large letters, the sentence necessary to be known.
It so happened that a number of these scrolls had Been thrown aside
after one of the grand spectacles at Astley's Amphitheatre, and
remained amongst other lumber in the property-room, until the late
destructive fire which occurred there. On that night, the wife of one of
the stage-assistants--a woman of portly dimensions--was aroused from
her bed by the alarm of fire, and in her confusion, being unable to find
her proper habiliments, laid hold of one of these scrolls, and wrapping
it around her, hastily rushed into the street, and presented to the
astonished spectators an extensive back view, with the words,
"BOMBARD THE CITADEL," inscribed in legible characters upon
her singular drapery.
HUME'S TERMINOLOGY.
Hume is so annoyed at his late defeat at Leeds, that he vows he will
never make use of the word Tory again as long as he lives. Indeed, he
proposes to expunge the