Punch: Punch (56.1869)

150

PUNCH, OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[April 10, 1869.

TETE DE VEAU EN TORTUE.

Or all laws sumptuary laws are about the most odious.
Of all sumptuary laws the most odious law that can be
imagined would be a law forbidding the consumption of
real turtle. But what would aggravate the odiousness of
that law to the highest possible degree would be a state
of things which, disallowing the consumption of real
turtle, permitted that of mock.

The Rev. Mr. Lowder, on Good Friday last, with a tail
of Ritualists at his back, is said to have perambulated St.
George’s-in-the-East, as the Coryphaeus of a mimic Roman
Catholic procession.

Now this is undeniably a case of mock-turtle. That is
to say, if Popery is turtle—which nobody of all the jour-
nalists and other gentlemen, as well as ladies who are doing
its work can deny. If Ritualism isn’t mock-turtle, say that
it is mock-oxtail, mock anything you like; at all events
mock.

Suppose Archbishop Manning and a train of Popish
priests had made, in public, the original demonstration of
which Parson Lowder’s was a copy, would they not have
committed an illegal act? Would not the Police have been
empowered to compel them to move on, off, and away; and
in case of their refusal, to conduct them to the station-
house? As a fact, we see no Roman Catholic processions
in the thoroughfares, but only shams of them, and what
is there to prevent the realities but the law ?

If Parson Lowder can, and Archbishop Manning
cannot, march the streets at the head of an ecclesiastical
posse, that condition of non possumus, as Manning might
say, is very unfair to the Papists. The law is a Whalley
still, and cries “No Popery ! ” Religious equality is not
yet; persecution still vexes our Roman Catholic brethren—
we had almost said fellow-subjects; but as for us, our alle-
giance is undivided, and we own no Mikado at Rome. If
the Ritualist clergy are free to practise parade, forbidden
to the Romish priesthood, what is sauce for the goose is
not sauce for the gander; or, to speak impartially, what is
sauce for the gander is not sauce for the goose.

ANXIOUS INQUIRIES.

A Deal Too Bad.

Lady. “ I say, Mary, when James goes Home to-night, tell him to

CALL AND ASK HOW MRS. SMITH IS. It DOES NOT MATTER ABOUT THE ANSWER
TILL TO-MORROW.”

What can have induced the Preston Whist-players to
join the Strike ? We ask this question from reading that
“the Card-room Hands ” there are involved in the dispute.

“ HAIL, GENTLE SPRING, ETHEREAL MILDNESS,
COME ! ”

(The most unseasonable line in Thomson’s Seasons.)

Hail, Spring, and snow, Spring! bite, bluster, and blow, Spring !
And give Jemmy Thomson, that humbug, the he.

Dispel our delusion that Flora doth owe Spring
The snow-drop that comes from the earth, not the sky.

When have March-skies been sadder, or March airs been madder,

Or March-winds been edged with more pitiless blast ?

Not at Dover alone, the forlorn Easter gadder,

May sneeze out, “ Thank goodness, we’ve got our ‘ March-past! ’ ”

Jemmy Thomson invoked thy ethereal mildness,

He’d have still better reason to call for it now;

Or tor “ mildness,” methinks, he’d have given us “ wildness”—
Thou that nip’st lamb on leasowes, and bud upon bough

I sing thee, ’tis true, but my song a long sneeze is.

And instead of light lyre I’ve a heavy catarrh ;

And my Ver is a lady in fur, and she teases
For a hot-water-bottle to put in her car!

SCIENCE ON ST. PAUL’S.

On Easter Monday one of Mr. Punch's friends took his alpenstock,
and with three companions who carried parasols, made the ascent of
St. Paul’s Cathedral. He would hke to know if the party are now
eligible for the Alpine Club.

In the gallery surrounding the dome, he put his chin over the balus-
trade, when an ascending fragrance immediately regaled his nose.
Whence came it ? From a commercial establishment. What was it ?
The aroma of a substance undergoing a process. He may say no more.
Further particulars would amount to an advertisement, of which the
! Ritualists and all the quacks in the world would say, and. some of them
perhaps even think, that Mr. Punch had been paid for the insertion.

But what an advertisement! One that would circulate, untranslated,
over every land where the English language is spoken; translated
throughout every other. Of course, no snop whatever could possibly
afford to pay one-tenth of the price such a puff would be worth.

But puffery of every sort and kind is what Mr. Punch abhors, and
he publishes the fact above stated merely as an instance of the mmute
divisibility of matter, and the height to which odorous particles can
ascend.

Proper Pride at Greenwich.

Too much pride is a bad thing, as we know from Milton and others.
But proper pride is to be commended, and here is a little of it. At a
meeting of the Greenwich Conservative Association one Shersby
remarked of one Covil,—

“ Firm adhesion to principle was now most important to the country, and
they might be proud of their friend, Mr. Covil, when they saw the Prime
Minister had shown the most extraordinary vacillation. (Cheers.)”

Let us all be proud of Covil ; only who is he, and while our in-
formants are about it, who is Shersby ?

Reviewing the Past.

What the Volunteers would like to have, when they go again to
Dover, would be a Walmer reception by the Lord Warden—and the
weather. They hope the next tide they see there will be a Whitsun-
tide. __

Advertisement.

(by a dyspeptic.)

RANTED, a LIGHT PORTER for Supper time.

The Volunteers’ Oath.—“ By George !”