Punch (58.1870)

206

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 21, 1870.

WHAT WE MUST EXPECT.

if any more alligators get loose in the thames.

A SPRING SONG ON THE ARRIVAL OF A
WARBLER.

" Her delivery ... is singing and speaking blended, in such
wise as to make the hearer believe tbat music is her natural
language, and that what she has to say would naturally be best
understood if she were only to sing it."—Times, May 9th.

O, how I love thy song to hear,

Sweet Adelina Patti,
What joy thou bringest to mine ear,

When warbling " Batti, batti /"
I love thy face, thy artless grace,

With artful skill that blend eth :
And, better still, I love the thrill

Thy sweet voice through me sendeth.
I love thy pretty pouts and pets,

Thy rustic lovers teasing ;
I love to see thee love thy work,

And pleased that thou art pleasing.
How rarely on the stage I've heard

A voice more pure, or sweeter :
Small wonder Faust to love were stirred

By such a Margherita.
Tis said when young thy vocal tongue

In song its wants would utter;
How nice to hear thee sing for beer,

Or warble " bread-and-butter! "
0, had my wife a voice as sweet,

There's naught 1 could deny her :
With each behest and least request

1 'd be a swifc complier.
Let her but squall " I want a shawl,

A bracelet, or a bonnet,"
I at her beck would get a cheque,

And sign my name upon it.
How sweet to hear a voice like thine

Sing, " Let me sew that button !"
What husband could complain of it,

E'en though it said " Cold mutton ! "
Ah, Patti, if our wives like thou

Could warble "Batti, batti ! "
We'd haply feel more ofr, than now

Oar hearts go pit-a-PATTi!

TO MR. GEORGE ODGER.

in the face of facts like these. Nor do I see anything in the conduct of
''the working-man" in the Hyde Park riots, or Trafalgar Square
demonstrations, of last year, in which you and other of his soi-disant
leaders and organs took a prominent part, greatly calculated to win
back the confidence of the middle class. Nor are such demonstrations
as you propose, by way of showing your sympathy with the men who
are* making the cause of Republicanism contemptible and odious in

{From Punch's own Correspondence)

My dear Mr. Odger,

In your speech to the "Birmingham Labour Representation
League "—whatever that League may be, for 1 have known Leagues

shrunk to inches on close inspection—you are reported to have said j France, or for the purpose of protesting against a demand of extra-
"that the middle-class party must do something substantial, if they I dition which has never been made, of a kind to conciliate middle-class

would win back the confidence of the working-man, which they had
now entirely lost."

Now, " the confidence of the working-man " is, I doubt not, a very
valuable thing ; but before I accept your word for who has it, and who
has it not, 1 should like to ask you who is "the working-man" you
are talking about ? And what is " the middle class " which has lost
" the working-man's confidence " ?

The middle class, according to my notion of it, includes a good many
working-men, though I regret to find "the working-man"—your
working-man, that is—is not among them.

But, waiving these points for a moment, let me ask you who has the
confidence of "the working-man"? Have you? If you had, I
should have expected to see you in Parliament before this. I fancy
" the working-man," in whose name you speak, is not apt to give his
confidence at all easily; and I can't wonder at it, considering how
many humbugs have been in the habit of asking for it, and how often,
when he has "given his confidence," he has had reason to repent
of it.

1 have no faith in sayings you can twist right round. Suppose
1 twisted yours, and propounded "that the working-man must do
something to win back the confidence of the middle classes, which ba
has now entirely lost." 1 think I could make out quite as good a case
in support of this reading. What, if I quoted Broadhead, and the
Sheffield Revelations ? Or the case of Mr. Johnson, of Manchester,
at this very time, compelled to hide the place he sleeps in, to ride
armed, to crave special protection of the police, to secure him from
assassination, and his house and its inmates from destruction ?
( I am afraid that " the working-man" must do something very
" substantial " indeed, to win back the confidence of the middle class,

confidence

"The middle-class party," you go on to say, "cannot afford to lose
the support of the great mass of the nation."

Here, again, suppose I reverse the sentence. " What becomes of
the great mass of the nation" without the support of "the middle
class party ? "

What is " the middle-class party," in fact, but " the great mass of
the nation " under another name ?

It seems to me, my dear Mr. Odger, that of all conceivable mischief-
makers at this moment there is none so mischievous as the man who
goes about with these invidious distinctions of classes, and these sepa-
rations of class-interests, for ever in his mouth. So long as you come
forward as " the working-man candidate," I sincerely trust you will
be beaten as decidedly as you have been beaten wherever you have
yet appeared. Not a speech you have made but has proved the nar-
rowness of your political views, and the shallowness of your political
knowledge; and I need no other gauge of you than that you have
yourself supplied me with.

" The middle class " is a fact, and it includes three parts, say, of the
adult males of a population of thirty millions. That being so, it is
rather wild to speak of it as a single political entity. But " the
working man" is not even a fact,—but an unreal_abstraction. The
working population of England includes some millions of men, of all
ages, characters, and habits; some thoughtful, more thoughtless; some
industrious, more idle; some thrifty, more improvident; some sober,
more intemperate; some sensible and comprehensive in their views,
of life, duties, and politics, more rash, headstrong, and short-sighted.
But if there be one characteristic which can safely be extended to
working-men as a body, it is imperfect education, and unfitness for