Punch: Punch (19.1850)

W2 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

j

The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's
have very recently shown a most praise-
worthy deference to the wishes of the
people, and to justice in the abstract.
The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's
have taken decided steps in the right
direction: namely,

The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's
have adopted two steps at the north
entrance of the Cathedral.

The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's
have further vouchsafed to the public
two steps to the south of the Cathe-
dral.

But towards the abolition of the two-
pence to the interior of the Cathe-
dral, the Dean and Chapter have taken
THE POPE "TRYING IT ON" MR. JOHN BULL. I no step whatever.

PREVENTION BETTER THAN
THE BEST CURE.

Nothing can exceed the activity of
the Police after a great crime or
robbery has been committed. They
will run their legs off in pursuit of
the stolen horse, as soon as they have
been informed it has been stolen;
but to keep a watch upon the stable-
door, or to try whether it is properly
locked, is a thing that never enters
the area of their imaginations.

The recent burglary in the Strand
furnishes us with another proof of this
tremendous activity that always comes
too late. The accounts agree unani-
mously in saying that "The Police
are in active pursuit of the delin-
quents." Now it strikes us strongly,
that if the Police were only to bestow
one half the zeal in preventing a rob-
bery, which they generally display in
finding it out, many thousand pounds,
and probably a few lives, would be
saved in the course of every year;
and that, also, there would not be so
many inquiries and cries of wonder-
ment heard, after reading every fresh
case of burglary, as to " Where could
the Police have been ?"

THE STEP NOT TAKEN.

THE CAKDINAL'S HAT.

All the world—or, in other words, all the readers of Fundi—may
not know that the hat, the scarlet hat, the Cardinal's hat of Cardinal
Wolsey, yet remains among us. It was poked out of a lot of bye-gone
rubbish lying in the Great Wardrobe by Bishop Burnet, when Clerk
of the Closet. Erom Burnet's son, the judge, it passed to the
Countess Dowager of Albemarle, who gave it to Horace Wal-
pole, who treasured the relic among kindred rarities, in the Holbein
Chamber at Strawberry Hill; until the glories of Gingerbread Castle
were knocked down and dispersed by the Hammer-Bearer—the
Auctioneer Thor—George Robins, under the Piazzas in Covent
Garden.

The Hat, when sold from Strawberry Hill, was in a miserable con-
dition ; stained, faded, moth-eaten; hardly thread hung to thread.
Divested of its historical associations, it was doubtful whether a
chimney-sweeper, intent upon his May wardrobe, would have accepted
the hat from any large-hearted housemaid. Equally doubtful is it,
whether any boy of decent spirit, with a proper pride in the appearance
of his Guy Fawkes, would have clapt the hat upon the effigy of that
magnificent ruffian ; a sad fellow who, nevertheless, has met with scant
justice from posterity. Eoi there are extenuating circumstances—shown
m a recent biography—that ought to tell kindly upon the memory of
JJawkes ; since it is now proved that, by his own confession, his
principal object m blowing up Parliament "was to blow the Scotch
back to their own country." An endeavour that, we think, ought to

be charitably considered by an unprejudiced generation. But to return
to Cardinal Wolsey's hat.

The hat, within this week or so, has marvellously recovered itself.
Nay, a miracle has been worked in the hat. The thing so old and
faded has become bright and better than new. The scarlet has returned,
and is as vivid in colour as the blood—that thaws every year, to be
continued in the next—in the phial of St. Januarios. And more than
this ; the hat that was shapeless, and lopped like a sick ass's ears, has
gathered itself up, as though instinct with the knowledge that it is
about to be called upon to appear again in public, after the neglect and
long sleep of centuries. Haply the hat remembers the glories of its
Cardinal Master.

The hat—for miracles must work in the web—may thrill with the
recollection of the time, when Cardinal Wolsey—

" Came out of Lis privy chamber about eight of the clock, apparelled all in red; that
is to say, his upper garment was either of fine scarlet, or taffety, but most commonly
of fine satin engrained; his pillion of fine scarlet, with a neck set in the inner side
with black velvet, and a tippet of sables about his neck; holding in his hand an orange,
whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of
a spunge, wherein were vinegar and other confections, against the pestilent aires. * *
And before him was borne first the broad seal of England, and his Cardinal's Hat by
a Lord or some gentleman of worship, right solemnly."

And so the Cardinal would go to Westminster Hall door; and there
he "judged every estate." ' And the Hat, the Wolsey Hat, that has
survived to the nineteenth century, like Landor's shell, " remembers
its august abodes," and by the renewed blood-red freshness of its
colour, and the sudden arrogance of its cock, evidently hopes to become
a Wyseman in the present generation.