This half-baked exercise in paronomasia (or punning) appeared in Gleanings From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, Science and Art: A Melange of Excerpta, Curious, Humorous, and Instructive, edited by Charles C. Bombaugh (T. Newton Kurtz, 1860).
At one time there was a general strike among the workingmen of Paris, and Theodore Hook gave the following amusing account of the affair:
* The adjective cereous means waxen or waxlike.
A Pun-gent Chapter
At one time there was a general strike among the workingmen of Paris, and Theodore Hook gave the following amusing account of the affair:
The bakers, being ambitious to extend their do-mains, declared that a revolution was needed, and, though not exactly bred up to arms, soon reduced their crusty masters to terms.
The tailors called a council of the board to see what measures should be taken, and looking upon the bakers as the flower of chivalry, decided to follow suit; the consequence of which was, that a cereous* insurrection was lighted up among the candle-makers, which, however wick-ed it might appear in the eyes of some persons, developed traits of character not unworthy of ancient Greece.
* The adjective cereous means waxen or waxlike.