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

At the Annual Meeting of the So-oh!-logical Society, the Chairman, in an able speech, which was highly satisfactory to himself and all present, congratulated the members on the prosperous state of the concern. He informed them that their coffers and their dens were yet undrained; that they were still able to raise the wind, though they had very little ventilation; that the shilling orders were on the increase, though the animals were in a decline; and, admitting that some of them had galloped off in a consumption, there was a consolation in the old adage, that living asses were far better than dead lions,—a truth of which they must all feel a full conviction.

He stated that 15,073 pennyworths of apples, 10,732 gingerbread cakes, and 6,532 half-pints of nuts had been sold during the year by the old lady who sits at the bear-pit; that a Sunday school had been established in the Gardens, under the superintendence of a committee of noblemen, for the purpose of instructing the apes and monkeys in the art of smoking cigars, and other usages of fashionable life; but that the throngs of ladies who crowded round them during school-hours had greatly retarded their improvement, by staring them out of countenance.

He thought it right to mention to the Meeting that the Council, in the choice of the Society's servants, had borne in mind that mere experience is but empiricism, and they had discovered that whoever could wash a coach-wheel could water a rhinoceros; that an over-grown Tiger was a proper person to feed a Lion, and the offsprings of their darlings were doubtless best qualified to fodder their deers. He congratulated the Meeting, that while common show-men were confined by their capabilities to merely exhibiting their animals alive, this collection presented exclusively the additional advantage of a speedy opportunity of dissection. He concluded by an announcement, for which he trusted they would ever prove grateful, that his Majesty had granted to the Society permission to appear at Court with long ears and a tail, and to distinguish themselves by the appendage of any letters not exceeding three to their names, but ending with an S. At this intimation the delighted Ear-ers trotted away to give orders to their tail-ers, and to search their dictionaries. They all returned suit-ed before they got far into the alphabet.

The President then read an interesting letter from a member detailing new facts in the history of the domestic cat (felis communis). The writer's housekeeper had been making her annual brewing of elder wine, which was left in the barrel, unstopped, secundum artem, to ferment. Hearing an extraordinary noise in the cellar, she ventured to peep through the key-hole, and to her consternation beheld about twenty strange cats, assembled, apparently on the invitation of the Tortoise-shell of the family. They were engaged in springing in succession on the barrel, plunging their tails through the bung-hole into the delicious liquid till saturated, and then sucking them dry. The old lady distinctly heard her pet grimalkin say to a grave tabby gentleman, who seemed tasting, with an air of connoisseurship, "How! How!" to which he replied, in sounds which seemed to her very like "More brandy." The worthy dame fell down in a swoon, and was found by some of the servants in a state of insensibility, with an empty brandy bottle in her hand, and she had only sufficiently recovered to narrate the above remarkable occurrence. The letter was ordered to be published in their Annual Report, and many other tails of cats formed subjects of conversation during the evening.

A learned member offered a shrewd conjecture that the common shrew was the connecting link between quadrupeds and a certain variety of woman-kind, and that the universal chain might again be traced from man to the feathered race, through the medium of the human thief, especially when he was a-robbin!

The secretary informed the society that in consequence of the discoveries of the British Association, the giraffes had been lately fed on lettuce leaves, which had so far imparted to their necks the properties of caoutchouc, that they now possessed the capability of indefinite extension. At this period of the proceedings one of the animals stretched his neck from his stable to the council room, and as the president was proceeding to offer some consolation on the head of the dead lion, by descanting on the spur in his tail, put his face into the midst of the company, and, for the first time in his life, cried out, "Bah!" which had the effect of breaking up the assembly.

['Old up the lantern, vill you, Bill?]

['Ow werry sewere the cold is, to be sure! it qvite makes von's head turn round. I might have been having a drop too much—and I'm sure I haven't: no—not a drop—too much. I only had half a pint o' beer at Mr. Simkins's—and a small glass of gin at Mr. Wiggins's—and the least drop as ever vos o' visky at Mr. Higgins's—and a pot of porter at Mr. Figgins's—and a thimbleful of brandy at Mr. Villiam Smith's—and a mug of stout at Mr. Valter Smith's—and a glass of grog at Mr. Thomas Smith's—and the share of a pint of purl at Mr. John Smith's—and a teacupful of cherry bounce at Vidow Smith's—and a draught of Dublin stout at Miss Smith's—and I'm sure that couldn't do nob'dy no harm; could it, Bill?]

[Vell, I never vos out in sech a frost in my life: I can't keep my legs the least bit as ever vos. Slippery times these is, to be sure. Hold the lantern up, vill you, Bill?]

[Vill you 'old the lantern stiddy, Bill; and not keep vhirling it about in that vay. Vot lots o' rewolving lights there is in this part of the city, to be sure!]

[Vell, I'm blest if ever I see such printing as this: they've let the paper slip, and printed the werses twice over.]

[I vishes them there vaits vouldn't make such a nise with their 'arps and 'orns: nob'dy can't 'ear a vord as I says: they're no gentlemen, I'm sure: they might vait vaiting till I've done.]

[It's no use talking—nor reading nayther—for I can't get a vord out—it's so werry cold! Werses is qvite lost sitch rhymy veather as this. Bill, I see there's music and dancing going on at the gin shop over the vay; so never mind boxing no more to-night, but let's go and jine in the "Waults."]

SCRAPS FROM THE ANNUAL REGISTER.

Jan. 9.—At a general meeting of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, Sir John Soane's splendid architectural design for a new gateway to the school was adopted, with one dissentient only, to whom it was conceded, at his special request, that his protégé should be allowed to enter through a Pipe of Port.

Feb. 10.—An eminent apothecary in the New Road attended at Marylebone office to prosecute his errand boy, who, when sent out with medicine, being versed in Shakspeare, used to "throw physic to the dogs," and sell the empty bottles: the boy had spent the money in going to see the Bottle Imp. The doctor said his suspicions were first excited by finding his patients suddenly getting well. His worship at first threatened the culprit with the pillory and the black-hole; but afterwards changed the sentence into pills and a black draught, as more severe, and desired his master to take him home and dose him.

March 10.—A young lady at the Bucks county ball was apparently seized with convulsions in the midst of a quadrille. Her mamma ran to her assistance, and matters were soon restored. It seems that, her waist having been reduced to the minimum of magnitude, she was always obliged to be unhooked behind before she could sneeze.

May 25.—An elderly Gentleman was charged with having kissed a Lady for a Lark, in the fields near Kentish Town. He was fined five shillings for not being a better naturalist, with an admonition from the worthy magistrate, that most of the birds in that district belonged to the order "Pass-er."

June 23.—The splendid pair of yahoos, recently presented to the So-oh!-logical Society by the Duke of C——, have shown such extraordinary apt-ness, under the influence of example and good society, that on Sunday last, after having been submitted to the respective operations of Mr. Stulz and Madame Carson, they were allowed to walk out among the fashionables, when they deported themselves so well, that none but those in the secret could distinguish them from the rest of the company.

July 15.—The torrents which ushered in the morning led many to believe that, as this was the first day of St. Swithin's reign, so he had also selected it for his coronation; and in this they were confirmed by the streaming of the people along the streets, and the wringing of the Belles.

Aug. 26.—At the meeting of the British Association, at Bristol, Professor Buckland announced, as an indisputable fact, that the antediluvians kept cows, and vended their produce as we do; for, in the plains of Bul-garia, he had recently discovered a petrified milk walk, with a fragment of a fossil pump-handle at the end of it.

Sept. 1.—A sporting Cockney was unlucky enough to hit a cow in the calf of her leg, at Hornsey. She was no sooner in a limp than he was in a hobble, and he found to his cost that leg of beef is not always to be peppered with impunity.

Sept. 12.—Mr. Curtis announced his intention of standing for the Borough of Eye, in the event of a dissolution of Parliament, and made his opening speech to the voters amidst cries of "Ear! Ear!"

Oct. 10.—"Found, a healthy male Infant," &c., &c. That ancient sine quâ non to persons crossing the seas, a child's caul, is now a mere drug in the market. Instead of making it a compagnon de voyage, numbers cross the seas to avoid it. A child's call, in high preservation, may be picked up on any moonlight night, in any blind alley where you see "Rubbish to be shot here." A handbill headed "Desertion," formerly a monstrosity of un-English shape, is now a forme that the parish printer always keeps standing; and the beadles dryly observe, that they are become wet nurses to the children of half the parish. The Honourable Commissioners of the mechanical powers, Messrs. Leave-er, Wedge, and Screw, are indefatigable in fulfilling the intentions of their employers who have devised this happy state of things, to save themselves and their hopeful heirs from the unpleasant necessity of answering "A child's call."

Nov. 2.—A resolution was carried in the Common Council not to allow any more money for summer excursions on the water. The minority said they dreaded the vengeance of the ladies, and many members returned home in a very unhappy state, looking anxiously about for inscriptions of "Broken crockery mended here;" for they knew, by past experience, that man is the vessel that goes to pot when it comes to family jars.