Some promising runners and riders in a race so far without prize money!
In February 1868 Mr Punch was also piling on the nag gags at the expense of The Society for the Propagation of Horseflesh as an Article of Food, which mounted a campaign in the wake of a devastating cattle plague. However, its attempt to provide cheap meat for the poor foundered on horsemeat’s image as unsavoury-looking dog and cat food sold on skewers in the street.
Hence Mr P’s fun with the hippophagists’ after their banquet at the Langham Hotel on February 6th and its offering of ‘boiled withers’ or ‘Shetland pony with Salad’ at Ramsgate two days later. Cue jokes about horse-chestnuts and chestnut horses, pie-balds, first and second coursers, Horsemonger Gaol, and various verses such as ‘Nursery Songs for little Horse-Eaters’.
Hey diddle diddle!
Horse-loin in the middle,
Horse soup at each end for the spoon.
The little dogs fear their supply may run short
And the knackers may shut up shop soon.
Douglas, was 'Mr Ed' any relation to 'Francis the Talking Mule'?
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