Something like Rejoicing.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 161, 10 December 1872, Page 6

Something like Rejoicing.

A correspondent of the Times calls the attention of a humane and civilised people to a most excellent bit of fun which was enacted the other day by some jovial naval officers at Portland. He says that when the Prince of Wales went there to open the new breakwater the weather was so boisterous, that the programme of the Royal proceedings had to be changed ; but although the wind effected this change, the yards of fifteen ironclads and one training ship were manned three times over. What followed was very laughable. He says, “The third time the poor fellows were kept in this perilous position for more than half an hour. Then, cold and trembling, they all came down but two—-a sad exception ; these two had fallen from the yards on to the decks of their ships dead." This was extremely amusing—and all done in honor of the prince ! What jolly follows those naval officers are to be sure, they almost recall to one’s mind that facetious King of Abyssinia—that cheerful old Theodore, whom we sent an army out after, you know, and who used, when he felt especially jolly, to have a drove of niggers brought before him so that he might slice at them right and left with his sabre, and send their woolly heads rolling about like skittles. Then there was that merry old King of Bonny, who had the beggars killed in hundreds, whenever he had a public rejoicing—and capital sport it must have been to be sure ; but then you see Theodore and the King of Bonny were somewhat coarse in their fun, they wanted the refinement of the English navy. Chopping is all very well in its way, but there is a certain vulgarity in it; and again, to kill the skunks that way requires exertion on somebody’s part, but nothing can be move refined and easy than ordering the amusing cusses up to the yards in the biting wind, and seeing them drop with the cold one by one like so many rooks potted off - with a shot-gun. Yes, Pugland is the place for refinement and civilisation, and for real hearty rejoicing. What fun it must have been to see those two stronghearted fellows who would have died like lions in the enemy’s face, nipped to death with an icy wind, and falling with a dull thud on the deck lifeless lumps of vulgar clay. How their commanding officer must have laughed, how it must have tickled the sides of the wives and children, or sweethearts and mothers of the bravo fellows, to think that they had died in honor of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The Hornet was never more amused in his life, he is in convulsions, he positively screams with delight, and nothing but the thought that the poor wretch’s mother or somebody might miss him prevents him decapitating his office-boy, or pitching him out of window into Fleet-street in joyous honor of The Hornet’s new volume. Next to seeing that glorious naval exhibition itself, The Hornet would give all his back numbers to see the officers who gave the orders for it, humourously manning the yards themselves on the very next day the wind blows icy arid deathly.| How they would scream to be sure. Here, bring me a cvp of lived! Ha, ha! — London Hornet.