Punch: Punch (56.1869)

12

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 16, 1869.

A FEELER ON FISCAL FREEDOM.

The present season is that of Private Bills only, and those not Par-
liamentary. You can’t get rid of them by reading them this day six
months. But among these private bills there is one which suggests a
public bill in store
for the people. The
grocer’s bill reminds
those who have been
obliged, or have been
stupid enough, to run
one up, of the bill
which is to give us
untaxed tea, coffee,
chocolate, sugar, and
all the other elements
of breakfast, includ-
ing, of course, sar-
dines and caviare;
although that may
still be “caviare to
the general” as much
as ever.

Mr. Gladstone
will first despatch the
Irish Church Esta-
blishment. In its
stead he will esta-
blish ecclesiastical
liberty and equality,
to result, doubtless,
in secular fraternity.

Having given Ireland
a free clergy, Angli-
can and anti-English,
as well as Noncon-
formist, he will make
way for Mr. Lowe
to give the people of
the truly U nited King-
dom a free breakfast-
table, and thus carry
out the original idea
of Mr. Bright.

Of course the
Chancellor oe the
Exchequer will un-
tax the breakfast-
table through mere
fiscal economy. He
will do it without
raising the Income-
Tax by one farthing.

He will not make a
class pay for the free
breakfast-table of the
community. No, the
present Government
is not going to imi-
tate the injustice of
its Conservative pre-
decessor which did
part of'the nation the
expensive honour of
appointing them to
defray the cost of a
national war. But if
a Liberal Ministry
could stoop to adopt
the mean policy of
confiscation, under the
mistaken idea of there-
by conciliating the
masses, who desire
nothing but equality _
before the tax-
gatherer, how many desirable things they could liberate from taxation
besides the breakfast-table ! For example, Armorial Bearings.

The duty at present levied on the last-named appurtenances is no
longer a tax on aristocratic pride, but an invidious distinction, aud a
cause of fraudulent evasion to boot, but not the boot of the Treasury.
Everybody almost now uses armorial bearings. If you have no crest
and scutcheon that you know of, you have only to send your name to
certain advertising stationers, and they will find you arms, and engrave

them on your note-paper for you, with no charge for stamping. Free
armorial bearings, therefore, would afford a great relief, not so much to
the purses of the bloated few, as to the consciences of the attenuated
many, whose letters are emblazoned, but who omit to return their
liability on that account in their assessed tax-papers. Perhaps Mr.
Lowe will, with his ingenious ability, manage to repeal so much of

indirect taxation as
that which weighs
upon our coats of
arms, without aggra-
vating the Income-
Tax.

STUDY FROM

Seusan, taking in what she not unaptly calls the “ Area-ated Bp.ead.”

PUNCH AT THE
MONDAY POPS.

Somebody has de-
scribed the pleasures
of Elysium as eating
everlasting foie gras
to the sound of trum-
pets. But trumpets
seem to our thinking
to smack of Lord
Mayor’s dinners, and
the like coarse enter-
tainments : and we

think that far more
exquisite than trum-
pets and fat livers
were the bliss of hear-
ing Joachim eternally
play Beethoven. Or-
pheus with his lute
made fleas Skip to
him when he did sing:
but Orpheus with his
lute made never
sweeter music than
does Joachim with
his fiddle; and no-
where else does Joa-
chim play more
charmingly than at
the Monday Pops, for
nowhere else is he
more sure of an ap-
preciative audience.
Popular as these con-
certs very literally are,
and though many hun-
dreds of one shilling
seats are always-
crowded by the public,
such silence is pre-
served from the first
note to the last as our
opera habitues would
do well to try to imi-
tate. When the
Kreutzer is performed
by the fingers of Herr
Joachim and Ara-
bella Goddard, you
might even hear an
H drop, if any one
so far forgot himself
as to exclaim, “ ’Ow
’eavenly ! ”

Bunch has often
heard much nonsense
talked by musical con-
noisseurs, who com-
plain of the sad dearth

_ _: of taste for music

in this country; but,

seeing how St. James’s Hall is weekly crammed hi this _ eleventh
season of the glorious Monday Pops, Bunch cannot quite agree
with this complaint against his countrymen. In the belief that
such performances have a civilising influence, and in the want of a good
antidote against the poison of the music-halls, Bunch wishes all success
to the “ Ops ” and to the “ P ops ” ; and he hopes that no good church-
man, when he wants to hear good music, will think that, for his ticket,
it is wrong to go to Chappell.