Punch: Punch (32.1857)

22

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[Januaby 17, 1857.

THE DYSPEPTIC OF THE HOME OFFICE.

Much concern and anxiety are felt in many quarters touching the
health of Sir George Grey. Not that the Home Secretary has
been understood to complain of anything; but very great complaint is
made of the Home Secretary. Sir George Grey discharges the
duties of his office in such a manner as to cause the supposition that
his digestive organs are out of order. Some men are marble before
dinner ; wax afterwards : inexorable with an empty stomach; incapable
of saying No when that organ is distended. Such men are dyspeptic
subjects, and Sir George Grey exhibits evident signs of dyspepsia,
One day, he turns a confirmed ruffian loose on society, or reprieves an
unnatural murderess ; on another, he hangs a boy of eighteen: for qui
facit per Calcraet facit per se. At one time he is Draco ; at another
Beccaria, or even a mawkish sentimentalist. The Home Secretary's
last exhibition of that eccentricity which no doubt results from derange-
ment of the chylopoietic viscera, consisted in performing a frightfully
imperfect act of justice under the ridiculous denomination of an act of
mercy. He procures the Queen's pardon for the poor fellow Mark-
ham, convicted of forgery, and condemned to penal servitude by reason
of mistaken identity.

In the meantime Markham has been ruined and his wife and
children have been well nigh starved. Sir George Grey would seem to
think that the Queen's pardon will sufficiently compensate Markham
for the horrible misery and affliction to which he and his have been
subjected by the blunder of one of the Queen's assize-courts. This is
one of those hallucinations which often attend disorder of the liver in
particular. It is usually removable by blue-pill: of which preparation
Sir George Grey had better take some. He will then, perhaps, see
the case of Markham in its right light, and perceive that it is one of
the most atrocious injustice and cruelty. Regarding it in this point of
view, the idea will possiblv occur to him that it would be desirable
to procure for the grievously wronged Markham some amends rather
more satisfactory than the Queen's pardon for having done nothing,
and having been punished for looking like somebody else. In addition
to the Queen's pardon, perhaps he will procure something bke an
indemnification in the shape of a decent amount of the Queen's coin.

The Bonnet of the Season.

The Follet for January announces as much in favour—" The Marie
Antoinette Bonnet." We presume this is a bonnet to be worn when
the lady has entirely lost her head.

A Ticket-oe-Leave-Man's Toleration.—Let us all learn to respect
each other's convictions

THE SONG OF THE TICKET-OE-LEAVE MAN,

As received with boundless applause by the Harmonic House-breakers, cU
tlie Thieves' Kitchen Chaunting Club, Ruffian's Rents.

Am—" 0, 'tis I'm a Gipsy King I"

O, 'Tis I has a ticket o' leave,

And where is the prig more free ?
I'm at liberty now to thieve,

And the crushers can't meddle with me.
Tho' my sentence were Fourteen Year,

Scarce a couple in quod I had bin,
When the Chapling ses he, there 's no fear

Of the penitent sinnin' agin.

So they guv me a ticket o' leave, ha! ha !
Yes, pals, I'd a ticket o' leave.

The dodge on it's simple enough,
1 f you've got a good mem-o-ry,
And '11 larn a few collecks and stuff,

Yer '11 be let off as heasy as me.
Jist turn up the whites of your eyes,

Give a sanctified twist to your mug,
And the Parsin vith texts if you plies,
He '11 soon make you free of the jug.

For he '11 git yer a tickit o' leave, ha! ha!
{Spoken.) Yes, he '11 say as how for your good conduck,
(Sings.) You're desarvuf a ticket o' leave !

So, pals, here you'll find as I'm fly,

Tor the lay as '11 best stand the shot,
Crib-cracking, or faking the cly,

Or tipping a taste o' garotte.
But ere leavin' this here festive scene,

Tor a toast your attention I'd claim,
'Ere's a 'ealth to them Chaplings so green,

And success to our gammonin' game !

Which it wins us our tickets o' leave, ha! ha!
Yes, it gits us our tickets o' leave !

TOBACCO-STOPPERS.

The fact that nothing so much weakens an argument as exaggeration
seems to have been overlooked completely by the speakers at a recent
pubbc meeting, where, according to the Daily News .—

"The baffled efforts of the various institutions which have for their object the
elevation of the masses were traced to the prevalence of the habit of smoking ; and
it was contended that all the efforts wiiich philanthropists can devise cmnot by any
possibility stem the current of drunkenness, crime, and Sabbath desecration which
everywhere abounds, while the people of this country spend £8,000,000 a-year for
tobacco."

" Drunkenness, crime, and Sabbath desecration ! " This is rather a
whole-hog sequitur to the use of pigtail. We should think the orators
must have studied the Rejected Addresses, and taken their line of
argument from the lines—

'' Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise ?
'' Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ?''

According to such reasoners, every social evil is a branch from the
pipe stem: and we may next expect to hear that the dirty state of the
Thames has been traced to the filthy habit of tobacco-smoking, as well,
very likely, as the double Income-Tax.

At the same meeting, too, a letter was produced from a certain Dr.
Hodgkin, who stated his opinion that:—

" The \ise of tobacco is a violation of the courtesy of a Christian, and the good
manners of a gentleman. Let it be stigmatised as a vice, and placed, as it ought to
be, under the observation of the police."

Dr. Hodgkin's blow reminds us of King James:'s Counterblast.- and
indeed we can imagine that had policemen been invented in King
James's time, that sapient monarch would have used them to put his
subjects' pipes out. But we apprehend that now-a-days were a Mayne
law introduced at Scotland Yard to the effect suggested, it would be a
puzzle to Sir Richard to prevent its being a dead letter. Indeed we
doubt if there be any one policeman in the force who would submit to
be made a Tobacco-stopper.

We have every wish to commend any attempt that may be made to
purify the moral atmosphere of the country, but we do not think that
the prevention of Tobacco-smoke would do so much towards it as those
who take a merely bird's-eye view of such things may be led to state.
There are other clouds which darken more than those from clay or
meerschaum; and we regret that Dr. Hodgkin, and his co-Tobacco-
stoppers, should not show their zeal in clearing these away, instead of
wasting it on that which they seem now so smoking hot against.