Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

15

" APPEAL TO ROME !"

RAILWAY SLAVES.

When the Irish Colleges' Debate was coming on at the beginning ! Th,e Members of the House of Commons on the Railway Committee,
of the week, the Chronicle kindly took the pains to consult Hansard • complam with some show of justice that they have to undergo perfect
r ,.r , , J, c .1 u n u- i [slavery. It is cruel of Counsel to weigh them down with such a fearful

for Mr. 0 Connell, and pnt before the old gentleman Ins earlv : , , i ,, , , ,. . . , . . ,° e ■n < ,

^n»i""j Jf"" to __.» i iind of talk- and siifh a trio-htfnl weicrhf, or evidence. Can such s aves as

ior m*. wmul, anu put uBiuie u.e uiu F""^" «"y | ioad 0f talk, and such a frightful weight of evidence. Can such slaves as
opinions upon the beauty and loveliness of mixed education. His j the members of the Railway Committees be the representatives of a free

people ? Is it in vain to appeal to Counsel, and entreat of them to show

arguments were very strong and his language charmingly pathetic :—

some mercy to the unhappy sufferers I We recommend that a copy of
the annexed sketch should be affixed to the standing orders of the House
of Commons on Railway Bills, and that attorneys should be bound to
paste one—immediately under the endorsement of the fee on all Ae briefs
of Counsel.

" Can you, who are convinced of the truth of your church, dread the consequences
of a fair development of the public mind by-education ? I have heard a great many
arguments aeainst this plan of education in common—but it is a powerful argument, on
the other hand, that there is nothing more desirable thau that the youth of this country,
separated as they are by twenty-five or twenty-six leading persuasions, should, while the
unsophisticated and affectionate feelings of youth are warm in their bosoms, have the
inestimable advantage of mixing together in friendly and undoubting intercourse, so
that the angry and jealous passions which may afterwards come upon them may be
assuaged by the gentle recollections of their youthful friendships."

Beautiful! beautiful ! it's as touching as the Sorrows of Werter.
Dan must have been very much obliged to the Chronicle for bringing
these " gentle recollections " of his forward : though they may pos-
sibly have spoiled "a speech of remarkable powTer" in a different way.

But if the old Liberator could not speak, there was a young one
at hand with the new doctrine—and a very pretty doctrine it is too—
which, as we all know the freedom of speech which the Liberator
allows to his members, may be supposed to be that of the devout papa
as well as the godly son who propounds it.

Because Mr. Wyse, of Waterford, approves of the Irish Colleges'
Bill, Mr. John O'Connell says, Wyse is a schismatic Catholic ;
and consigns him—never mind whither.

The Irish Bishops don't approve of the Bill—every Catholic ought
to listen to his Bishops—if he refuses he is a schismatic, and the end
of schism is—never mind what.

If you are dissatisfied with the Bishops, Mr. John says, you have
one remedy—an appeal to Rome. So Rome is to be the mistress
when the empire is disunited ; and Repeal means the supremacy of
the Pope in Rome ! One can hardly believe the words, though they
stare you in the face.

Mr. O'Connell said,

" He obeyed the prelates of his Church {hear) ; for who were the ecclesiastical autho-
rities for the Catholics of Ireland, but the Bishops of Ireland ? He told the right hon.
gentleman again, that he ought to look to Rome, and not to the House of Commons,
for advice on this subject. Even if this house were composed wholly of Roman Catho- I

lies, it would be no tribunal to bring a question before, which was between him and the I , ,

Bishops of Ireland. Here was the declaration of the Catholic Bishops—the authoritv To the Editor of Punch.

which he believed to be the supreme authority in Ireland, controllable only by the " Dear PuNClf

Sovereign Pontiff, declaring this bill was dangerous to the faith and morals of the « My wjf MrS- CHARLES RaLLEDGE, generally goes out of town

Catholic people. ...

AM 1 NOT A MAN AND A BROTHEll t

WHERE ARE THE HACKNEY-COACHES GONE TO ?

Look here,gentlemen Repealers, at the kind of freedom which your
Liberator has in store for you.

If people are to pay filial obedience to these ghostly fathers, there
is no end to the paternal homage they may see fit to exact. If the
Bishops interfere about a lecturer on anatomy or jurisprudence,
why not about a family matter, a bargain, or a lease \ They have a
right to choose your library : suppose they advance a right to control
your ledger? Suppose the Bishops demand it, as a Catholic you
must obey—always with the liberty of appealing to Rome.

Here is the O'Connell creed in the nineteenth century :—'Down
with the British, and on your knees to the Pope. Away with the
Saxon, and put your trust in the Roman.' As we write this, we begin
to boil and foam over like the Standard.

There is Mn. Davis, of the Nation, who pants for freedom, and
would not mind a little blood-letting to procure it. Well, Mr.
Davis, suppose the Saxon done for, and see what comes next—a
reign of Catholic Bishops and the Pope supreme.

Dare you preach against this as you preach against English
tyranny ? Dare you rebel against Dan and his supreme Pope, as
you would against us oppressors over the water? Do you men, who
assume to be the leaders of the Liberal party in Ireland, acknow-
ledge this doctrine ? acquiesce in a supremacy which has been tried
in, and kicked out of, all Europe ? It would seem as if you did. It
would seem as if those ardent spirits that bluster about cutting
English throats are so cowed, that if O'Connell were to set up the
Inquisition they daren't protest— and these are the men who shriek
out for liberty, and gasp for the freedom " for which Sarsfield
fought, and Tone organised !"

Ask any Committee Man.

Did you ever know a Railway from a place no one know* where to a
piace no one ever heard of before, with branches everywhere, of which
the gradients were not easy, the cuttings few, the tunnelling next to
nothing, and the traffic immense ?

about this time for a week, to give the children the benefit of a dip in the
ocean at Gravesend.

" As we have four—I may say, as fine children as you ever saw—their
clothes must be attended to, and their baggage is pretty considerable.

" Mrs. R. travels with four large camel's-hair trunks, tln-ee portmanteaus,
four carpet-bags, her bonnet-boxes, twenty-three articles in all, besides
the basket for baby—no mother and lady can travel with less. Cloaks
and umbrellas of course, I don't include. That you understand.
"We generally (that is, Mrs. R. and the family, for I can only go down
on Saturdays a bit) go to the boat in a hackney-coach. We have done
so, I may say, ever since I was in business, and I did so with the first
Mrs. R.

" This morning I told my light porter, who has invariably fetehed the
coach for me for twenty-three years, that my wish was as usual for the
vehicle.

" He brings me back word that our hackney-coach died last April ;
that there was no hackney-coach within three miles of us in this dense,,
populous, commercial city!

" He says there are only three Hackney Coaches in all London ! One
on Tower Hill (with funeral horses) ; one in Piccadilly ; one which has-
been seen occasionally in Oxford Street, but only at three o'clock in the
morning.

" Is this, I ask, tolerable ? Are we Britons, or are we not ? Are we
or are we not in the first city in the world 1 If so, I ask, why are there
not more hackney-coaches, and why was my family prevented from
leaving home this morning 1 Cabs are out of the question. Mrs. R. is
a large figure, and will not let one of the children out of her sight.

" I subjoin my name (in confidence), and am

" Your constant reader and a regular subscriber,

Which the former my family certainly is ;
Monday. C. F. M'Q. R.

EMIGRATION.

A Dentist and family left their happy homes last week to settle in
one of the back shops in the interior of the Exeter 'Change Arcade. The
scene at parting was heart-rending.