The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-09 00:00:00

Punch. Part 36. Office, 194, Strand.

\Vise and witty by turns in its literary matter, and in-
imitable in its illustrations. The age would be indeed
dull, aid humbug, and imposture over tuttithis land, if we
had not Punch to enliven us and occasionally to flog us
into honesty.

We are compelled this week to postpone notices of
". The Church of England Quarterly Review," " The
New Quarterly, or Home Foreign and Colonial Review,"
The Asiatic Journal," " Simmonds' Colonial Maga-
zine," &c. &c.

SELECTIONS.

IRISH MODE OF GETTING RID OF AN AWKWARD
WITNESS.—" It is to be hoped that his last affair may
last him for the remainder of his life. At his years and
mine, Mrs. Mary, there's more to be thou_lit of than the
laws of honour. , But indeed Lorigueville's affair was a
thing of the moment; it arose out at the great trial of the
Swindletraps, at the ass.zes before last. Longueville was
the chief witness against them, rind Miles Swindletrap
thought he might put him out of the way. The colonel
used to walk early in the morning by the water side—
Miles took care to meet him, and tne thing was soon set-
tled. A word and a blow affair. They drew—both good
swordsmen—but Swindletrap was in the duel what he
used to be in court. Longuevillc made two passes that
should either of them have settled the matter. Suddenly
he hears a fellow in the crowd (for you may be sure there's
no place so lonely that a duel wont bring a multitude
there,) cry out the word rabbit.' Now, just think of his
quickness in such a time; he pushes next str •ight for the
neck, where rabbits are sometimes killed with a stroke,
and the sword goes clean through the throat and out at
the back of the head—Swindleti ap was buffed. Longue-
ville wipes the blood off his sword—' Not bad," says he,
for seventy-two,' anti walks back to breakfast."—The
Ntvilles of Garretstown, in Dublin University Mag.
STORY OF A MONKEY.—Some time ago a French
gentleman, who was very fond of animals and of natural
history, brought from the captain of a ship a monkey re-
markable for its cleverness and surprising powers of imi-
tation. The same gentleman had a magnificent parrot for
several years, which was a great pet in the family.
Poor poll evidently did not like the new - corner,
and from the first regarded him.with an evil eye. The
monkey, on his side, was quite ready to take up a
quarrel, and exerted all his cleverness to teaze and annoy
his companion; so that often it was found necessary to
separate them by violent means. At length. one night,
when all the household had retired to rest, they were
waked up by piercing screams, as if from a person being
murdered. The gentleman started up, and se'zing his
gun, rushed towards the room whence the screams pro-
ceeded. All the house was soon stirring, each one armed
with the first weapon he could lay his hands on ; and ac-
companied by this escort, the master of the house opened
the door, and there beheld the monkey with a large
kitchen-knife in one band, with which the cook had killed
some chickens the day before, and holding the unfortunate
parot in the other. He had killed the poor bird in the
same way that he had seen the chickens killed the day
before. The cook had missed the knife immediately after
using it; so it was supposed the monkey had hidden it
till a convenient moment should arrive for exeent;ng his
plan of vengeance.—Burns' Magazine for the Young.
LABOURS OF A LORD CHANCELLOR.—The following
is an extract from a letter wr tten by the late Lord Eldon,
just published in a life of the venerable chancellor :
After all, Mary, I think I am wonderful, considering
how much h,ve gone through ; for mine has been no
easy life. I will tell you what once happened to me. I
was ill with the gout ; it was in my feet, so I was carried
into my carriage, and from it I was carried into my court.
There I remained all the day, arid delivered an arduous
judgment. In the evening I was carried straight from
my court to the House of Lords : there I sat until two
o'clock in the morning, when some of the Lords came
and whispered to me that I was expected to speak. I told
them I really could not, I was ill, and I could not stand ;
but they still urged, and at last I hobbled, in some way
or other, with their assistance, to the place from which I
usually addressed the House. It was an important ques-
tion: I forgot my gout, and spoke for two hours (on the
peace of Amiens.) Well, the House broke up, I was
carried home, and at six in the morning I prepared to go
to bed. My poor left leg had just got in, when I recol-
lected I had important papers to look over, and that I had
not had time to examine them ; so I pulled my poor left
leg out of bed, put on my clothes, and went to my study.
I did examine thepapers ; they related to the Recorder's
Report, which had to be heard that day ; I was again car-
ried into court, where I bad to deliver another arduous
judgment, again went to the house of Lords, and it was
not till the middle of the second night that I got into
bed. These are hard trials to a man's constitution."
FEMALE WORKERS IN COTTON-MILLS.—The great
majority, probably nine•tenths, of all the workers in cot-
ton-mills or printfie ds, are females. We have heard
much of the profligacy and licentiousness which pervade
such establishments; but though that may be too true in
some cases, it is far from being universal, or even gene-
ral ; and there are numerous instances of female virtue
being as jealously guarded and effectually preserved in
such establishments,*as in the most secluded rural dis-
tricts. The real evils—and they follow universally from
such employment of the juvenile females in great numbers
in lborious but lucrative employment—are the emanci-
pation of the. young from parental control, the temptation
held out to idleness in the parents from the possibility of
living on their children, and the disqualifying the girls
for performing all the domestic duties of wives and mo-
thers in after life. The evils are real, general, and of
ruinous consequence. When children—from the age of
nine rr ten in some establishments, of thir een and four-
teen in all—are able to earn wages varying from 3s. fid. to
6s. a week, they soon become in practice independent of
parental control. The strongest of all securities for filial
obedience—a sense of dependence—is destroyed. The
children assert the right of self-government, because they
bear the burden of self-maintenance. Nature, in the or-
dinary case, has effectually provided against this prema-
ture and fatal emancipation of the young, by the pro-
tracted period of weakness during childhood and adoles-
cence, which precludes the possibility of serious labour
being undertaken before the age when a certain degree of
mental firmness has been acquired. But the steam-en-
gine, amidst its other marvels, has entirely destroyed,
within the sphere of its influence, this happy and neces-
sary exemption of infancy from labour. Steam is the
moving power; it exerts the strength ; the human ma-
chine is required only to lift a web periodically, or damp a
roller, or twirl a film round the finger, to which the bands
of infancy are as adequate as those of mature age. Hence
the general employment of children, and especially girls,
in such employments. They are equally serviceable as
men or women, and they are more docile, cheaper, and
less given to strikes. But as these children earn their
own subsistence, they soon become rebellious to parental
authority, and exercise the freedom of middle life as soon
as they feel its passions, and before they have acquired its
self-control.— Causes of the Increase of Crime, in Black-
wood's Magazine.
LORD ELDON'S FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE.—ItI
1783 when Mr. Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, first be-
came a candidate for the borough of Weobly, he was re-
ceived and lodged in the house of Mr. Bridge, the vicar,
who, having a daughter then a young child, took a jocular
promise from him, that if be should ever become Chan-
cellor, and the little girl's husband should be a clergy-
man, the Chancellor would give that clergyman a living.
Now comes the sequel, partly related by Lord Eldon
himself to his niece (Mrs. Foster.) " Years rolled on—
I came into office : when one morning I was told a young
lady wished to speak to me; and I said that young ladies
must be attended to, so they must show her up. And
up came a very pretty young lady, and she curtsied and
simpered, and said she thought I could not recollect her.
I answered I certainly did not, but perhaps she could
recall herself to my memory; so she asked if I remem-
bered the clergyman at Weobly, and his little girl to
whom I had made a promise. ' Oh, yes !' I said, Ido
and 1 suppose you are the little girl?' She curtsied and.
said Yes." And I suppose you are married to a clergy-
man ?" No,' she said, and she blushed, lam only
going to be married to one, if you, my lord, will give him. ,
a living.' Well, I told her to come back in a few days
and I made inquiries to ascertain from the bishop of the
diocese that the gentleman she was going to be married
to was a respectable clergyman of the Church of England ;
and then I looked at my list, and found I actually had a
living vacant that I could give him. So when the young
lady came back I told her she might return home and
get married as fast as she liked, for her intended husband
should be presented to a living, and I would send the
papers as soon as they could be made out. ' Oh, no ! she
exclaimed, and again she simpered, and blushed, and
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