FUDGE I THE Court of Exchequer was most amusingly, if
not very profit- ably, occupied during the whole of Monday last, with an animated discussion of the meaning of the word "Fudge !" The speech of the leading orator was throughout a most expressive comment on the term. Though he professed his ignorance of its meaning, and his inability to interpret it, with the genuine modesty of a man whose extensive learning and profound wisdom have taught him how much he has yet to acquire, he elucidated, entirely at his own expense, the precise nature of the qualities designated by that ex- pressive term. We would suggest that, having been so successful in the instance of the word "Fudge !" he would be doing the com- munity a service by developing in a similar demonstrative man- ner the meaning of "Humbug." But perhaps be may have anti- cipated our request,—and now we remember, the dead walls, to which the benefactors • of mankind lend tongues of chalk, which " he that runs may read," have exemplified that term ; and what the vulgar would regard as a blacking advertisement, was the hieroglyphic of Humbug!
But since the illustrious orator has added another bell to his cap by the illustration of the word, we would recommend him to adopt it as his motto ; and as there are others of his name—how must they feel honoured to share a patronymic with such a man !--he might write it after his name thus, " HENRY HUNT, X.M.P. Fudge !" But we are recommending a motto to one who perhaps disregards heraldic distinctions ; feeling that the escutcheon of an ancestor is unworthy of one who is the first of his race in nobility of soul. Let him choose a shield of native brass, not polished, and wear on it a bend sinister, with three blacking-bottles, proper, sable: a tongue couchant—we believe that is the heraldic term for lying —on a scutcheon of pretence; crest, an ass rampant ; the motto, " Fudge I"
Previous page