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Punch, or the London Charivari

Volume 105, December 16, 1893.

_edited by Sir Francis Burnand_

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SEASONABLE SONNET.

(_By a Vegetarian._)

  Yes, Christmas overtakes us yet once more.
    The Cattle Show has vanished in the mists
    Of time and Islington, but re-exists
  In piecemeal splendour at the store.
  Here, nightly, big boys blue are to the fore
    With knives and choppers in their greasy fists;
    And now, methinks, the wight who never lists
  Yet hears the brass band on the proud first floor.
  High over all rings "What d'ye buy, buy, buy?"
    The meat is decked with gay rosette and bow,
    While gas-jets beckon all the world and wife.
  A cheerful scene? A ghastly one, say I,
    Where mutilated corpses hang arow,
    And in the midst of death we are in life.

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AS THEY LIKED IT.--We read of the recent success at Palmer's Theatre,
New York, of _As You Like It_, with all the parts played by women.
Of course, everybody knows that this was a complete reversal of the
practice of the stage in SHAKSPEARE'S own day, when the buskin was
on the other leg, so to speak; but we are not told if the passage
"Doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat" was
transposed to "Petticoat ought