Punch: Punch (38.1860)

March 24, 18GO.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

125

AN EGGSHELLENT REASON EOR KEEPING ERIENDS WITH FRANCE.

miably conversing

with

our cheesemonger last
week (1’or true greatness
can never be demeaned
by affability), we asked
him, what lie thought of
our friends across the
Channel, and whether he
considered that their cab-
baging Savoy ought, as
Mr. Horsman thinks,
to lead us to a rupture
with them. “Rupture !
law, Sir ! ” he re-
sponded. looking fright-
fully alarmed ; “ why

you don’t mean to say,
Sir, as you’ve fears
there ’ll be a split !
Well, all as I can say is,
I hope it won’t come
true ; for if the peace
were broke, Sir, my busi-
ness would be smashed.
I’d just leave you to tell
me, Sir, where am I to
go for my ‘Best Dorset
Fresh,’ when our ‘friends
across the Channel’ as
you calls ’em, shuts up
shop to us? And then,
what am I to do, Sir, for
my ‘ Warranted New
Laid Eggs,’ when we
come to have a rupture
with our friends across
the Channel, who. I’ll
be bound to say, have
always got. a six months’
stock of ’em in pickle for
us ? No, no. Sir. Let.
our friends just cabbage
their Savoy, and don’t

ern. That ’ere scrap o’ land, Sir, ain’t of no account
as we keeps our account with, which their bills lor
don’t get nothing from Savoy, Sir, exceptin’ of

let, us be green enough to go and interfere with
to us. It’s our friends across the Channel
‘newlaids’ and for‘Ireshes ’ is most ’eavy.

them organ-grinders, which Mr. Punch is right in kicking of ’em ’orne again. But our friends across

We

the Channel, Sir, are always sending
rrs nice things, and when they gets to
N ice. Sir, perhaps they Ml send us nicer.
My belief is, that our friends have a
strong wish to keep friendly, and the
more we deal with ’em the stronger
they will wish it. I’ve no mind to
flatter ’em, and nobody shall say that
I want to give ’em this” emphatically
slapping a firkin as he spoke, “but
though they have their faults (such as
short credit and short weight), the
French, Sir, on the whole, are a most
egg-sellin’ people.”

“METHINKS I SEE MY FATHER!

We always thought that there was
some mystery about the Editor of the
Morning Advertiser. We felt that in
some way he was a great man, though
we did not exactly know how. But, the
other day, he suddenly cleared up the
mystery, and revealed his parentage.
He claims haughty descent from the
Minister who perished by the hand of
Bellingham. Appended to a letter
from a correspondent of the Advertiser,
he says, “Although dissenting from
the views of Mr. Perceval, still, as a
son of a late Prime Minister of England,
We insert his letter.—Ed.” Well, as
Mr. Tennyson says in the Idylls,

“ A holy man was Perceval and pure,”

and we cordially congratulate our
contemporary oh the disclosure of h.'s
illustrious pedigree.

A Fair Excuse.

Our fair cousin Fanny (we dare
not give her surname) says she really
is sui prised at the ridiculoxis com-
plaints which men keep making about
Crinoline; for of course they must
admit that the widest, of wide petti-
coats cover but tico feet!


CONFISCATION FOR CLERKS AND OTHERS.

To the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

My dear Sir,

Dtd you really utter the subjoined words, which are put into
your mouth, or rather made to issue from it, by a parliamentary re-
porter? They relate to the impost for the expiration of which in the
present year you made such ingenious arrangements, but which,
instead, you are going to re-impose and aggravate

“ It is impossible to deny that it is a grievous tax, as it affects persons of small
incomes, and especially of small fixed incomes.”

I hope that one particular word in the above extract from one of
your eloquent orations on finance has been misreported. For “fixed”
f trust that we ought t,o read “precarious.” But then the mistake
will prove an unfortunate one; because there are some admirers of
your great genius who, receiving implicitly all that you say, will echo,
as your expression, a misprint which is just the reverse of it.

To those nndiscerning disciples of yours, not of course, Sir, to so
profound a thinker as yourself, I would put two cases in point,:—
A. has £150 a year income derived from 3 per Cent. Consols, or from
freehold property. B. has £150 a year income paid to him by a mer-
cantile firm in whose service he is a clerk. His employers may any
day fail, and go to the dogs, leaving him to follow them. His health
may fail him, and he may go to the dogs by himself. Here are two
persons each of small incomes affected by the Income-Tax, and paying
equal amounts 1 hereof. To which of them is the Income-Tax especially
grievous ; to the one who lives in daily danger of losing his little all,
which is all taxed, or to the other who, however severely the mere
produce of his estate may be taxed, is still sure of some constant
annual income in addition to his permanent capital, which he will
possess for his life-time, and may leave behind him at his death.

I know in which of these two men’s places 1 would rather be. In

which of them you would be if you were unhappily reduced to a choice
between them, I cannot doubt. I feel pretty confident that you would
rather experience the pressure of the Income-Tax in the person of the
sufferer with the small fixed income than in that of the victim with the
small uncertain one. It is very true that you do not know what it, is
to feel that you are dependent, for your living upon resources which
are at any moment, in imminent danger of destruction. Had you ever
enjoyed this experience, perhaps you would feel even more keenly than
you do, with what, especial severity the Income-Tax presses on small
precarious incomes, as you said that, it does it you were misreported,
or as of course you meant to say it you used llie word “fixe.d” byaslip*
of the tongue.

I am, my dear Sir, respectfully yours,

P.S. Your Income-Tax shears Capital; whilst Industry it not only
fleeces but also skins.

A New Commentary on Caesar.

The Wiscount, congratulates the nation upon the Treaty being quite
safe. Thanks to the remission of the French wine duties, Mr. Glad-
stone, mounted upon the Budget, has been enabled, lie says, “to pass
the Ruby-con.”

A PUZZLER EOR EVEN SENIOR-WRANGLERS.

Given : A number of Punch.

To Find : Its equal.

117 ANTED—An Act of Parliament, inflicting heavy fines or penalties
V V on all persons who throw orange-peel on the pavement. Will no Member, who
is in the habit of tripping, or who is clever in breaking down at every step he takes,
propose it?