Punch: Punch (17.1849)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 193

A FRIENDLY WORD WITH MR. ROPER.

We believe Mb. Roper, secretary to the Needlewomen's Society, to
be a proper sort of man. We would fain hope that he has not even a
pin's head spot of the plague of cant upon him—spots with which
sundry persons of laborious piety come out very thick indeed. No. We
would rather think him clean and sweet as a " chrysom child." Still,
wherefore should he go out of his way to deal a buffet ? Why, when he
returns thanks, in very untutored English, for the charity bestowed
upon Mrs. Fitzgerald and her daughters, should he plant a thwack
upon the cheek of Rowland Hill ?

" The voice of a Christian public [says Me. Ropeb] is very properly raised on behalf
of the young men at the Post Office ; hut how many of the opposite sex are working day
and night (Sundays not excepted)? and through the late affliction left in such a weak
state, that if assistance is not given ere the approaching day of humiliation, it will only
he a mockery upon their feelings, he must entreat all district visitors to go forward."

The Christian public—at least the greater portion of it, whose
Christianity best showed itself in believing good intentions until evil
were proved—the Christian public is, at the present moment, very com'

MILK FOR THE MILLION.

A suggestion has recently been made for the supply of the Metro-
polis with pure country milk, in lieu of that wishy-washy triumph of
art over nature, which flows morning and afternoon into our jugs and
mugs, from a thousand milk-cans.

The announcement has shaken, as if with a panic, all the metropo-
litan pans ; and those purveyors who have dealt in new milk from the
pump and chalk-pit, without ever having been possessed of a cow, have
been cowed all of a sudden by the very thought of the introduction of
the genuine article into London. So unaccustomed are we to any-
thing else but the well known chalk mixture, that the probability is
the pure article will—like the genuine squeak of the pig in the fable, be
pronounced far inferior to the imitation with which use or abuse has
rendered us familiar.

London, in fact, knows nothing of real milk, which differs as
thoroughly as chalk is unlike cheese, from the spurious stuff we are at
present contented with. _ Commercial milk is a compound which any
conscientious cow would indignantly repudiate. The Londoner, as we
have already hinted, knows literally nothing of milk; for of the stuff he

fortable with respect to the score of young men at the London Post has been taught to accept as milk, he knows it would be idle to attempt
Office; seeing that the twenty, employed a few hours in the Metropolis, set to skim the surface. We understand that the Chalk Market has
free hundreds, for almost the whole day, in the country. The Christian already begun to show symptoms of weakness at the bare rumour of
public is now perfectly reassured in the belief that the sun will rise on i real milk being introduced into the Metropolis,
the Monday morning—the sea ebb and flow,—and the earth have its 1
seed-time and harvest,—the whole course of nature not being struck
into confusion by the impiety of Downing Street. We know there are
superfine people, who consider the oven of the Sunday baker as only a
small type of the fiery furnace; and baked potatoes—brown and melting
—as Dead Sea apples under another arrangement. Nevertheless, Sunday
shoulders continue to be baked, and potatoes are flowery in the mouth
of a Sabbath-dining generation. For which iniquity, Mr. Rowland
Hill is no doubt answerable, he having instigated the perpetration of
the evil an age or so before his birth, though very properly sent on after-
wards to answer for the misdoing.

When Mr. Roper speaks of the " squalid poverty " of the outraged
workwoman—of her "bed of straw"—of a dying girl "in the last
stage of consumption, covered merely with a piece of calico,"—most
sadly do we go with the unvarnished and unvarnishing advocate of the
wretched. But, somehow, we apprehend a peril for Roper when he
drags " the young men at the Post Office " into his picture—not, of
course, designedly to give it effect—wilfully to throw it up as a
" little bit of colour,"—but then, it will look so. If it be art, it is not
fine art—for it is not hidden. We are tender of the reputation of
Mr. Roper. His function is almost a sacred one ; for he has to be the
almsman to the hapless wretched. Therefore, we would have him pure
from all suspicion—cleansed in the daily waters of truth, that none—if
possible, none—of the taint and earth of mortal prejudice and modish
bigotry should hang about him. Thus, in tenderness of his repu-
ta'ion, we earnestly advise him to take no heed of "the young men
at the Post Office,"—but to give all his heart and all his soul to the
alleviation of starving misery on beds of straw. The young men at the
Post Office, in their healthy slumbers, need not—we would hope—the
solicitude of Mr. Roper. We do not, say, that Mr. Roper has in him
one spot of cant,—but then, we conjure him, by the sacredness of his
function, to give no cause for doubt. When the Plague is raging, it
is not sufficient for comfortable neighbourhood, to be free from the
pest,—we must be also unsuspected. Overgood intentions do some-
times sanction strangest means. Mr. Roper may remember that a
rigid Sabbatarian placed a ladder across the road in the way of the first
Sunday letter omnibuses. This, no doubt, was his notion of Christian

zeal. Nevertheless, we cannot commend him for his religion so A LEARNED JUDGE UN MUSIC AND DANCING,

developed. We are rather apt to believe that such a religionist would . ,.. 0 . , .

-if he could—lay flat even the ladder of Jacob, if communicating from „A ™w d,ays ago, Mr. Serjeant Adams, whose heart—we are sure
earth upon a Sunday °* ^—18 a nu£e lumP °' *ne Dest iresh butter, made a very sensible

speech on the music and dancing of the people. If Sir Peter Laurie
be in delicate health—and we hope, on the contrary, he is as sound as
his congenial Grampians—it would have much endangered him had he
heard the learned Serjeant debate upon the present system of licensing
that restricted the number of places where good music and dancing
were made cheap for the masses. "Let there be more music and
dancing," said the astute Serjeant; "for the more decent houses were
licensed, the better they would be watched, the better they would be
under the care of the public." Bad characters would not dance in
darkness, in holes, and corners, like illicit mice. No: they would
dance in the broad gas-light, with the wakeful eye of the law upon
them. There is excellent sense in this. We cry with Serjeant
Adams—" Let there be more music and dancing." We rejoice to
have a musical—a saltatory judge.

Indeed, if ever we have the opportunity, we shall call upon Ser-
ie the black cap eits, wear it. Jeant Adams for a song: and fondly hope, ere Christmas goes out, to

Haynau has been called " The Jack Ketch of Hungary." By-the- meet hini m Sir de C(merleV'
bye, whenever a King, or an Emperor, or any fine despot has a pet
execu* ioner, it would not be amiss to address him by significant title
of "His Royal Haynaus."

the poor child s nurse.

The Same Thing.

Under the title of the Dramatic and Harmonic Union, a new society
is advertised, among the objects of which, are "Facilities for dramatic
and musical authors in the production and publication of new works."
Conceive a society of forty playwrights, each with a deskful of plays,
and fifty composers, each with a portfolio full of operas; and all asking
at once for the "Facilities" aforesaid ! It is an odd coincidence, that
such an advertisement should come immediately after M. Jullien's
announcement of " The Row Polka."

"Hart's Misgivings."—That his beautiful picture is not much
imDroved since it has been in the Vernon Gallery.

Vol. 17.

7