S37 



PUMP. 



PUNCH. 



83; 



merchant service each form having; its qualifications. That much is 

 required from them maybe gathered from the fact that a steamer of mode- 

 rate size requires a ton and a quarter of condensing water per hour for 

 each horse power ; and therefore in case of serious leak it is of vital 

 in!], u-tance to obtain this quantity for injection into the boilers from 

 the hold of the ship by means of the engine itself. Her Majesty's 

 ship Phoonix not long since was saved from foundering in the Bay of 

 Biscay, by thus injecting from the bilge ; but had the injection pipe 

 been unprotected from chips, &c., the ship's pump alone could not have 

 saved her. 



The following may be considered to be the necessary qualifications 

 of a ship's pump, namely, it should be 1, easy to work ; 2, give a 

 continuous stream of water of the greatest possible quantity ; 3, be not 

 easy to choke ; 4, be so simple in construction aa to be er&ily taken to 

 pieces, and repaired at sea ; 5, the valves should be of durable material ; 

 6, so constrvicted as in case of choking to admit of the ready removal of 

 the bottom box without withdrawing the piston or pistons. 



Among the best pumps in use at sea, may be mentioned Massey's 

 double action; Dowton's many-pistoned ; Robertson's double action 

 twin pump; Redpath's pump; Suffield's india rubber valved pump, 

 &c. From among these, on account of its very peculiar construction, 

 and from its having been recently tried successfully against several 

 other forms of pumps on board her Majesty's ship Fisgard, we give 

 below an illustration of Redpath's, of Limehouse. 



crrK 



Fig. 5. lUilpatU's Patent rump. 



Tig. C. Rcdpath' Patent Pump (enlarged ecction). 



fi,j, r, i-1,..' |.actness ami portability; /./. 6 fs a (Ion of 



tli workim- ] ruin. It will ! wn that the (/;., ,,; t ,, M of the same 



area as the bottom valve, so that considerable friction and therefore 

 labour are thus saved ; and the bottom valve, like the upper valve, 

 requires no fixing : both valves being made wholly of metal they 

 clrup into their places it is therefore scarcely possible for them to get 

 out of order. 



The whole is exceedingly simple, and whereas at the trial in the 

 Fisgard the other pumps occupied about seven minutes in taking 

 apart and being replaced into working order ; Redpath's was done in 

 about half a minute (a valuable qualification in a leaky ship). This 

 pump has no leather buckets nor bottom boxes, but the bottom valre 

 is so placed that should any accumulation of sand, tar, oakum, chips, 

 or shingle occur, if they are too large for the pumps to deliver, it i.s 

 only the work of a few seconds to lift the valves in order to free them. 

 Nearly 1000 of these pumps are afloat in British ships, and the 

 simplicity of its action has obtained for it also a large sale in the 

 American and other navies. 



ITMPK.IN is the vulgar name of the fruit of the Citcurlifa ma.nimi, 

 a plant whose native country is not certainly known, but which is 

 probably a variety of C. pcpo, a species inhabiting the Levant. It is, 

 as is well known, an annual plant, sending forth many long succulent 

 angular rough shoots, bearing leaves and flowers something like those 

 of the cucumber. Its fruit is often of enormous size, specimens 

 having been produced in this country weighing 220 Ibs., and in hotter 

 countries they are still larger. This kind of fruit is however only 

 furnished by the variety called the yellow Potiron ; in other varieties 

 it is much smaller. The seed of the pumpkin should be raised in a 

 frame, in a garden-pot, after the same manner as the cucumber, and 

 planted out upon a dunghill, or in any well-manured soil, as soon as 

 the frosts are gone, beyond which it requires little or no care. The 

 fruit, when ripe, is used for soup, or is baked with apples or pears as 

 an ingredient in tarts. When young, it may also be boiled and brought 

 to table like vegetable marrow. 



PUN. A pun has been defined by Addison (' Spectator,' No. 61) to 

 be "a conceit arising from the use of two words that agree in the 

 sound but differ in the sense." Sometimes, however, the pun i.; 

 effected by the employment of only one word, which is susceptible of a 

 double application ; as when one who had undertaken to pun upon 

 any subject that should be given him, on being desired to make a pun 

 on the king, answered that the king was no subject. Sometimes, too, 

 the sound that is thus made to convey two ideas at once is not an 

 entire word, but only a syllable. The definition, moreover, to be com- 

 plete, ought to have explained hi what the effect of the conceit consists. 

 It appears to be, as we have just hinted, in the novelty and unex- 

 pectedness of the signification or application presented by the pun a 

 novelty which always at least produces surprise, and often the livelier 

 titillation of a grotesque or otherwise ludicrous image. 



A sketch of the history of puns has been given by Addisou in a well- 

 known paper in the ' Spectator ' (No. 61), in which he traces the exist- 

 ence of the practice from the time of Aristotle downward. The figures 

 of speech or turns of expression known among the Greeks by the names 

 of the parayrammu (irapdypanna), and the paronomasia (irapawo/iixr/a), 

 the antanaciafii (dcTwrfKAaffis), and the p!6ke (irAoicfi), were often merely 

 what we should now call puns. Addison observes that Aristotle, in 

 the eleventh chapter of his ' Rhetoric,' describes different kinds of puns 

 or paragrams, among the beauties of good writing, and pruducv.s 

 instances of them out of some of the greatest authors in the (iivrk 

 tongue. We may also refer" to another very clever paper in the 

 ' Cuardian ' (No. 36), attributed to a writer of the name of Birch, 

 which contains what is called ' A Modest Apology for Punning.' In 

 the introduction to this paper the distinction is happily enough drawn 

 between the extemporaneous puns of conversation and the punning in 

 deliberate and grave compositions, which in this country, in the early 

 part of the 17th century, used to be reckoned eloquence and fine 

 writing. " I look," says the author, " upon premeditated quibbles and 

 puns committed to the press, as unpardonable crimes. There is as 

 much difference betwixt these and the starts in common discourse as 

 l>etwixt casual rencontres and murder with malice prepense." 



PUNCH, the name of the principal character in a well-known 

 ptrppet-Bhow which is exhibited about the streets, and which appears 

 to have originated in Italy. The name is a corruption of 1'o/iriiulla, 

 ipolitan clown, who is generally the leading character in puppet- 

 show performances. But the show itself, or rather the puppets, are 

 xtylrd by the Italians Fantoccini. Ualinui, in his ' Vocabolario del 

 Dialetto Napoletano,' ascribes the origin of Pnliriiidla, or rather 1'uli- 

 n a 1 1 In, as it is pronounced by the Neapolitans, to a company of 

 Html ling comedians, who, having met with a droll peasant named 

 1'uccio d'Anicllo, at the town of Acerra, near Naples, engaged him to 

 appear in his native character. By degrees personifications of the 

 original Polecenella were multiplied all over the country. The cha- 

 I.M-I.T v.-ru made the medium of much witty satire, private and 

 political, became the popular favourite with all Neapolitans, and 

 thence spread elsewhere. It is noteworthy that the district in which 

 Acerra is situated was remarkable in ancient times for that kind of 

 dramatic wit and farcical humour which has made the reputation of 

 tin' modern Polcceuella. [ATELLAX.K FAIH T L.B.] Mr. Forsyth. indeed, 

 that the descent has been uninterrupted, and that the name 

 has been derived from the nose, " a pullicono pullicinullo," a belief, 

 he thinks, confirmed by an ancient bronze figure discovered in Rome, 



