Punch (20.1851)

114

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

TABLEAU—REPRESENTING MR. BRIGGS OUT FOR A DAY'S RABBIT-SHOOTING.

WANTED, A GOVERNMENT.

I know not a thing so inducive to vapours,

As reading what's lately appear'd in the papers :

Lord This and Loud That have been making such bother;

One calling on one, and the other on t'other:

Proclaiming the want of some statesman to guide us,

Which, perhaps, an advertisement might have supplied us.

In a future dilemma, the following rhymes

Should, without hesitation, be sent to the Times:—

A Government wanted, adapted to fill
The usual places with average skill.
Superior attainments are not indispensable,
Provided position and birth are ostensible.
An average share of the smallest ability
Will suffice, when eked out with patrician gentility.
The highest positions in number are few—
Old patronage large, with occasional new;
And, besides, (though 'tis scarcely worth while to put that in),
There are plenty of places for friends to grow fat in.

The Premier must know all the several branches—
Home, Foreign, Colonial, Law, and Finances;
He's expected to speak in the House like a native,
But in nothing need show an invention creative;
He must boast an acquaintance with neighbouring nations,
But his first care may be his own private relations.
And as colleagues, of course, in support should be hearty,
The Cabinet might be a family party.

Wanted a Government able to fill
The usual places with average skill;
That the country may think the " traditions " of ruling
From birth are derived, not acquired by schooling.
Of the pay, why, of course, cela va sans dire,
It varies from one to live thousand a year ;
But of that, 'tis as well after all to be stinting,
lo low interlopers it's one way of hinting,
1 hat unless by their fortune already on velvet,
Li they ve any ambition, at once they mav shelve it:

Though the Governing families born to the trade
Don't object to accepting their salary's aid.
Birth aristocratic—well traced by chronology
Indispensable—though perhaps by way of apology
For an origin, which of itself would disparage,
There might be a chance for connection by marriage.
These are the principal matters : {au reste),
Applications may be to the Queen's Head address'd.

Before we conclude let us add a PS.,
In which a great fact we will frankly confess—
As one can't on the "families " always rely,
For of Governments stable a certain supply,
And as the supply may, from quarter to quarter,
Be growing decidedly shorter and shorter,
There may yet be a chance for mere talent and worth,
Divested of all the " traditions " of birth,
Who may to the country assistance afford,
Although not connected at all with a lord.
The stock that is needed was long ago planted,
So let's hear no more of " A Government wanted."

Napier on a Broomstick.

Charles Napier, in his Indian speech—full of character—has a
fling at a certain man of the press, a Bombay editor, and says that " he
i Napier) has sometimes wished to be near that man with a broom-
stick." Really, is it worthy of a soldier to wish for a broomstick, when
he has shown himself so great in military brushes ?

playing at puseyism.

Talking of Puseyism, and their lighting so many candles, (by-t&a.
bye, their Patron Saint must be St. Blajses), a newly-made convert
has been heard to doubt whether after all "lejeu vmt la Chandelier

notice of motion by colonel sibthorp.

"That, seeing the late expense of the Kaffir war, (£2,000,000), the
Colonists of the Cape be henceforth left to their own Cape-abilities.'