University of Virginia Library

1. I.
ARRIVAL IN LONDON.

Mr. Punch, My dear Sir,—You prob'ly
didn't meet my uncle Wilyim when he was
on these shores. I jedge so from the fack
that his pursoots wasn't litrary. Commerce,
which it has been trooly observed
by a statesman, or somebody, is the foundation
stone onto which a nation's greatness
rests, glorious Commerce was Uncle
Wilyim's fort. He sold soap. It smelt
pretty, and redily commanded two pents a
cake. I'm the only litrary man in our fam'ly.
It is troo, I once had a dear cuzzun
who wrote 22 versis onto “A Child who
nearly Died of the Measles, O!” but as he
injoodiciously introjuced a chorious at the

end of each stanzy, the parrents didn't like
it at all. The father in particler wept afresh,
assaulted my cuzzun, and said he never felt
so ridicklus in his intire life. The onhappy
result was that my cuzzun abandind poetry
forever, and went back to shoemakin, a
shattered man.

My Uncle Wilyim disposed of his soap,
and returned to his nativ land with a very
exolted opinyin of the British public. “It
is a edycated community,” said he; “they're
a intellectooal peple. In one small village
alone I sold 50 cakes of soap, incloodin
barronial halls, where they offered me a
ducal coronet, but I said no—give it to the
poor.” This was the way Uncle Wilyim
went on. He told us, however, some stories
that was rather too much to be easily swallerd.
In fack, my Uncle Wilyim was not
a emblem of trooth. He retired some years
ago on a hansum comptency derived from
the insurance-money he received on a rather
shaky skooner he owned, and which turned
up while lyin at a wharf one night, the cargo
havin fortnitly been remooved the day afore
the disastriss calamty occurd. Uncle Wilyim

said it was one of the most sing'ler
things he ever heard of; and, after collectin
the insurance-money, he bust into a flood
of tears, and retired to his farm in Pennsylvany.
He was my uncle by marriage only.
I do not say that he wasn't a honest man.
I simply say that if you have a uncle, and
bitter experunce tells you it is more profitable
in a pecoonery pint of view to put
pewter spoons instid of silver ones onto
the table when that uncle dines with you
in a frenly way—I simply say, there is sumthun
wrong in our social sistim, which calls
loudly for reform.

I 'rived on these shores at Liverpool, and
proceeded at once to London. I stopt at
the Washington Hotel in Liverpool, because
it was named after a countryman of
mine who didn't get his living by makin'
mistakes, and whose mem'ry is dear to civilised
peple all over the world, because he
was gentle and good as well as trooly great.
We read in Histry of any number of great
individooals, but how few of 'em, alars!
should we want to take home to supper
with us! Among others, I would call

your attention to Alexander the Great,
who conkerd the world, and wept because
he couldn't do it sum more, and then took
to gin-and-seltzer, gettin' tight every day
afore dinner with the most disgustin' reg'larity,
causin' his parunts to regret they
hadn't 'prenticed him in his early youth to
a biskit-baker, or some other occupation of
a peaceful and quiet character. I say,
therefore, to the great men now livin' (you
could put 'em all into Hyde Park, by the
way, and still leave room for a large and
respectable concourse of rioters)—be good.
I say to that gifted but bald-heded Prooshun,
Bismarck, be good and gentle in your
hour of triump. I always am. I admit
that our lines is different, Bismarck's and
mine; but the same glo'rus principle is involved.
I am a exhibiter of startlin' curiositys,
wax works, snaix, etsetry, (“either of
whom,” as a American statesman whose
name I ain't at liberty to mention for perlitical
resins, as he expecks to be a candidate
for a prom'nent offiss, and hence doesn't
wish to excite the rage and jelisy of other
showmen—“either of whom is wuth dubble
the price of admission”); I say I am a
exhibiter of startlin curiositys, and I also
have my hours of triump, but I try to be
good in 'em. If you say, “Ah, yes, but
also your hours of grief and misfortin;” I
answer, it is troo, and you prob'ly refer to
the circumstans of my hirin' a young man
of dissypated habits to fix hisself up as a A
real Cannibal from New Zeelan, and when
I was simply tellin the audience that he
was the most feroshus Cannibal of his tribe,
and that, alone and unassisted, he had et
sev'ril of our fellow-countrymen, and that
he had at one time even contemplated eatin
his Uncle Thomas on his mother's side, as
well as other near and dear relatives,—when
I was makin' these simple statements, the
mis'ble young man said I was a lyer, and
knockt me off the platform. Not quite
satisfied with this, he cum and trod hevily
on me, and as he was a very musculer person
and wore remarkable thick boots, I
knew at once that a canary bird wasn't
walkin' over me.

I admit that my ambition ovelept herself
in this instuns, and I've been very careful

ever since to deal square with the public.
If I was the public I should insist on
squareness, tho' I shouldn't do as a portion
of my audience did on the occasion jest
mentioned, which they was emplyed in
sum naberin' coal mines. “As you hain't
got no more Cannybals to show us, old
man,” said one of 'em, who seemed to be a
kind of leader among 'em—a tall dis'greeble
skoundril—“as you seem to be out of
Cannybals, we'll sorter look round here and
fix things. Them wax figgers of yours
want washin.' There's Napoleon Bonyparte
and Julius Cæsar—they must have a
bath,” with which coarse and brutal remark
he imitated the shrill war-hoop of the western
savige, and, assisted by his infamus
coal-heavin companyins, he threw all my
wax-work into the river, and let my wild
bears loose to pray on a peaceful and inoffensive
agricultooral community.

Leavin Liverpool (I'm goin' back there,
tho—I want to see the Docks, which I
heard spoken of at least once while I was
there) I cum to London in a 1st class car,
passin' the time very agreeable in discussin,

with a countryman of mine, the celebrated
Schleswig-Holstein question. We took
that int'resting question up and carefully
traced it from the time it commenced being
so, down to the present day, when my
countryman, at the close of a four hours' annymated
debate, said he didn't know anything
about it himself, and he wanted to
know if I did. I told him that I did not.
He's at Ramsgate now, and I am to write
him when I feel like givin him two days in
which to discuss the question of negro
slavery in America. But now I do not feel
like it.

London at last, and I'm stoppin at the
Greenlion tavern. I like the lan'lord very
much indeed. He had fallen into a few
triflin errers in regard to America—he was
under the impression, for instance, that we
et hay over there, and had horns growin
out of the back part of our heads—but his
chops and beer is ekal to any I ever pertook.
You must cum and see me, and
bring the boys. I'm told that Garrick
used to cum here, but I'm growin skeptycal
about Garrick's favorit taverns. I've had

over 500 public-houses pinted out to me
where Garrick went. I was indooced one
night, by a seleck comp'ny of Britons, to
visit sum 25 public-houses, and they confidentially
told me that Garrick used to go
to each one of 'em. Also, Dr. Johnson.
This won't do, you know.

May be I've rambled a bit in this communycation.
I'll try and be more collected
in my next, and meanwhile, b'lieve me
Trooly Yours,