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September 18, 1858.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

115

PTJEITANICAL PERSECUTION AT HANLEY-

It is all very well for us to express our contempt for the oppressive
bigotry of Papists and Mahometans, but do we afford them no cause
for despising us on account of our own? Whilst we heap scorn on the
heads of fanatics, whose credulity is abused by their priests and ulemas,
we forget that many among our own population, of a station in which
they ought to know better than to believe the fictions of illiterate and
prejudiced, or fraudulent, preachers, are the dupes of Sabbatarian
zealots and impostors. A law—which chanced not to be repealed
together with the statute against witchcraft—renders a man liable to a
penalty for following his ordinary occupation on a Sundayit being
neither a work of necessity nor charity. Under this atrocious act,
which persecutes every Jew, who derives his creed from the Old
Testament, and every Christian who derives his from the New,
Mk. Enoch Brown, farmer, of Bucknall, was summoned before the
magistrates at the Hanley police-court, on Monday last week, for
reaping a field of wheat on the 22nd of August. The evidence as to
the fact was given by a policeman, but the Manchester Guardian,
which reports the case, omits to mention the name of the base
informer at whose instance the accusation was brought. The false-
hood of that accusation, which, even if true, nobody but a malevolent
bigot or hypocrite would have preferred, will be evident from the
following extract from our Manchester contemporary;—

"Mr. Amos, solicitor for the defendant, elicited in cross-examination that the
wheat which the defendant was cutting had been beaten down by rain, that clover
was growing through it, and that it was beginning to sprout. On these grounds
Mr. Amos contended that the defendant was engaged in a work of necessity. Mr.
Ross, stipendiary magistrate, admitted the full force of this defence."

And so, you will conclude, the brute who brought the charge was
sent about his business to bite his nails for vexation, and tear his
straight hair with rage. Not so. The stipendiary magistrate, indeed,
judged a righteous and legal judgment. Stipendiary magistrates are
generally enlightened and educated men, and not ignorant and vulgar
persons whose judicial decisions are biassed by their religious opinions,
those opinions being derived from the most illiterate class of the
clergy or dissenting ministers. There were civic magistrates as well
as a stipendiary one on the bench. Mr. Ross took that view of the
case that would of course be taken by a gentleman of any legal know-
ledge and degree of understanding. "But," says the Manchester
Guardian,

" But the Mayor of Hanley, and two other gentlemen sitting with him, took a
different view of the matter, and fined the defendant 5s., and costs, 12s."

Two labourers, charged by malicious bigotry with the same offence,
and convicted thereof by municipal wisdom and justice, submitted to
their convictions, but Mr. Amos has appealed to the Court of Quarter
Sessions. May he find the majority of the County Bench endowed
with a righteousness exceeding that of the Pharisees !

FINE BIRDS OUT OF THEIR FEATHERS.

What do so many slim, smart, handsome, vacant-looking young
men, sporting moustaches, lounge on jetties, and idle about the sea-
beach, to see ? Some feeble-minded old gentleman will perhaps
consider this question to be satisfactorily answered by one of the
foreign correspondents of the Morning Post, who, with reference to
the bathing at Le Vieux Port, near Biarritz, makes the following state-
ment—having previously mentioned that the port is a place of fashion-
able resort, attested to be such by the presence of the fair sex in great
numbers:—

" As I have said fair sex, allow me to pause here and speak of the queer appear-
ance of the ladies in their bathing dresses. They come down the paths leading to
the little bathing huts in all the glory of hat and feathers, crinoline, and huge cir-
cumference. They disappear into the huts, and a few moments after one sees
issuing a parcel of little shivering, and in many instances very knock -kneed, beings
in jackets and trousers, and skull-caps ; all the beautiful form has vanished, and
the woman of now-a-days is left in the hut in the shape of the different articles just
doffed by the persons now so tremblingly entering the water,"

" Hey, young bucks!" the weak old gentleman will probably say,
" now there—those are the objects, I say the objects—which you go
wasting your time all day, in sauntering up and down the pier, and
kicking your heels upon the shingle for the pleasure of looking at.
All very fine; but what's inside ? A splendid shell; but what do you
pick out of it P A—what shall I say ?—a winkle ; a wretched little,
shrunken, wry-formed, wriggling winkle! That—ehP—that is the
charming creature that you dog, and dodge, and waylay, and peep
round corners to catch a glimpse of. A creature of the linendraper's;
a thing of skirts and flounces, horsehair-petticoats, India-rubber-pipes
and frames—a poor, puny being in the midst of a bale of goods.
Well, well—you take a deal of trouble; and all I say is, now you see
to what purpose, and I hope you are satisfied."

Poor old gentleman! Don't you see, Sir, that the deformed, meagre,
undeveloped, undergrown specimens of female humanity that the Post

man writes of are all French ? Oh, you old muff!—do you suppose
that any English girls ever look such scarecrows when they step out of
their crinoline? To what purpose do you read your paper? The
lesson which you ought to have learned from the revelation of the
Morning Post is simply that crinoline was invented to conceal the
distortions, deficiencies, and ugliness of Frenchwomen's figures.
Then, what business have English girls to wear it ? Well, there is
some sense in that question, you ancient owl, and it shows that your
faculties have not yet quite arrived at the last stage of decay.

SELECT ACADEMY AT BRIGHTON.

We understand that there is at Brighton an Academy, which some
of our readers might patronise by recommending other people to send
their children to it. To this school a distinguished actor, sent his
little boy a few months ago. The other day the master called on
the actor, to say that he could no longer receive the said little boy,
as he had just discovered the nature of his father's profession, and it
would injure him among his connection, clergymen, and others, were
it known that his school contained the son of an actor. He had nothing
to say against the boy, who was as good and gentlemanlike a boy as
he had ever known.

What a very select Academy ! How much more select a seminary
than Eton, Winchester, or any of our public schools ! We are afraid
it is too select for most of our readers to think of sending any boys of
their own there. But some of them—perhaps all of them—may know
some great snobs, fathers of snobbish families. They may confidently
recommend the great snobs to send their little snobs to the select
Academy at Brighton, of which the master expelled the son because
the father is an actor. There those little snobs will meet with other
little snobs and sons of snobs, who will all, doubtless, be carefully
educated in the principles of snobbery.

A SPARK OF GREEK FIRE.

Certain Greek "houses" in London have, it seems, thought it
necessary to disclaim any hostility to Turkey, and to deny having
thrown every obstacle they could in the way of the Turkish Loan.
This is odd, seeing that, if the charge were true, it would be rather to
the credit of the Greeks. We may support the Turk, but we don't
expect the Greek, whom he oppressed, to favour him. And it would
be something in praise of a mercantile house to show that any faint
feeling of patriotism, or anything else besides "J" or " |," could
influence it. An English man of business would have no such scruple,
and would be quite ready with his money when the Moloch and
Beelzebub Loan " came out"—if he thought it was safe. The idea
of any other question being considered has created quite a sensation in
the City.

A. Comfortable Home.—A Medical man, advertising for a lunatic
patient, who is to live in the same house as his wife and children,
winds up by promising that " he shall be treated as one of the family."
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Fine birds out of their feathers
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Punch
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Howard, Henry Richard
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um 1858
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1853 - 1863
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London

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Punch, 35.1858, September 18, 1858, S. 115

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