THE POLKA PLAGUE.
The year 1844 will be ever memorable in our national annals, on account of the breaking out of a great plague, on which physiologists have conferred the title of "Polkamania." This remarkable affliction first originated in the Black Forests of Bohemia, where it took the name of Polka—which is, no doubt, a corruption of Pole-ca, a word evidently derived from the pole cat, to which, as an excessive nuisance, the Polka has some kind of affinity.
The boors, or bores, of the Black Forest communicated the Polka to some Parisians, who always take quickly any malady of the kind, and it very soon spread among the people of the French capital. It was introduced into England a short time after, by a coryphèe coming over to fulfil an engagement at Her Majesty's Theatre. The poor fellow was, indeed, very bad with it, and it was thought that it would have died a natural death, for it did not seem to be very taking until Monsieur Jullien happened to catch it, and infected several places of public amusement with the severe calamity. The malady now spread with fearful rapidity, and even Mr. Baron Nathan fell a victim to it in its fiercest shape, while others of less exalted rank in the Terpsichorean world had it in a much milder form than the Baron. The symptoms of the disease are too well known to need a lengthy description. It causes a contraction of the leg, and a drawing up the heel to a considerable height, accompanied by a violent twisting of the head from side to side, and numerous contortions of the body. It gives a strange sort of motion to the arms, occasions a repeated stamping of the feet, and induces altogether a singularity of action which is not to be found in other cases of mania. It is to be expected that the malady will soon wear itself out, like other previous visitations of a somewhat similar character.
BOXING-NIGHT—A picture in the National Gallery.
THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
A DIALOGUE.
TOM.
Hallo! Bill Brown; how's you, and how's your
Sister Jane, and your blessed old mother?
When you loses that maternal parent, Bill,
You'll never get such another.
BILL.
Why, we're all tollolish, and to-night, as I'm a
Gentleman-at-large, owing to the depression in baked taturs,
We've all on us made up our mind to go to
The gallery of one of the National The-aturs.
TOM.
Let's see, there's Common Garden, that's a
Well wentilated the-atur just at present;
But then the doors open at no time
During the evening—and that's unpleasant.
BILL.
Then there's Drury Lane—a sort of Italian
Opera, werry much diluted—
Where there's ballets in which ladies
In werry short dresses dance—who might be better suited.
TOM.
Ah! time was, a National Gallery was worth
A shilling of any man's money;
When Mister Edmund Kean used to do the
Violent pathetic, and Old Joe the excruciating funny.
BILL.
Then you couldn't get a front row without a fight,
And a row with the police no ways,
And the lady you took with you having
All her bones broken—I mean the bones in her stays.
TOM.
When penny oranges fetched tuppence, and bottled
Porter became stout by the change of situation;
And used to pay—but, lor! what
Wouldn't one pay in a wiolent perspiration!
BILL.
Boys could whistle then, and with only
Their wital part heat the steam-engine really;
I have heard that a gallery in full
Whistle once blew out the great chandelier—nearly.
TOM.
Hallo! that's six o'clock! so I must cut away,
As time's rather pressing;
And our Jane's back-hair's too short to turn
Up, and too long to hang down, so she
Takes a long time a dressing.
BILL.
No apology, Tom; I'm not one of them
Chaps as is over nice;
And if I can hold a gennelman's horse, and get
Another penny, I'll come in at half-price.