Punch: Punch (39.1860)

August 11, I860.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARI YARD

53

SOLDIERING AND SHOPPING,

Tour attention, if you please, ladies, to the following short paragraph
which we take for your perusal from a morning contemporary, whose
columns being devoted more to politics and commerce may not be so
well familiar to you as are those of Punch:—

“ A considerable number of the principal tradesmen of the West End have met
and agreed to close their establishments early on Saturday afternoon, so as to give
the young persons in their employ the benefit of a fair evening's holiday. This is
a gracious and considerate resolution, and one that the public, which has helped on
the Early Closing Movement by its warm approval, will not fail to sanction and
support. It is proposed to close the shopB on Saturdays at four in the winter and
at five in the summer months. These hours are not too early, if the young people
are to get out for a breath of air in tbe fields, or for a couple of hours' Volunteer
drill. A great deal might be said in favour of two o’clock all the year round ; but
the measure is an innovation in the retail trade of London, and it is wise not to
attempt too much. Of course it would be hopeless to attempt to carry out a
measure of this kind against the wishes of the fair patrons of trade. But there is
the less reason to suppose that this will be withheld, inasmuch as the proposed
arrangement is to some extent an act of deference to their wishes. The Rifle Corps ;
of the Metropolis, ns we all know, are to a large extent constituted of young men
employed in houses of business, and every one must wish that they may have in
weekly drill opportunities of healthful active exercise while they qualify themselves
to become, in case of need, defenders of their country. If then the ladies generally
will kindly countenance a change which has been actively promoted by some who
are the ornaments of their sex, the transition to new and better arrangemen’s will
be easily accomplished, and here, as so often happens with seeming difficulties, it
n’y a que le preruie-r pas qui coute."

Gallantry forbids, ladies, that we should think that any one of you
can be otherwise than sensible; and we hold therefore it cannot be
“against your wishes” that they who would, if need be, fight in your
defence should be well qualified to do so. Now counter-jumping may
be labour, but it is not manly exercise; and'although in some degree
the muscles may be strengthened by it, no one can regard it as fit
practice for a soldier. Unless therefore young shopmen have oppor-
tunities of drill, it is impossible that they can be relied upon as Rifle-
men. Volunteers they may be, but they cannot be effectives; and if
the army were recruited from their ranks, our forces might be called
more fittingly our weaknesses. With their eyesight dulled and dimmed
by long confinement in close shops, “judging distances” can be by
no means easy work to them ; and blunted as their faculties must be by
overwork, they cannot without practice be trained to act as sharp-
shooters.

It rests with you then, ladies, to assist the "V olunteer, and the Early
Closing movements by desisting from your shopping after two o’clock
on Saturdays, and after five, as far as feasible, on other evenings of the
week. Let every mother of a family who has a wish to see her family
defended from invasion, not only rigidly abstain from shopping late
herself, but take care to teach her daughters, as they grow, to do as
she does. “ Shop Parly ” should be one of the first texts in a girl’s copy-
book, and no pains should be spared in impregnating her mind with it.
Every “bargain” which is bought after two o’clock ou Saturdays
deprives a Rifleman, or would-be one, of practice at his drill, and
diminishes thereby the defences of the country.

On the score too of humanity, late shopping should be stopped, and
the Cruelty Prevention Society should see to it. To imprison fine
young men upon fine summer afternoons cannot be regarded as other-
wise than torture to them, and no one but a Bomba in Crinoline would
perpetrate it. The fair sex will deserve to be considered the unfair
sex, if they do not let our shopmen have the liberty they ought to
have. Indeed the woman who would lay her hands upon a shopman,
and forcibly detain him from proceeding to his drill, must in very truth
be regarded as a Creature, whom it were gross flattery to call a Selfish
Wretch.

THE SPIRITUAL “HUME’’-BUG.

Giles Scroggins’s Journal, or the Spiritual Magazine, keeps
harping on the assertion, that Mr. Punch has been assured by several
gentlemen with whom he is concerned or connected, of their belief in
the reality of some alleged spiritual manifestations, witnessed by them
in the presence of certain mediums This assertion is altogether
untrue. On the contrary, the gentlemen impertinently named by our
indelicate and credulous, if not fallacious, contemporary unite in
assuring Mr. Punch of their conviction, that the phenomena exhibited
to them as spiritual were ail humbug. Mr. Punch is sorry to inform
the Spiritual Magazine, that one of the mediums whose seances his
friends have attended has been described to Mr. Punch, by a compe-
tent judge of deportment, as “alow American.” Of two mediums of
the other sex, the old party who asxs for “ sperrits,” and her con-
federate the young female, an excellent physiognomist who tested their
pretensions, speaks with the utmost contempt and scorn. This gen-
tleman reports, that their performances are transparent fudge, and that
they themselves are a couple of rank impostors. The Spiritual Maga-
zine directly accuses Mr. Punch of impugning what, he knows to be the
truth. Mr. Punch must reply, “Yon’re another!” Regarding him-
self and his friends, the Spiritual Magazine, at aiv rate, asserts what

it does not know to be true. Giles Scroggins’s Journal, however,
may, to be sure, believe whatsoever it imagines. It may believe that
Mr. Punch believes in tbe spiritual manifestations which he gainsays.
It may believe that it believes in them itself when it really only wishes
to believe them, and is vexed by the incredulity at which its own faith
stumbles. It may he weak without being mendacious; but, wilfully or
foolishly, it belies Mr. Punch. Certainly Spiritualists may claim credit
for the innocence of imbecility. They do not seem to know what
scientific demonstration is. If they knew, they would not expect their
miracles to be believed by any but the most ignorant of the vulgar,
high and low, until performed before competent observers, and sub-
jected, in the presence of those judges, to the test of crucial experi-
ment. When next Mr. Punch's contributors happen to be all assem-
bled together, will aDy spirit, or “sperrit,” at the request of aDy
medium, or off its own hook, come and rebuke our incredulity by
pulling all our noses ?

FORWARD CHITS.

“ Among the Bills to come before the House of Lords the other day,
I notice an Infants’ Marriage Act Amendment Bill. Well, I’m sure,
l what next! What can the poor little things want to marry for, except
! wedding-cake, which would be far too rich for them, and make them
| ill? They had much better be kept to their tops and bottoms. The
i women of Andover and the neighbourhood, I am happy to see, have
i petitioned against any alteration in the law of marriage,_ Very much
to their credit. Of course the alteration they object to is that which
is to allow infants to marry. People ought to be ashamed of them-
selves for putting such things into children’s heads. Talk of old
women, indeed ! Parliament would uever dream of letting infants
marry one another, if all the Members were ot the age and sex of

“ Tour humble Servant,

“ Martiia Grundy.”

A Bap at the Bappers.

We hear that several of the Spirit-rappers have written to Me.
Gladstone, complaining of the damage he is .doing to their trade by
his recent imposition of a higher tax on spirits. I he tax is now so
heavy that the rappers say the spirits are most terribly depressed by it,
so much so, that the efforts which are made to raise them are daily
more and more becoming unsuccessful.