Various

“ Poor men of England, consider not merely the fine and the expenses attendant upon absence from church, but reflect upon the want of that beautiful exercise of the spirit which, listening to precepts and parables in Holy Writ, delights to find for them practical illustrations in the political and social world about you. We know you would not think of going to church in masquerade—of reading certain lines and making certain responses as a bit of Sabbath ceremony, as necessary to a respectable appearance as a Sabbath shaving. ”

“ When we consider the many and impartial blessings scattered upon the poor of England—when in fact we consider the beautiful justice pervading our whole social intercourse—when we reflect upon the spirit of good-will and sincerity that operates on the hearts of the powerful few for the comfort and happiness of the helpless million,—we are almost aghast at the infidelity of poverty, forgetting in our momentary indignation, that poverty must necessarily combine within itself every species of infamy. ”

“ Those to whom Brighton is recommended for change of air and of scene get sadly taken in, for here the air—like that of a barrel-organ—never changes, as the wind is always high. In sunshine, Brighton always looks hot; in moonshine, eternally dreary; the men are yawning all day long, and the women sitting smirking in bay-windows, or walking with puppy-dogs and parasols, which last they are continually opening and shutting. ”

“ By such disobedience, one would almost think that the poor were wicked enough to consider the church discipline of the Sabbath as no more than a ceremonious mockery of their six days wants and wretchedness.
The magistrates— (would we knew their names, we would hang them up in the highways like the golden bracelets of yore) —who have made John Jones religious through his pocket, are men of comprehensive genius. There is no wickedness that they would not make profitable to the Church. ”

“ There is a library, where the visiters do everything but read; and a theatre, where—as Charles Kean is now playing there—they do anything but act. The ladies seem to take great delight in the sea-bath, and that they may enjoy the luxury in the most secluded privacy, the machines are placed as near to the pier as possible. This is always crowded with men, who, by the aid of opera glasses, find it a pleasing pastime to watch the movements of the delicate Naiads who crowd the waters. ”

“ In short, when a man is sick of the world, or a maiden of forty-five has been so often crossed in love as to be obliged to leave off hoping against hope, Brighton is an excellent place to prepare him or her for a final retirement from life—whether that is contemplated in the Queen’s Bench, a convent, a residence among the Welsh mountains, or the monastery of La Trappe, a month’s probation in Brighton, at the height of the season, being well calculated to make any such change not only endurable, but agreeable. ”

“ Would the Phrenotypics, or brain-printing, as it is called, succeed in stereotyping a pledge in the recollection of a member of parliament?
5thly. Is it possible for the new art to cause Sir Robert Peel to remember from one week to the other his political promises?
We fear these questions must be answered in the negative; but we have a plan of our own for exercising the memory, which will beat that of Beniow, or any other sky, who ventures to propose one. Our proposition is, “Read PUNCH,” and we will be bound that no one will ever forget it who has once enjoyed the luxury. ”

“ Furnished with these valuable adjuncts to study, he puts down every thing he hears during the day, both in the theatre of the school and the wards of the hospital, besides many diverting diagrams and anecdotes which his fellow-students insert for him, until at night he has a confused dream that the air-pump in the laboratory is giving a party, at which various scalpels, bits of gums, wax models, tourniquets, and fœtal skulls, are assisting as guests—an eccentric and philosophical vision, worthy of the brain from which it emanates. But the new man is, from his very nature, a visionary. ”

“ An isosceles or vacillating member is that to which two sides only are the same.
A scalene or scaly member has no one side which is equal to his own interest.
Parallel lines of politics are such as are in the same direction—say Downing-street; but which, being produced ever so far—say to Windsor—do not meet.
A political problem is a Tory proposition, showing that the country is to be done.
A theorem is a Whig proposition—the benefit of which to any one but the Whigs always requires to be demonstrated. ”

“ Beautiful is the village church of Phariseefield! Beautiful is its antiquity—beautiful its porch, thronged with white-headed men and ruddy little ones! Beautiful the graves, sown with immortal seed, clustering round the building! ”

“ A line in politics is interest without principle.
The extremities of a line are loaves and fishes.
A right line is that which lies evenly between the Ministerial and Opposition benches.
A superficies is that which professes to have principle, but has no consistency.
The extremities of a superficies are expediencies.
A plain superficies is that of which two opposite speeches being taken, the line between them evidently lies wholly in the direction of Downing-street.
A plain angle is the evident inclination, and consequent piscation, of a member for a certain place ”

“ A boundary is the extremity or whipper-in of any party.
A party is that which is kept together by one or more whippers-in.
A circular member is a rum figure, produced by turning round; and is such that all lines of politics centre in himself, and are the same to him. ”

“ After this, can the race of John Joneses fail to venerate Christianity as recommended by the Bench?
We have a great admiration of English Law, yet in the present instance, we think she shares very unjustly with Mother Church. For instance, Church in its meekness, says to John Jones, “You come not to my house on Sunday: pay a shilling.” John Jones refuses. “What!” exclaims Law—“refuse the modest request of my pious sister? Refuse to give her a little shilling! Give me fourteen.” Hence, in this Christian country, law is of fourteen times the consequence of religion. ”

“ A sort of secret interview between the mother and son now takes place, which ends by the imprisonment of the latter; why is not explained at the moment; nor, indeed, till the next scene, when it is quite apparent; for if one sees an impregnable castle, rigidly guarded by supernumeraries, with an impassable river, bristling with chevaux-de-frise it is impossible to get over, and a moat that it would be death to cross, a prison-escape may be surely calculated upon. ”

“ After about an hour’s dancing, the witches being naturally “blown,” are just in cue for leaving off with an airy dance called the “witches’ whirlwind.”
This episode over, the plot goes on. Ottocar accuses Ida of infidelity with Wilhelm to the duke; she, in explanation, fulfils the presentiment we had some delicacy in hinting too soon—that she is the wife of the man who was killed in the prologue; Rudolph having married her in ignorance of that fact, and by a coincidence which, though intensely melo-dramatic, every body foresees who has ever been three times to the Adelphi theatre. ”

“ But the soul of the club was Tom Connor—who, by his inexhaustible fund of humorous anecdotes and droll stories, kept the table in a roar till a late hour in the night, or rather to an early hour in the morning. Tom’s stories usually related to adventures which had happened to himself in his early days; and as he had experienced innumerable vicissitudes of fortune, in every part of the world, and under various characters, his narratives, though not remarkable for their strict adherence to truth, were always distinguished by their novelty. ”

“ If you be a married man, you will go to an hotel where you can get a bed for half-a-guinea a night, provided you do not want it warmed, and use your own soap; but it is five shillings extra if you do. Should you be a bachelor, or an old maid, you, of course, put up at a boarding-house, where you see a great deal of good society at two guineas a week; for every third man is a captain, and every fifth woman “my lady.” ”

“ Applauding as we do the efforts of the magistrates quoted by Lord BROUGHAM in the cause of Christianity, we yet conscientiously think their system capable of improvement. When the Rustic Police shall be properly established, we think they should be empowered to seize upon all suspected non-church goers every Saturday night, keeping them in the station-houses until Sunday morning, and then marching them, securely handcuffed, up the middle aisle of the parish church. ”

“ A few nights since his lordship, in a motion touching prison discipline, stated that “a man had been confined for ten weeks, having been fined a shilling, and fourteen shillings costs, which he did not pay, because he was absent one Sunday from church!”
Who can doubt, that from the moment John Jones— (the reader may christen the offender as he pleases) —was discharged, he became a most pious, church-going Christian? He had been ten Sundays in prison, be it remembered; and had therefore heard at least ten sermons. He crossed the prison threshold a new-made man ”

“ Bat will the public be satisfied with such scanty information? Who, they will ask the manager, rolls the thunder? who supplies the coloured fires? who flashes the lightning? who beats the gong? who grinds up the curtain? ”

“ When the villain, being especially desirous to preserve and secrete certain documents of vital importance to himself and to the piece, does, most unaccountably, mislay them in the most conspicuous part of the stage, and straightway they are found by the very last member of the dram. ”

“ The mistress of the house is a pious old lady, and I am very comfortable, with the exception that two pupils live on the floor above me, who are continually giving harmonic parties to their friends, and I am sometimes compelled to request they will allow me to conclude transcribing my lecture notes in tranquillity—a request, I am sorry to say, not often complied with. ”

“ When a will is found embellished with a Daguerréotype of four fingers and a thumb, done in blood on the cover, and it turns out that the residuary legatee is no better than he should be—but, on the contrary, a murderer nicely ripe for killing. ”

“ The opening lecture introduces the new man to his companions, and he is easily distinguished at that annual gathering of pupils, practitioners, professors, and especially old hospital governors, who do a good deal in the gaiter-line, and applaud the lecturer with their umbrellas, as they sit in the front row. The new man is known by his clothes, which incline to the prevalent fashion of the rural districts he has quitted ”

“ Its component parts are a villain, a lover, a heroine, a comic character, and an executioner. These having simmered and macerated through all manner of events, are strained off together into the last scene; and the effervescence which then ensues is called the dénouement, and the dénouement is the soul of the drama.
Dénouements are of three kinds:—The natural, the unnatural, and the supernatural.
The “natural” is achieved when no probabilities are violated;—that is, when the circumstances are such as really might occur—if we could only bring ourselves to think so—as, (ex. gr.) ”

“ The barbe au bonc, or Muntzian fringe, should only be worn when a gentleman is desirous of obtaining notoriety, and prefers trusting to his external embellishments in preference to his intellectual acquirements.
On Tips.—Tips are an abomination to which no gentleman can lend his countenance. They are a shabby and mangy compromise for mustachios, and are principally sported by the genus of clerks, who, having strong hirsute predilections, small salaries, and sober-minded masters, hang a tassel on the chin instead of a vallance on the upper lip. ”

“ The ladies then join hands, and endeavour to imitate the graceful evolutions of a windmill, occasionally grinding the corns of their partners, who frantically rush in with the quixotic intention of stopping them. ”

“ When the villain and his accomplice, congratulating each other on the successful issue of their crimes, and dividing the spoil thereof (which they are always careful to do in a loud voice, and in a room full of closets) , are suddenly set upon and secured by the innocent yet suspected and condemned parties, who are at that moment passing on their way to execution. ”

“ They have, we learn, been lately commissioned by Ottocar to murder Rudolph, the exiled Duke of Hapsburgh, who is to pass that way; but he does not come, because his kind kinsman, Ottocar, must have time to consult the god-fathers and god-mothers of the piece, or “Witches of the Rhine;” which he does in the “storm-reft hut of Zabaren.” This Zabaren is a hospitable gentleman, who sings a good song, sees much company, and is played by that convivial genius Paul Bedford. ”

“ What was to be done? why, nothing but to get up an impromptu influenza, and try his rhetoric on the presiding magistrates of the bench.
Influenced by this determination, Mr. Adolphus Casay started for that den of thieves and magistrates in the neighbourhood of Bow-street; but Mr. Adolphus Casay’s feelings were anything but enviable; though by no means a straitlaced man, he had an instinctive abhorrence of anything that appeared a blackguard transaction. Nothing but a kind wish to serve a friend would have induced him to appear within a mile of such a wretched place ”

“ It is not improbable that, after a short period, the new man will write a letter home. The substance of it will be as follows: and the reader is requested to preserve a copy, as it may, perhaps, be compared with another at a future period.
“MY DEAR PARENTS,—I am happy to inform you that my health is at present uninjured by the atmosphere of the hospital, and that I find I am making daily progress in my studies. I have taken a lodging in —— (Gower-place, University-street, Little Britain, or Lant-street, as the case may be,) for which I pay twelve shillings a week, including shoes. ”