THE ISLE OF SKYE AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE. (From "Punch.")

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 692, 1 December 1852, Page 3

THE ISLE OF SKYE AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE. (From " Punch.")

There arc about twenty millions of sheep in Australia crying for shepherds. Sir Charles Trevelyan avouches the fact. In the Island of Skye the whole population are in danger of perishing for want of sustenance. Superfluous mutton on one hand, starving families on the other. What is needful for sheep and men is simply this ; to take the Isle of Skye and empty it into the Antipodes, Talk of playhouse pantomimes —here is a pantomime of re«il life to be worked, fairy transformations not to end with the fall of the curtain, hut, the transformation once effected, to be perpetuated for generations. Evevy man with a sovereign to spare, with even half-a-sovereign, may make himself a real, bene-' volent, twenty or ten-shilling magician. Nothing more easy. We will show it —show it pantoinimically—how the thing may be done.

Scene 1. — Isle of Skye; rock and barren scenery ; mists rolling up from the sea. Popq*. lation scattered, emaciated, despairing. Hunger, andh.er attendant fiends prowl through the island. The aspect of %\\ things U tnaj; of hopelessness and. desolation, Ship, the Golden Fleece, drops anchor. Mists clear away — sun breaks out. Boats, containing certain well-known person?, whose names brighten committees, pull to the shore. Other boats, containing clothes and victuals, follow.

Scene 2.-— Hundreds of families, the old, the young, all and every one carrying something that is to them a remembrance — a sort of household god — to slow bagpipe music wend to the shore ; then embark in the boats.

Scene 3. — Deck of the Golden Fleece crowded with aforesaid inhabitants of Skye. Anchor weighed — bagpipe sounded — and departure. (Here ma}' be imagined a very beautiful moving panorama of sea and sky ; dolphins, flying- fish, &c, ice, and ships going smd. coming. Approach of land — land made ; landcqnfcinueduntilitstretcb.es into the Bush)

Scene 4. — An extensive view of the Bush ; so extensive that hundreds of Skye shepherds and families are seen in various places ; the aforesaid shepherds and families so ruddy and sleek, that their dearest creditors, if they had any > would not know them. Curtain falls to music of bagpipes playing Aald Lang Syne. Now here is a pantomime that everybody, with even half-a-sovereign, may help to produce. A long golden wand is not necessary ; but the least bit of the coined metal. For only half-a-sovereign, and a man may help to change the horrible reality of Skye to the fairy plenteousness of the Antipodes. Gentlemen, your subscriptions for the good ship Golden Fleece.

A King in a Passion, — In the course of a recent tour the King of Prussia stopped at Stergard. The Burgomaster and other civic authorities were in waiting at the railway station, and respectfully invited the King to breakfast. To the astonishment of the worthy citizens, bis Majesty opened bis paternal mouth and spolie thus:— "l will eat nothing here; I will drink nothing here. I hate Stergard. I would not have come at all, had it not been that the railway passed here. Stergard has shown in the year 1848 that it indulges in the most revolutionery, in the most subversive, tendencies." His Majesty having paused to breathe, the Burgomaster (or Mayor) ventqred to remark that the good town of Stergard bad no doubt been very agitated ia that remarkable year, but by no means so agitated as the enlightened city, (Berlin,) the residence of his Majesty, where things did »ot pass off with bloodless agitation. The King, in a very excited tone, replied, " The officials of Stergard encouraged the revolutionary efforts and the loyal people were obliged to withdraw from (he scene af action, and even to hide themselves." The Burgomaster was about to offer some reply, when the king started up in violent passion, clenched his royal fist, and was proceeding to clench tbe argument on the unlucky Burgraaster's head, when the Minister Manteuffel and the King's adjutant interposed, seized his Majesty's arm, and spoiled a very nice little exhibition of loyal pugilism. Tradition saya that Frederick the Great was wont to chastise offending captains of grenadiers witb his cane. The grandson of the philosopher no doubt imagined that be had a right divine tq thrash a Rlnyor.