Punch (8.1845)

108 PUNCH, OR TH K LONDON CHARIVARI.

THE NEW ROYAL HUNT.

It has been held—as the lawyers have it—that a cat may look at a game for their idle curiosity, were started by a young hound, of the butcher

king; but it is not to be tolerated that a set of unmannerly curs should
poke then- noses under the bonnet of a Q,ueen, as was the case the
other day at Brighton. It is very hard that Her Muesty and her Royal
Consort cannot walk abroad, like other people, without having a pack of
ill-bred dogs at their heels, hunting them to the very gates of the Pavilion.
The illustrious couple, whom the Brightonians seem to regard as fair

boy breed, who commenced the view halloo, and a lot of little puppies,
beginning to give tongue, the pack was joined by a number of mongrels,
who were all soon in full cry together. Some of the dogs were so very
ill-bred, that they headed the game, and it was much to be regretted
that there was no whipper-in at hand to keep the hounds at bay. for they
ran their prey literally to earth after a chase of nearly half-an-hour.

GREAT PAUPER MEETING.

On Wednesday last a very numerous meeting of destitute paupers was
held in Spitalfields, for the purpose of presenting an address to Her
Majesty's Government on the present cheering prospects of the country,
William Shuttle in the chair. We noticed in the room several " English
labourers," who, by their worn and haggard appearance, contributed not
a little to the interest of the meeting.

The Chairman commenced by congratulating the pauper community on
the gratifying announcement of a surplus revenue. It was a blessed
declaration for the public at large, for now then- sympathies would no
longer be excited by such recitals as the following : —

" Dreadkdl Dkstitution.—On Wednesday, Ma. WAitLJiii held an inquest on the
body of Fbedehick Grace, ased 10 weeks.

" Emily Freshwater, a half-starved, half-naked, slightly-formed young marred
woman, said, —I lodge at 23, Wyld-street, Lincoln's Inn-fields, and found the deceased
child dead at nine o'clock on the morning of Sunday week. I had it to wet-nurse from
its mother, and was to be paid 5s. a week. I have a child of my own, six months old,
and I suckled it as well as the deceased child. Though I am suckling my child, I have
not tasted food since yesterday morning, when a poor fellow-lodger gave me and my
husband some breakfast. I have no money, no food, no fire at home, no furniture,
except a table and a chair, nothing to sleep on but the stuffing of old chairs.

" A Joror: 1 have seen the room, and what she says is true. In the house she lodges
at, on the first floor, there was a woman and two children, without a stick of furniture in
the room.

'• Witness contiuued—1 have applied for relief at St. Giles's workhouse, and a gentle-
man from it came and saw our place. He gave me no relief. I asked him for relief. He
said, ' What parish do vou belong to ?' I answered, Kingston. He said, ' You must
go to your parish.' He' then told me to send my husband. My husband went imme-
diately, and they did not give him anything. I told him he wa3 to go to the workhouse
in the morning He said he would, 'and went about eleven o'clock the following morn-
ing, and came back in an hour, and told me he could get no relief—that it was useless
to apply again, and that we must apply to our own parish, Kingston. He went there
this morning, without a farthing to go with (twelve miles there, and back!, and borrowed a
pair of boots from a lodger, because his own shoes were worn out, and, as I said before,
without having had anything to eat since the previous morning."

He (the Chairman) was happy in thinking that many benevolent minds
would be incredulous of the above narrative, for they would not believe
that such uncared-for wretcheduess could exist in civilised and Christian
England. If so, why had no plan for the amelioration of such misery
formed a part of the Minister's new legislative scheme ? With a surplus
revenue, surely the poor might have been considered. He (the Chair-
man) was happy to say that the poor had not been forgotten. True, it
had uot been so stated directly in the House, but that was owing to
delicacy on the part of Her Majesty's Government; for who could
doubt that the suffering poor, and they alone, had occupied the minds
of Ministers when they decided to take the duty off glass! {Loud cheers,
in which the English labourers joined.)

Thomas Warp said he didn't take quite the same view of glass as the
Chairman.

The Chairmau was surprised to hear it, Knowing the extreme duc-
tility of glass, could he doubt but it would, by the ingenuity of man, soon
be made into excellent blankets?

Thomas Warp thought it just as likely as that worsted stockings would
be made out of Iceland moss

The Chairman.—Just as likely ! He was glad to hear that admission.
Glass slippers had been long known as an article of manufacture, for who
had not heard of Cinderella's \ There was no knowing where the blessings
of cheap glass would begin or would end. Those foolish people who pre-
ferred the plenty of a jail to the miserable pittance of the Union, might
now break windows at a rate which would be scarcely a weight upon the
tenderest conscience.

Tlie Chairman concluded by moving tli*- address, which was carried by
acclamation, the only dissentient being Thomas Warp, who promised to
forward his annual saving, in the article of glass, to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, towards the liquidation of the National Debt.

a WORD TO THE BRITISH NAVY.

As the streets in the City are quite impassable from the depth of mud,
might not a large punt, or a small steamer, be chartered for the purpose of
cruising from Temple Bar to the Bank ! A wherry or two might ply at
the principal crossings to carry ladies, children, dogs, &c, over to the
opposite side of the street. As the mud in the City has never been known
to subside under a week or ten days, a handsome profit might be realised
in that time by any enterprising company of watermen.

OUR GAME LAWS, ETC., TO WIT.

From a calculation recently made, it appears that France possesses at
present no less than Sixty-two Thousand One Hundred and Seventy-
seven Laws ! We doubt if England, with all its wealth in this respect,
can boast of as many ; but then what a comfort it must be to an English-
man that all the laws of his country are laws for the poor, and not one of
them a law exclusively for the rich !

Printed by William Bradbury, of No. 6. Yoib Place, Stoke Newington, and Frederick Mullett Evans,
ot No. 7, Church Row, Stoke Newinfrtnn, both in the County ot Middlesex, Printers, at their
Office in Lombard Street, in the Precinct of Whltefrlars, in the City of tendon, and published
by them, at No. 92, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride's, in the CUv of London.—SxrusLnAr,
March 1, 1846.