Punch: Punch (38.1860)

20

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 14, 1860.

MEETING OF SOUTHAMPTON MAINEIACS.

here was a gathering
of Teetotallers and ad-
vocates of the Maine
Law in the Town Hall
of Southampton on
Tuesday evening last
week. The chair was
occupied by the Wor-
shipful the Mayor,
Mr. E. Perkins, who
had _ convened the
meeting in com-
pliance with a requi-
sition of a numerous
body of simpletons.
The magnanimity of
the Mayor in acceding
to their ridiculous
request, will be ap-
preciated by our
readers when they
are told, if they do
not know, that lie is
an eminent liquor
merchant. We won-
der that the bare name
of Perkins, its asso-
ciations considered,
had not deterred them
from the attempt to
hold their abstemious
orgies under the pre-
sidency of its bearer;
but probably if Meux
had been Mayor of
Southampton, they
would have perpe-
trated the same ab-
surd impropriety; and would not have stuck, under similar circumstances, at offering a
similar impertinence to Truman, Hanbury, or Buxton. Perhaps Vegetarianism will take
root and flourish in Southampton; for the soil which nourishes monomania in drinking is to
an equal extent favourable to the allied insanity in eating. The Southampton Vegetarians
will, in that case, perhaps, assemble to discuss their greens under the auspices of a butcher.
If there are many members of the Peace Society in the “ Liverpool of the South,” we shall
probably soon hear of their meeting, or proposing to meet, with Lord Clyde in the chair.
They could not, to be sure, have a better chairman, regarding him from a rational point of
view, and, in like wise, a distinguished wine-and-spirit merchant may be considered to be a
very suitable person to preside over an assembly having for its reasonable object the practice
of moderation in the use of fermented liquors.

SO MUCH TOR BUCKINGHAM
PALACE !

It seems that dry-rot, or decomposition, or
the action of the atmosphere, or the dampness
of the place, is playing sad havoc with the
facade of Buckingham Palace. The whole front-
age is threatened with a kind of architectural
small pox, that in time bids fair to indent it
with a number of small holes not unlike the
hollows we notice in Gruyere cheese. What
remedy may have been determined upon to arrest
the ravages of this fearful malady, we cannot
say; but if some able doctor, who is. well skilled
in the cutaneous diseases of buildings, is not
instantly called in, the Palace will soon be as
open as a doll’s house, and we shall be able to
look into the interior of all the rooms, and to see
exactly what the inmates are doing. Prince
Albert will then have every patent right of
boasting that he is the first German Prince in
this country who has ever kept open house.

As we are not advocates for the privacy of
Royalty being at all hours intruded upon by a
vulgar and staring mob of snobs, we should re-
commend some screen being temporarily thrown
up to protect the residents of this crumbling
Palace from the ocular invasion of the million,
who, not content with reading the movements
of the Court Circular in print, would be only
too happy to see them acted to the life by the
real characters themselves. We don’t know
whether any new uniform has been selected for
the better equipment of Buckingham Palace, but
it is very clear that the “facings,” as they say
in the Rifle Corps, have not yet been decided
upon. In every way it is desirable that a new
face should be put on this stucco abomination,
for it has been an eyesore quite long enough, and
in changing faces could not very well get a worse
set of heavy, unsightly features. From the impu-
dence of its looks, we should say it was much
better qualified to give affront than to take one.

the sentiment oe colour.

French White is all very well as a water-
colour, but we must not have the Mediterranean
converted into a French Lake.

HIS PERSECUTED HOLINESS.

To Archbishop Cullen.

Most Reverend Sir,

The Holy Father has again experienced, at the hands of
wicked and perfidious men, enemies of all law, human and divine, an
act of fierce and cruel persecution, which exceeds in atrocity any out-
rage that the tyrannical Emperor Nero ever committed on the early
Popes. _ Oh, what sorrow and compassion must have thrilled the hearts
of all pious Catholics who read in the Times the following telegraphic
narrative of the suffering and insult inflicted on the Father of the
Faithful, as represented by one of his beloved children and servants!

THE MORTARA CASE.

“ Modena, Jan. 2.

“ consequence of a demand made by the family Moktaka, who gave proofs to
the Government that the kidnapping of their child, had been ordered by the Rev.
Father and Inquisitor Filetti, the latter has been arrested. Judicial proceedings
have been instituted against him upon the charge of kidnapping a child.”

Oh, most reverend Sir, was Leo the Isaurian, Copronimus, Hun-
neric, Herod, Pontius Pilate, ever guilty of so barbarous an
outrage? The Successor of St. Peter, arrested in the person of
Father Filetti, languishes in prison. An Inquisitor is arrested for
taking the child of a Jew into the maternal bosom of the Church. Oh,
most unheard-of prodigy ! To what a pitch has sacrilegious audacity
arrived! What, if the reverend Father should be condemned to the
galleys ? Another grief will then be added to the bitternesses which
afflict the paternal heart of his Holiness. Will not the faithful sons
01 • i1 ? to rescue the Sovereign Pontiff from the dungeon in
which he lies immured by proxy ?

An answer will oblige your Lordship’s most Obedient Slave,

WANTED, A LITTLE MORE IMPROVING.

There has been a meeting at the Manchester Town Hall for the
purpose of presenting a piece of plate to each of the seven members of
the Executive Committee of the late Art Treasures Exhibition. Nor
would Mr. Punch say that those gentlemen did not deserve the testimo-
nials, nor does he object to the glowing culogium the speakers passed
upon themselves, and upon Manchester, and upon the Queen, and
upon the pictures, and upon the Police. If it would have been a little
more graceful in the testimonialised parties to say a word for the gen-
tlemen—the Eggs, Scharfs, Deanes, and others—who did the work
and got up the Exhibition, while the “ Executive ” bowed, and
lunched, and walked about rubbing hands, and talking of the refining
influences of Art, the omission was pardonable, and folks can’t remem-
ber everything.

But Mr. Bazley, M.P., took occasion to say—

“ Ho hoped that the people of Manchester would henceforth command respect
from many who bad previously disbelieved in their possession of attainments that
were general among the people of Lancashire. He believed the exhibition had con-
tributed to improve the taste prevalent in the manufacturing districts.”

Mr. Punch, M.P., is delighted to hear this from his brother-senator.
But it must be the taste for painting only that has been improved, not
that for music, or even for decency, if Mr. Punch may judge from
having read in a Manchester newspaper, within the last few days,
that, at a recent Concert in that city, the “improved” audience were
so enraged because Mr. Sims Reeves very properly declined to give
them twice the quantity of music they had paid for, that they raised
about as disgusting a riot as Mr. Punch has lately heard of, except at
Birmingham, where an “improved” audience committed just the same
offence on the same provocation. Do not these provincials want other
schools beside Schools of Art ?