FESTIVITIES IN SOUTHWARK.
A splendid banquet was yesterday given by Messrs. Pue and Phitt to their friends and connexions, to commemorate what may be termed the coming of age of their establishment; the extensive bone-boiling and horse-slaughtering concern, and catgut manufactory, situated in a densely populated part of the above district: which, having now arrived at the standing of 30 years, is exempt from the operation of the Nuisances Removal Act.
Dinner was served in a large shed on the premises, fitted up for the occasion, having been decorated with much attention to taste, and plentifully sprinkled with chloride of lime in equally judicious regard to smell.
The usual loyal toasts having been dispensed with, and "Our Noble Selves" substituted in their place, the senior partner proposed the toast of the evening. He said he was glad, in times like the present, when alarmists were making such efforts to lead people by the nose in a crusade against everybody who gave the slightest inconvenience to that organ, to see himself, and his friend at the other extremity of the table, surrounded by so numerous and respectable an assembly of well-wishers. He was proud of the support of the strong minds that despised a squeamish agitation, and of the strong stomachs—the two always went together—that asserted themselves in meeting to afford that support in that place. The interest that he and his partner had the honour of representing might be called one of the Institutions of Southwark; and they prided themselves upon the fact that their premises were, as a wag had observed, among the peculiar fetors of the locality. The odour of profit was pleasant, in the opinion of a wise man, no matter what the profit was made out of, and the surrounding district was rich in effluvia, and he hoped no dainty legislation would ever impoverish it. Bones were not boiled—dogsmeat was not made—catgut was not manufactured—with lavender-water. But what was called a perfume was often more unhealthy than the reverse. Flowers, for instance, were considered by the faculty bad for a sick room; and on the other hand, what could be more wholesome than physic, and what more nasty? The salubrity of the atmosphere they were then inhaling, was proved by the fact that himself and his family had been breathing it for the last thirty years; and that led him to the toast he was about to propose. The establishment which they were met to celebrate the prosperity of, had now completed the thirtieth year of its existence. It had, in fact, attained its majority, and was now no longer under that control that an infant business of the same nature is subject to. The monster nuisance, as it had been invidiously called, was no longer amenable to the Nuisances Removal Act. The young Giant was out of his nonage; and those who wished to grapple with him must do it in the Court of Quarter Sessions—where he defied them. He would now then give them the young Giant's good health; they would drink, if they pleased, Perpetuity to the Premises, and Success to Sulphuretted Hydrogen and Ammonia.
The toast was drunk with all the odours.
The other member of the firm briefly expressed his thanks for the kind and enthusiastic manner in which the company had responded to his worthy partner; which, he declared, quite delighted his old bones.
After a series of other anti-sanitary toasts and sentiments, the company separated at a late hour in an excited state, having, as a facetious gentleman remarked with a strong emphasis on the first syllable of the epithet, partaken of an entertainment that was truly sump-tuous.