* * * * *
A "PUNCH" TESTIMONIAL.
We are virtuously happy to announce that a meeting has been held at the
_Hum_-mums Hotel, Colonel Sibthorp in the chair, for the purpose of
presenting to PUNCH some testimonial of public esteem for his exertions in
the detection and exposure of fraudulent wits and would-be distinguished
characters.
COLONEL SIBTHORP thanked the meeting for the honour they had conferred
upon him in electing him their chairman upon this occasion. None knew
better than himself the service that PUNCH had rendered to the public. But
for that fun fed individual his (Col. Sibthorp's) own brilliant effusions
would have been left to have smouldered in his brain, or have hung like
cobwebs about the House of Commons. (_Hear, hear_!) But PUNCH had stepped
in to the rescue; he had not only preserved some of the brilliant things
that he (Col. Sibthorp) had said, but had also reported many of the
extremely original witticisms that he had intended to have uttered.
(_Hear_!) There were many honourable gentlemen--(he begged
pardon--gentlemen, he meant, without the honourable; but he had been so
long a member of parliament that he had acquired a habit of calling men
and things out of their proper names). Apologising for so lengthy a
parenthesis, he would say that there were many gentlemen who were equally
indebted (_hear! from Sir Peter Laurie, Peter Borthwick, and Pre-Adam
Roebuck_) to this jocular benefactor.
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