The Comic Almanack, Volume 1 / An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities

The Commissioners for inquiring into the state of the public health have forwarded to each of their assistants a copy of the following questions, with instructions to put them to all persons residing in, visiting, or passing through the district:—

Q. How are you?

This was the first and most obvious inquiry that the Commissioners ordered to be addressed to the population; but, as the returns were by no means so full as could be desired, it was determined to add another question, which should distinguish those cases in which disease has been inherited. For this purpose it was arranged that a second, or supplementary question should be framed, and the Commissioners drew up the following:—

Q. How is your mother?

To both these questions the Commissioners have received numerous replies, most of them short and concise; but it has been observed that considerable soreness has been exhibited in some cases, in which it has been thought advisable to ask for information under the second head. The habits, or, perhaps, the Commissioners ought rather to say, the prejudices of the English people are averse to any investigation into their domestic affairs; and many, when the health of their mothers has been inquired into, have manifested a spirit that the Commissioners have found very detrimental to the success of their efforts.

It occurred to the Commissioners that the chemists' shops in poor neighbourhoods would supply a vast mass of statistical information on the subject of the public health, and they have ordered a return of all the prescriptions made up within the last year, classing them under the two heads of cathartic and stimulant. The Commissioners have also ordered a schedule to be drawn up of all medicine-bottles purchased at the rag-shops, and have instructed their assistants to drain the contents of those which were not quite empty, for the purpose of ascertaining their properties, with a view to classing them under the heads already mentioned.

It has been clearly ascertained that, in nine cases of acute tooth-ache, in a very low neighbourhood, six "had it out," one applied a leech to the gum, and two did nothing. In a series of ninety-four cases of cough, it has been calculated that four ounces of Spanish liquorice were consumed, while about one moiety of the patients very patiently waited to see what time would do for them.

The Commissioners observe, with regret, that the ordinary sneeze has been lately prevalent, but it does not appear that any safe mode of treatment has yet been discovered for checking it. The Commissioners think it better to trust to nature in such a matter, though they have known the operation of drawing the finger smartly along the bridge of the nose, towards the forehead, sometimes successfully resorted to.

Here I am in Chainy, and its rather hominous that, after all your jellessy of Nancy, I should have been brought to Chuse-Ann; but that's nayther here nor their, for I've only my duty to my kernel, which lays in a nutshel. If I'd a been one of the unattached, it would not have signeyfied, but the War Office is nothing but stone, as anybody may see, who looks at it with half a high, and the Horse Guards is, by natur, as illumered as the illumernatured clock at the top of it. But never mind; though Guvament sends my legs on a march that lasts from Jannivary to Deesember, my art can stay in the deepot of your affexions. Yes, there, without the aid o' barracks, it is reglarly barrackaded. But I spose you'd like me to tell yer something about Chainy and the Chainees. Well, yew no the plates called the villa pattern, with three fellers on a bridge, looking as if they vus a goin fishin—the vun vith a boatook, tother vith a deal board, and the thurd vith a cricket ball tied to the hend uv a walkin stik. Nou, I dare say yew think that's a korrect drawin of Chainees men and manner; but, spoonies as they are, I never seed 'em makin such preshious hasses of themselves, as they are in all the plates yure muther has of 'em. Then the tree with the horanges, is only to puff off the real Chainy, as they sells for two a penny in the streets; bekause if they vus only half as big as the hartist has made 'em they'd be whoppers indeed, and the Chainees karacter is rayther the other way; for they're always whopt themselves, instead of being whoppers.

Ven I new I vus a goin to Chainy, I took a number of Chambers; I don't meen that I highered a sweet of rooms, but I bort the Hinformation for the Peeple, treatin (as they calls it, though one has to pay for the treat) of Chainy. Akordin to the book, I find that the natives call Chainy the middle country, and it really is among the middlins, for everything about it is werry indifferent. The Great Wall runs so far that one can't say where it goes to, vich is exakly the way with the troops, though it's ony in the long run that they are anything like the wall, for they don't behave at all like bricks in any other partickler. A good deal has been said about the sighs of the Grate Wall of Chainy, and won says won thing, and won another; so that I've come to the konklusion that it's just as broad as it's long, and that settles it. One side of the place is bounded by the Pacific; and I spose it's bathing in the Pacific that makes the natives fight so preshusly shy of fightin. I hunderstand the hurth used to be a good deal given to hurthquaking; but the ground has given up that game, and the quakin bisness is now dun by the military, who are no great shakes after all, xsept in that rispect.

The natives say that Chainy is older than the deluge, but this must be a delugion. At hall events it's not much like a place of the furst vater. I think they make a mistake about the time when the flood happened, for they were overrun by a tremendous great Khan, who plunged them into hot water, and poured the cream of the Tartar troops all over them. This made such a heffervescence as never was; and as all the provinces was swamped, it's like enuff they mistook the bursting out of this great Khan for the reglar deluge.

The Hemperor is called the Brother of the Moon; and I shouldn't wunder if he's related in sum way, for I think he's crack'd, which is a common thing enuff in Chainy. They say he's the father of his peeple, and the mother two but I don't see how they make both of 'em aparent. The Guvament robs the natives vith vun hand, and pitches into 'em vith the other; so that betwixt being bamboozled and bambooed, they get a nice time of it. They used to be werry klever in science, but they're losing their hearts like winking; and though they don't paint particklarly good picters, they're great dabs at colours. Indeed, dying is the only thing they seems to excel in, as the returns of their killed will prove, to anybody's satisfakshun. As to ourselves, I've very little noose—hardly enuff to hang a line upon. Of korse you hurd of the affair at the Bogue, and the pretty Tilt we had with 'em! but it was such a farce, that I thought of sending the report to Messrs. Tilt and Bogue, for their Comic Allmyknack. The knavy of the poor fellers is quite stationary, which means to say that it's little better than brown paper; and as to their artillery, I don't believe their gunpowder would be strong enuff to shake the nerves of an old washerwoman. The soldiers all of 'em ware tails, and seem to be wery proud on 'em, for they always turn 'em to us direktly they cum into akshun. Poor Lin, who was to be the grate card, has turned out anything but a trump; and I shouldn't wonder if he gets cut at last by a chop from the Hemperor. The Chainees are werry proud of their feet, which I don't wunder at, considerin that, in battle, they owe so much to 'em. The wumen's shoes are so small that it hinterferes with rithmetic, and makes a foot only three or four inches. It only shows how cramped they are in their hunderstandings. I've urd it said that, sum day or anuther, the Chainees will adopt our abbits. Only fancy the Hemperor in a coat down to his eels, and knee britches, vitch, they say, will ewentually be the long and the short of it. As to our fashonable kustoms, they'd easy enuff fall into them, for I've seen 'em dance at a ball in the most natral manner.

But I must konklude; for a Chainee regiment of 600 is cummin on, and I'm ordered to relieve guard, with my six men, a quarter of an hour before the time, so as to kill two burds with wun stone, by changing the sentries and frightnin away the henemy.—Your dewoted

THE COMPLETION OF THE TUNNEL.

This stupendous work is finished, and Wapping has reason to be proud of such a truly wapping undertaking. Perhaps no enterprise ever had so much cold water thrown upon it, and never was there a project which it seemed at one time so difficult to go through with. The engineer has worked like a horse, and has scarcely ever been out of the shaft.

The original shareholders, whose pockets were well drained, in fruitless efforts to drain the tunnel, have now the satisfaction of once more running through their property. For some time the ardour of the projectors was damped by the works going on rather too swimmingly. When accidents were every-day occurrences the Tunnel was a matter of interest; but since the water has been effectually kept out, it has become a dry subject.

On more than one occasion the Company would have been swamped, in spite of all hands being put to the pumps, if Government had not lent their sucker. The funds, in fact, were at low-water mark long before the works reached the same desirable point; and the more the Tunnel was set afloat the more were the shareholders aground in their undertaking.

But the perils are now past, and the Tunnel remains as a monument to British enterprise. We should call it, perhaps, a pillar to the fame of the engineer, if it were not that a pillar is incomplete without two things, one of which—the shaft—has been taken away, while the proprietors have long since lost sight of the capital.

THE CUP DAY AT ASCOT.

1. Lord Howe's victory, 1794.

21. Queen Victoria proclaimed. The longest day.

WHAT'S TO BE DONE WITH THE PARISH 'PRENTICES?

Perhaps the best method of ascertaining the fact of its being warm or cold is to go out into the air; but if you are unable to do this, and a person coming in from out of doors is seen to rub his hands, you may presume that the atmosphere is chilly.

An infallible method of ascertaining whether it is wet is to watch the puddles in the streets, and if you see them agitated you may conclude that rain is descending.

If there has been a frost at night you may look for ice in the morning, and, in winter, if you have no thermometer, you may get some valuable information from the state of your pitcher.

The rattling of tiles overhead indicates wind; and a descent of soot down your chimney foretells rainy weather.

The approach of winter may generally be prognosticated by a general display of Chesterfield Wrappers, at the doors of cheap tailors' shops; but when 25,000 straw bonnets are seen in linendrapers' windows, spring may be confidently looked forward to.

When the water-carts are particularly active you may expect rain; and if a flash of lightning is visible, prepare for thunder.

When you see the advertisement of a flower-show, it would be prudent to provide yourself on the day named with an umbrella.

If your water has not come into your cistern, you may conclude there has been frost, unless you happen to be in arrear with your rates, when the phenomenon may be otherwise accounted for.

SCIENCE UNDER DIVERS FORMS.

Well, here we are, safe and sound at the bottom of the Bay of Biscay, where we intend to sleep one night, for the purpose of testing the qualities of the bed of the ocean, which consists, as you will suppose, of several sheets of water, and plenty of wet blankets, with billows instead of pillows on the top of it.

Not being able to keep my head above water I determined on making a bold plunge, and therefore took my passage in the submarine steamer, where several others, who were, like myself, over head and ears, were anxious to keep out of the way, and having sunk all my available capital, I thought it better to sink myself by way of looking after it.

We have had a very delightful voyage, but we met on our way with some very odd fish, who stared rather rudely in at our cabin windows, and a party of lobsters looked exceedingly black as we passed very near to them. The mermaids were much alarmed at first, but soon became reconciled to our appearance, and, when we talked of weighing our anchor, they, with much simplicity, offered us the use of their scales.

You are aware that a company is forming for the purpose of turning the tide of emigration towards the bottom of the sea; and if people can live under water, they ought not, from mere motives of pride, to be above it. There will, of course, be some difficulty in dealing with the natives, but we have taken the precaution to treat with an influential oyster, who, however, keeps extremely close, and, if he will not manifest a little more openness, it is expected that war to the knife must be resorted to. We at first anticipated some hostility from the sharks, but, as we purposely abstained from bringing any lawyers among the first settlers, we have now very little fear of a collision on account of conflicting interests.

The appearance of our vessel has caused a considerable sensation among the inhabitants of the ocean, but we have followed the plan of the early emigrants to strange parts, and endeavoured to propitiate the various fish by trifling presents. We threw a box of antibilious pills to a large party of Cockles, and we pitched overboard a quantity of false collars to a group of salmon, whose gills seemed sadly out of condition. We also distributed copies of Crabbe and Shelley to as many of the crustaceous fish as approached near enough to our vessel to enable us to do so; while to a dog-fish we presented a fine specimen of bark, which he did not appear very much to relish. We met on our way down with one of the white sharks, which are known to be the terror of mariners. The creature stared at us with both its eyes, and, while we maintained an awful silence, the shark seemed to respond to our muteness by holding its jaw in the most alarming manner: the extended cavity of its frightful mouth presented a harrowing exhibition, and it seemed as if, like other exhibitions, it might be "open from ten to four," and then it would have been ten to one if we had escaped from being drawn into it. The tremendous teeth seemed clearly to indicate that there would be "no admittance except on business," and we at length sheered off from sheer timidity.

If we can only manage to get up a colony down here, there will be plenty of patronage at our disposal; and if we are allowed the appointment of a bishop, where can there be a finer see than that which is here open to him? I have already issued prospectuses of a grand Oceanic Agricultural Association, to be established for the purpose of regularly ploughing the deep, and dividing the proceeds among the shareholders. I state, in my advertisement, that, as we know the sea has produced sea-weed, we may reasonably expect that other vegetable matter may be reared, and as irrigation is the chief expense of agriculture, the saving in the article of water alone must keep the thing afloat—to say nothing of what will naturally flow into the coffers of the company.

I must now conclude my letter, for the vessel is about to start; and, as "tide and time wait for no man," you will perceive that I am so far tied to time as to be unable to add more than that I am

P.S.—We have not yet visited the extensive locker of Davy Jones, Esquire, but we intend very shortly doing so.

30. Penn died, 1718.

EFFECTS OF THE INCOME-TAX.

Everybody is beginning to draw in to meet the necessity for pulling out. Tradesmen are reducing their expenses in all directions, and a respectable grocer has just dismissed an assistant who suited him to a T. A cook-shop boy, who used to be kept purposely to carry out the provisions to the customers, has been sent away, in order to enable the proprietor to carry out the provisions of the income tax. A large linendrapery house in the Westminster Road has cut off "a young man," who is thus thrown, as it were, as a burden on the rest of the community.

Individuals in a respectable sphere of life, who could formerly keep a page, have been obliged to turn over a new leaf; and it is a positive fact that a Conservative peer intends, in the ensuing Session, putting down a Brougham.

But it is not only among old and established interests that the burden will be felt, for it is ascertained beyond doubt that the boys will be alarming sufferers. The toffey dealers have already commenced manufacturing an inferior article, which is being palmed off upon the juveniles as the genuine Everton. We have personally analysed a piece of Albert rock, under the new system, and we have discovered an increased proportion of sand in its composition. It is also a lamentable fact that a baked potato man has stopped up—we hope not permanently—one of the chimneys of his apparatus, besides extinguishing one of the fine lanterns with which it is adorned—a piece of retrenchment that will fall first on the oilman, and ultimately on the whale-fishing interests.

An influential publican has shockingly reduced his only potboy, and the unhappy lad is walking about the streets on a salary four per cent. under that of last year—a miserable victim to the income-tax, and a martyr (of course) to Tory ascendancy.

Respectable families, who never before considered the matter worth a thought, are looking narrowly to the candle-ends, giving, it is true, a momentary impulse to the trade in save-alls, but the flush is feverish, and will, of course, be followed by depression. The perquisites thus lost, by a stoppage in the kitchen-stuff commerce, can only be made up by the servants taking it out of their masters' bones, which used formerly to be abandoned to the grubbers, who must in future look for grub in some other direction.

The penny-a-liners have also been lowered, in order to enable some of the newspaper proprietors to pay the income-tax, but it is expected this reduction will be counterbalanced by the increase in the number of cases of real distress, and the other raw articles which form the staple of paragraphs.

TAKING OF NINGPO.

VICTORY OF GENERAL SALE.

OVERLAND MAIL ARRIVED FROM INDIA.

GARDENING DIRECTIONS FOR AUGUST.

Blow off dust from plants in flower—using the mouth for the more delicate sorts, and taking the bellows for those that are of stronger constitution. Pull back ivy from adjacent gardens, and train up against your own wall, with pieces of old waistcoating.

For borderings, you may now resort freely to the planting of oyster-shells, which you can procure in large quantities from the boys, after the grottos are demolished. It is not advisable to have recourse to box, though, if you have planted it very close in the previous season, you may fill up the spaces that you will now find, with the oyster-shells. They are not so liable to be attacked by the grubs, and the cats do not displace them so readily by running over them.

THE LONG VACATION.

The borough is in commotion; the public spirit of the place, which is cold without excitement, has become warm with; and every one, with the understanding of an infant, is in arms for one or the other of the candidates.

The bill-stickers are beginning to stick up for the different parties to the approaching contest, and a linendraper has cut his principles to ribbons by selling his favours to both sides. The Liberal candidate has just come into the town, and has taken an oath that he will not spend a shilling in the contest; so that, unless his agents understand business better than he does, his return to Parliament is out of the question; but his return to the place from whence he came would be the wisest step possible.

The Tory candidate has taken another course, and all the voters in his interest are reeling drunk about the streets, prepared to fight, or in fact to do anything but to stand up for him.

The nomination took place yesterday, when the show of hands was decidedly in favour of the Liberal; but, on the Tory being proposed, there was an extensive show of cabbage-stalks, one of which was transplanted into the eye of the honourable candidate. Most of the hands that were held up had something upon the nail; and it is generally rumoured that all the ten-pounders were loaded to the muzzle, at a dinner given by a committee-man from London, on the popular side, who ran away with the money entrusted to him to pay the bill, rather than damage the good cause by letting in a proof of agency. He preferred, like a true patriot, letting in the landlord.

The Corn Laws are, of course, the subject of much difference of opinion; and one of the candidates is in favour of a sliding scale, while the other declares that skates are the only things that ought to come in upon it. He expressed also his conviction that we have no less an authority than that of Lord Nelson for resisting, and even for evading the fixed duty; "for," he exclaimed, "were not these the last words of the gallant hero—'England expects every man to do his duty'?—which is equivalent to a strong recommendation to every man 'to do' the authorities who collect the duty at the custom-house."

The Income Tax has caused an immense sensation in the borough, and the blind beggar who stands at the corner of the street, who evidently sees the matter in its true light, is indignant at having to expose the amount of his earnings. He says it is an immoral law, for it places a tax on the offerings of benevolence; but he admits that the Tariff offers him some equivalent, by letting in timber at a lower rate, and giving buoyancy to the trade in lucifers. Many declare they do not know what their income is, and on being told they must find it out, reply that they certainly cannot find it at home; while others, when called on for a return of what they have made, ask for a return of what they have lost, a query by which the assessor is generally much mystified. Moore and Murphy have sent back their papers without filling them up, but in answer to the demand for an account of their last year's profits, have sent copies of their respective almanacks, in every line of which "no prophets" is glaringly written.

Our Liberal candidate speaks very plainly on the subject, and declares that he would rather see his constituents without any incomes at all, than that they should be liable to the odious measure. His views on the Tariff are of the same bold and startling character. He denounces the Government for letting in more asses, and plainly tells the electors that they ought to stand up for themselves, and assert the sufficiency of native asses for all reasonable purposes.

The Tory has been trying the old game of kissing the children, and chatting with the wives, but the independent electors are not to be gammoned in this manner, as they formerly used to be. He nursed Mrs. Snooks's twins for half an hour yesterday, and having had them so long in his arms, he, of course, spoke the truth when he said he knew what it must be to have a young family on one's hands, and how very glad the parents must be to get them off as soon as possible. He has also bought cats enough, at ten pounds a head, to stock an island the size of St. Kitts; but ten to one if the voters come to the scratch after all, and if they do there will be the clause in the new act that will be sure to catch hold of him. The election will proceed to-morrow, and arrangements have been made with an extensive rubbish carter to bring up the out-voters, who are expected to prove regular out-and-outers in favour of the Liberal. The Tory is compelled to resort to the truck system, on account of his opponent having taken all the other modes of conveyance, and there is no doubt that a vehicle for party purposes will be made of it.

The hustings have just come to the earth with a frightful crash, the scaffolding having given way just as a poll was being loudly demanded. The confusion was, of course, dreadful. An unbending Whig fell on to the bald head of a Tory; and a stickler for the "five points," which are always in his mouth, received between his teeth the end of a walking-stick. A free-trader, who expresses openly his antipathy to anything in the shape of protection, was fortunately saved by a plank falling in a slanting direction over him; and a well-known participator in the late strike got a severe blow on both arms, which must keep the hands unemployed for a long period. The rival candidates are being looked for among the rubbish, and a man is at work with a spade, so that it may be supposed then situation is somewhat infra dig. at present. Both must have received a few plumpers, and the state of their respective polls must be rather unsatisfactory.

7. Hammersmith Suspension Bridge, 1825.

15. A Treaty concluded between the Danish and British governments, relative to the passage of the Sound. The affair was managed by means of Mr. Curtis's voice-conductor.

A POETICAL REPORT OF THE DOVER CROPPING CASE.

The grand aim of modern infant education is to make learning very attractive; to invest Lindley Murray with a magnetic power over the pupil's mind, and dress Dilworth in an adhesive plaster that shall cause all the little boys in the kingdom to stick to it. If Mavor's Spelling can be converted into a magic spell, there is a hope that the infant population may be charmed into an appreciation of ba, be, bi, bo, bu; and such will be the progress of education that we may have, before the expiration of a century, universities at which the wet nurse and the professor may be alike required to attend to the physical and intellectual wants of the infant students. A Bachelor of Arts will not only be entitled to the distinction of B.A., but may add the letters B.Y. to complete his description. It has already been suggested that philosophy should be taught by toys, and it will be easy to give a lecture on the laws of motion, illustrated by a game at marbles, or to explain the theory of equations by reference to the pleasing pastime of nine-pins.

The Pons Asinorum, that has puzzled many of our modern youth, will be much more easily overcome when a real donkey-ride is resorted to; and the difficult process of looking for the square root will be greatly facilitated by a spade, when the student finds himself sent forth to dig in the garden of science.

Already has the worthy Mr. Wilderspin introduced, in many places, the agreeable system of making fun of school; and if he would only consent to put his infant pupils into the fantastical caps and gowns which are worn at the universities, the joke would be still richer than it is at present. "To that complexion we shall come at last;" and if education is to be made game of, the sooner we go "the whole hog," the better.

The following is an extract from a report that is intended to illustrate the enormous success of the Wilderspin system:—

Teacher. What is this I hold in my hand?

Children. A piece of glass.

Teacher. What can you do with it?

Children. Scrape slate pencil.

Teacher. What else? what can your eyes do with it?

Children. Look at it.