Punch: Punch (32.1857)

CHARIVARI.

245

SCENE.— OMNIBUS, DRAWN BY QUADRUPEDS WITH

PROMINENT RIBS.

Qent. "Oh, ah!—And what do you Feed the Horses on?
Driver. "Butter-Tubs—Don't Yer see the 'Oops?"

FLYING NOTES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF
THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE.

{Taken, A Vol d'Aigle during his four-and-twenty hours' stay in England.)

Liberty of the Press.—The privilege of insulting one's
superiors with impunity.

Climate.—Smells of beer, fog, and licentiousness.

British Army.—Toy soldiers. One French soldier would
lick three English, one Russian soldier would lick three
French ditto. Vide Crimean campaign passim.

English Maidens. Attenuated pieces of insipidity, aver-
aging five and six feet long, with red hair and noses to
match. Can't talk French.

Prime Minister.—The greatest slave in the world—the
slave of the people. He_fancies he rules the mob. Fool!
it is the mob that rules him.

British Officer.—One who joins the army to enjoy his
competency, and to prove his incompetency.

English Art.—The execution so terrible that, as at a
military execution, every person, who is exposed to it,
ought to have his eyes bandaged first.

British Navy.—Very pretty ornaments for the outside
of Russian walls.

Sir Charles Napier.—I do not know whether, like Peter
the Great, he ever worked at Woolwich Dockyard, but
certainly no one has ever done the Russian navy so much
service since the days of our first Czar. Scratch his dear
old poll, and, I am sure, as Napoleon said of every
Russian, you would find a Cossack underneath.

Portsmouth. — Not a bad position for a Russian
Harbour.

The British, Empire.—A nice little hunting ground some
day for Russia to shoot over.

Public Opinion.—The despotism of the many.

Sir Robert Peel— His hot blood wants cooling a little in
a refrigerator like Siberia.

Reform— The Toy that a statesman throws to the British
public the moment it begins making a noise. It is perfectly
harmless, and it is not of the slightest consequence how
often it gets broken. The liberation of the Serfs in Russia
—the Constitution in Spain—the Charter in Prussia—are
all toys constructed upon the same hollow principle.

London.—A monster money-box—the largest, perhaps,
in the world — but of no value beyond the money it
contains.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

| _ June 8th, Monday. A petition was presenfed to the Lords, and it
is diffievdt to say whether there was more impudence in concocting or

I in patronizing such a document. Lord Malmesbury produced a

| demand from some Proctors for compensation ! The House received
it with a contempt too deep for the slightest outward demonstration.
Lord Grey then stated, at great length, the hard case of a Mr.
Sheddon, a sufferer by the misconduct of trustees, as well as by
inability to prove a marriage of which there was no morai doubt.
The Law Lords advised, however, that his wrongs should not be
redressed, and his appeal was rejected.

In the Commons, Mr. Daniel O'Connell demanded what was
going to be done for the unfortunate victims of the Superannuation
swindle, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer satisfactorily
replied that actuaries had been told [.to look into the matter, and that
these actuaries wanted masses of documents, and had made no report,
and so the Government had given no particular attention to the
subject. Mr. Punch_ hopes that Mr. O'Connell will agitate, more
majoris, until the Civil Servants are emancipated.

The Jew Bill was read a second time without opposition, but Sir
Frederick Thesiger will Christianise it, if he can, in Committee.
It would be an advantage if he coidd perform the same operation upon
some of its opponents and promoters.

The Civil Servants were then taken up again, Lord Goderich
strenuously advocating the principle of competition. The Chancellor
or the Exchequer objected to applying it to subordinates, whom he
would prefer only to examine. He would not place all the porters at
Somerset House in a row, and ask them questions as to who built
Somerset House, and what became of him, and what a somerset is,
and whether it has anything to do with summer, or other queries like
those so usefully addressed to the humbler servants of the State,
letting them take one another down as in classes; but he had no

j objection to examine each porter separately, and put him through his
multiplication table and his table of cab-distances.

Sir W. F. Williams of Kars, defended Aldershott, the expendi-
ture for which, he said, no one would regret—if the camp were
properly carried out. There is a good deal of virtue, or rather of its
reverse, in that "if." Kars would not have been defended so well had
its fortress been a chateau where "if" was allowed—a Chateau d'If.

The author of Eothen does not altogether approve of the Attorney-
General's Bill about Fraudulent Trustees, nor does Lord St.
Leonards, who has got one of his own. They fear that if you make
a trustee too liable, you will be able to get no trustees at all, and
truly the condition of such an official, surrounded by a family of
which Mr. Pecksniff, Mr. Spottletoe, and Messrs. Chuzzlewit,
pere etfils, are types, to say nothing of more keen-eyed and vindictive
feminine legatees, all disappointed, and all hating testator, trustee,
and one another, need not be aggravated by empowering any of them
to prosecute him criminally. On the other hand, a great many
trustees, especially attorney trustees, are most thundering rogues,
whom one would like to be able also to describe, irrespective of their
size, as Hulking rogues.

The first Savings' Bank Bill of this Session having been amended
into a muddle, a second was substituted, which has been read a
second time. Sir Benjamin Hall has introduced a bill enabling his
department to " acquire a site " for the new Public Offices. Mr. Punch
having acquired a sight of the designs in Westminster Hall, hopes
that the Judges, now in conclave, will bear a particularly wary eye
upon them, as he knows everything about all the architects, and their
respective influences and intimacies; and if he finds that Court-favour,
or any other consideration but merit, has induced the selection, not
one of those Judges will ever again be able to reside where_ Punch
is read, that is to say, anywhere in the world, except, perhaps, in some
hitherto undiscovered island in the Caribbean Sea.

Tuesday. Lord Ellenborough delivered an alarmist speech about
the mutinies in our Indian Army. Among other terrors, he was
hideously afraid that Lord Canning, the Governor-General, had been
taking some step which showed that he thought Christianity a true
religion, but this damaging accusation was happily explained away.