PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.-JUNE 11, 1870.

KICK'D

OUT!!

JONATHAN (PRESIDENT GRANT). "WELL KICK'D, BRITISHER! GUESS I'LL KETCH THE SKUNK FOR YER, THIS SIDE!".

A NEW HISTORY OF INVENTIONS.

ow did ladies and hairdressers and milliners and sub-editors manage without scissors? This is a point which has not received sufficient attention from the acute metaphysician and the keen statistician; and yet it is an important one, for we know, from JOSEPHUS, who handles the matter in his usual trenchant style, that many centuries came and went after the needle had penetrated domestic life, before the meritorious little implement, of which we are now treating, was to be found lying in the workbox, or depending from the girdle of the wives and mothers of the middle ages.

The invention of "the glittering forfex," like the discovery of steam,

and printing, and portable soup, and pomatum, has been claimed by various nations, many eras, and different individuals, with a good deal of acrimony and mutual abuse; and at this distance of time it is impossible to determine, with any approach to mathematical accuracy, which of the competitors has the best title to a niche in the Temple of Fame, and a handsome testimonial in money or plate.

In this country alone, not to mention Silesia and the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, the thought is said to have flashed first across the great mind of STEELE, in the seclusion of that sequestered cottage at Edgware, where he lived so long undisturbed by Tattlers and unmolested by Spectators; but modern criticism refuses to believe in SIR RICHARD's pretensions, and rather pins its faith on GRANVILLE SHARP, OF LORD CUTTS, or LORD SHEFFIELD (GIBBON's friend), or some one of the roistering blades of "the younger CHARLES's" inventive age; and in this envelope of uncertainty we must leave the question, believing there will never cease to be a division of opinion upon it even in the best circles.

The Crusaders were fine fellows, and we are deeply obliged to them for the Jerusalem Artichoke. So were the Knights of the Circular Table issuing their invitations at Caerleon, and those "Wandering Minstrels," the Troubadours, and the Barons who initiated a long succession of reforms on the green sward of Runnymede, and the Five Members, and the Seven Bishops, and the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Doges of Venice, and the Stadtholders; but they all, in comparison with us polished nineteenth century men, laboured under one great disadvantage, and had to contend with one serious drawback-they could not have their boots blacked either in the privacy of their own homes, or at the corner of St. James's Street. Blacking was unknown in their days and dressing-rooms, and the bright thought of patent leather was still wrapt in impenetrable obscurity. We know more about Castor and Pollux, or HARMODIUS and ARISTOGEITON, than they did of DAY & MARTIN; and in their bosoms the name of WARREN awakened no more pleasing recollections than that of PSAMMITICHUS would in our breasts. All honour, then, to these benefactors to their race (MESSRS. D. & M., and MR. W.) who, in the midst of trying times (the period of one of the French Revolutions), devoted their leisure hours to the study of chemistry, and produced the composition which reflects lustre on their names, and renders us indifferent to the mud of Tottenham Court Road.

SONGS OF THE SORROWFUL.

IV. "THE MAN WITH HOUSE PROPERTY."

IN happier days I often sighed

To think, alas! that I

No stake had in the country
In the shape of property.

I had no land on which I could
Erect a house or two,
Until one day I was left six
Small cottages at Kew.

The relative who left me them
No doubt imagined he
Was doing something generous
Towards me, his legatee.

Alas! the cruel deed he did

I trust he little knew
When he gave up to me those six
Vile cottages at Kew.

I took possession speedily,

And made the tenants quakePossession was for some time all That I contrived to take. For Number One went off one night Just as his rent was due, And didn't even leave the key

Of Cobden Cottage, Kew. Then Number Two began to growl Because his cellar damp was, And Number Three, an aged dameA sort of Sairey Gamp wasVowed she'd not pay at all; that I Could not induce her to; That I might take away the doors From Woodbine Cottage, Kew.

I did. She stayed-at length I had To bribe her to retreat.

At Number Four the gentleman
His wife would nightly beat,
Which forced poor Number Five to quit-
A tenant good and new-

The only one midst all the row
Who paid his rent at Kew.

Then as to Number Six-he seemed
A pleasant sort of man;
He paid his quarter in advance-
A most unusual plan.

One day he went off in a cab
With two stern men in blue,
Howled at by all who lived around
Those cottages at Kew.

These tenants superseded quite
Have been by others since.

I never see an applicant

But at the sight I wince.
For though most satisfactory
May be our interview,
We're bound to grow to deadly foes
In course of time at Kew.

One wants his drains attended to,
Another's bells are wrong,

A third insists on paint at once-
That is the usual song,
Combined with papering; a fourth
Goes on about the flue;
There never were such buildings as
Those cottages at Kew.

I try to meet them every way,
And take the greatest pains
To remedy the chimneys

And ameliorate the drains.
I paint, I paper-all in vain
Is everything I do :

Oh, Uncle JONES, why did you leave
Me cottages at Kew?

I built a stable at the back

Of Number Three-those frights At Number Four declared that it Disturbed their "ancient lights." They are twin sisters, and to soothe The feelings of the two

I'd to reduce the rent five pounds,

Of Crabtree Cottage, Kew.

Ye who have sighed for "house and lands"

Pray warning take by me,

And never hope an uncle will
Leave you house property."
But if you're anxious to invest,
Much pleasure will accrue
By purchasing my charming six
Small cottages at Kew.

TURF REFORM.-Mowing your Lawn.

SPOILED GOODS.

THE defeat of Macgregor in the Derby was a great loss to the jokemakers as well as to the bookmakers. Fully prepared to make a most improper use of MR. MERRY's name, they were reluctantly compelled to return home with several jokes in their heads unused; and not even on the Oaks Day had they the much wished-for opportunity of dealing out these choice samples of wit and humour.

We know, on unimpeachable authority, that had Macgregor won, these amusing and original persons meant to have said, that wherever they went on the course their eyes rested on a Merry party; and to have eclipsed this brilliant remark by the overpowering observation, that everybody seemed bent on a regular good Merrymaking, with the addition of a hint to the festal revellers, that it were good to be Merry and wise. Some of the more literary spirits had ready a quotation from BYRON (see the Bride of Abydos) to the effect, that " All went Merry as a marriage bell,"-it was impossible to introduce this extract from his works on Friday after the success of Gamos-and the more hardened offenders would have gone the length of declaring that from first to last the conduct of the possessor of Macgregor and Sunshine had been highly Meritorious.

As it was, the dispirited jokesters ventured on nothing more striking than a comment on the thousands of persons whose Merriment was spoilt for the day at 3.23 P.M. with a contemptuous reference to their thoughts being anything but Merrythoughts. The only other attempt made was a hazy sort of calculation as to the number of disappointed people who were at that moment saying, with Othello, "I am not Merry," or expressing their disbelief in the possibility of the existence of any such character as Mr. Merryman.

A Great and Good Painter.

SIR EDWIN LANDSEER was humanely right in what he said at the Annual Meeting of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Cropping a dog's ears is "a cruel and injurious practice". one which we hope will never crop up again.

A LOSS TO ANCIENT NICHOLAS. JUDICIOUSLY criticising an injudicious judgment upon an appeal from a recent decision in the Probate and Divorce Court-a judgment opposed to common sense and to the opinion of the LORD CHIEF BARON, the Times quotes, as illustrative of the spirit in which judges trained to the Common Law are given to adjudicate on legal questions, the saying of LORD KENYON'S :-"If we take to considering equities, we are lost." Just so. In any case of legal doubt the safe side, in the view of your thorough lawyer, is the side of iniquity. He feels that, by taking the just side, he would be in so far lost to the service of that personage whose name is borne by that celebrated Corps euphemistically entitled the Inns of Court Volunteers.

Aphrodite's New Accomplishment.

CAN you imagine Venus smoking, and smoking, too, not a delicate cigarette, not a mild cigar, but-a pipe? Distressing as the revelation may be, there is too good reason for believing that the Goddess of Love and Beauty did indulge in tobacco; for in a newspaper notice of the Exhibition of Fans, now open at the South Kensington Museum, we read that the subject painted on one of the pretty specimens in the Collection is "Venus coming from the Meerschaum" probably after symposium on Olympus with some fast young Gods.

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