Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

221

PUNCH'S PRIVY COUNCIL.

(From our own Su-urn Reporter.)

Sir Robert Peel. My Lords and Gentlemen,—it is not often that I
look into the newspapers, but having lately peeped into some of them,
I hope I don't offend the prejudices of any one present if I say—I
fear there is a failure of the potato crop.

Duke of Wellington. Much exaggerated. Fellows in newspapers
■ *ay anything. If a failure, what of it ?

Si?- Robert. Why, don't you think, my Lord Duke—mind, I have no
wish to be precipitate in anything : no ; I think it always shows
greater address to run after a calamity than to stop it—nevertheless,
■don't you think we may begin to consider the future propriety of
some day or the other—with famine, as it were, menacing us—to
consider the propriety, I say, of gradually opening the ports ?

Sir Edward Knatchbull. My dear Sir Robert ! The venerable
institutions of our country ! Our blessed Constitution ! Church and
State ! The House of Brunswick ! A bold peasantry, our country's
pride ! Well, you do surprise me ! Open the ports ! And as th"t
Moles worth said—but you may expect anything of a man who
reads Hobbes —open the pons, and who'll shut'em again ? It's a
"virtual repeal of the Corn Laws; and they once repealed, how are
we to pay our daughters' dowries—our wives' pin-money ? Think
•of pin-money, Sir Robert.

Sir James Graham. It's very true: they do say potatoes have
failed in Ireland. But with O'Connell there, who's to believe
anything that comes from that country ?

Lord Lyndhurst. If the potatoes are rotten at heart, it's only
I because O'Connell's been making Repeal speeches to them. And

then for the Irish, are they not aliens in-

Lord Stanley. Now, my dear Lyndhurst, be quiet on that point.
Tbey are aliens ; but dou't say so. Let us stick to potatoes. If the

; crop has failed--

Sir James. Pooh, pooh! if it has—the starch is all right. And
; people may live very well upon starch and—resignation. Besides,
I I'm convinced of it, hunger is only a vulgar habit—a wretched pre-
i judiee of the common people ; nothing more.

The Duke. Good deal of that true, Graham. Tried it in Spain.
Soldiers there lived on cherjnuts. Lived well. Fought like devils.

Sir Robert. Nevertheless, to return to the opening of the ports--

Earl of Aberdeen. I'm just thinking we cannot be too deliberate.
Earl of Haddington. Certainly not. Besides, if the poor are hun-
gry, why can't they, like sailors on short allowance, why can't they
chew tobacco ?

Sir Robert. That never struck me : again, as the Noble Earl says,
•we cannot be too deliberate. Besides, there's the sliding-scale, and
Parliament must meet in February. Well, wheat may go up—so
there's a great load taken from my mind. By-the-bye, what beau-
tiful weather we've had for November !

The Duke. Very. Seven this morning saw a butterfly.

Duke of Buccleuch. They say the gooseberry bushes are actually

looting.

Earl of Ripon. Shouldn't wonder.

[And, w'vth this remarkable observation of the Noble Earl's, tk4

Council broke up.

BARCAROLES FOR BRIEFLESS BARRISTERS,

Am—" The Sea! the Sea!"

The Fee ! the Fee ! the welcome Fee!

The new ! the fresh ! the scarce to me !

Without a brief, without a pound,

I travel the circuit round and round.

I draw with the pens at each assize,

If ink before roe handy lies.

I've got a Fee ! I've got a Fee !

I've got what I so seldom see ;

With the judge above, and the usher below,

I wait upon the last back row.

Should a silk gown come with argument deep,

What matter ! I can go to sleep.

I love (oh, how I love) to bide
At some fierce, foaming, senior's side.
When every mad word stuns the court,
And the judges wish he'd cut it short.
And tell him the case of So-and-So,
His argument doth to atoms blow.
I never hear Chancery's dull, tame, jaw,
But I love the fun of the Common Law,
And fly to the Exchequer, Bench and Pleas,
As a mouse flies back to a Cheshire chetse ;
For the cheese it always seem'd to me,
Especially if I got a Fee !

My whiskers are white, and my head is hald,
Since the dreary hour when I was call'd.
The Steward he whistled as out he told
The Fees at my call from a packet of gold.
And never was heard of a step so wild
As took to the bar the briefless child.
I've liv'd since then, in term and out,
Some thirty years, or thereabout ;
Without a brief, but power to range
From court to court by way of change.
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Will find me most likely without a Fee.

FLEET STREET REDIVIVUS.

Fleet Street is itself again. The cabs enjoy their daily promenade
once more, and saunter along as leisurely as if they were monarchs of all
they surveyed. The omnibuses, also, walk over the course, and adver-
tising carts revolve on their orbits as slowly as they can, so that those
" who run, may read." The City turnpikeman is at his lamp-post again
at the corner of Chancery Lane. He chases carts with an ardour which
goes far to prove that his mind, to say nothing of his legs, has gained
considerably in elasticity during the late long vacation. The duties of
this industrious official are enormous. We have frequently watched
him running the whole length of Fleet Street in pursuit of an evading
twopence, and have trembled lest, in the ardour of the chase, he should
tumble into one of the precipitous ravines that have skirted, for weeks, the
margin of the common sewer. The Trustees of the City Tolls should in
mercy provide him with a horse, or, at least, a velocipede. Perhaps the
shorter way, however, would be to abolish the toll altogether. In that
case, the indefatigable turnpikeman will be entitled to compensation ;
and, if there is such a thing as justice in the City, it should not be a
penny less than what was given to the Six Clerks.

A Case of Real Distress.

It 13 with considerable pain—with much sympathy towards the Royal
Duke—that we copy the following from the Herald .—" The Duke op
Cambridge could not dine at the Mansion House on Lord Mayor's-day,
having to dine with Her Majesty at Windsor." The next heaviest cakv-
mity to having no dinner at all, is, certainly, not being able to eat two.