Punch (59.1870)

58

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 6, 1870.

CASTIGATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Hardened Young Culprit (to menacing Papa). " Do YOU mean to Say you're goin' to VIP me, ole Boy ?

" SIX OF ONE AND HALF-A-DOZEN OF THE

OTHEK."

" When rogues fall out, then honest men may hope to get their own,"

As wisdom of our ancestors is well and widely known.

But another reading of the old saw hits truth as clean and clear,

" When rogues fail out, then honest men may hope the truth to hear ! "

At peace John Bull was silting, 'neath his vine and fig-tree's shade,
Mopping his hot brows, as he paused, awhile, from scythe and spade:
Counting his flocks, or planning work for shop and mart and mill,
And praying that St. Swithin his tanks and ponds might, fill.

When sudden burst War's thunderbolt out of the cloudless sky,
And John jumped to his feet aghast, and asked the reason why—
Amazed to find defiance hurled from Paris to Berlin,
Muster of aiming millions, and deal'ning war-like din.

He rubbed his eyes and asked, " What seed has ripened to such fruit ?
Must I accept the cause I hear, or backward trace the root,
To the evil day when Germany on Denmark onslaught made;
To the quarrel 'twixt the robbers o'er the plunder of iheir raid;

" To the spoiling of the weaker thief by the hand of the more strong;
To Prussia's swift and sudden leap o'er bounds of right and wrong ;
Till France grew jealous of her growth, and fumed and fretted sore,
That ' vol de Bismarck' even ' vol de I 'aigle' should out-soar r "

Till thinking of that four years' hate since Sadowa amassed,
He wondered less that into flame it should have burst at last:
Nor so puzzled o'er the smallness of the spark to fire the train
That blew Europe's peace to tatters, and brought Chaos back again.

He noted France's fury, fired with war-lust as with wine,
The long-forbidden Marseillaise, her fierce cry " to the Rhine! "
He noted heavier Germany, whose fire, to light more slow,
Burns with a core more lasting and an intenser glow.

And he felt old German kinship, beating hot about his heart,
Angle and Saxon fibres in his being claimiug part—
He said amen to German prayers, shared German hopes and fears,
As brother-blood spoke in his veins, brother-tongue in his ears.

When, lo ! a bull's-eye sudden turned on a black and base intrigue
Shows two crown'd burglars higgling hard over a robber-league !
Taking and giving kingdoms not their own to give or take,
Amd by treaty duly settling how treaties best to break.

The German faith he trusted so, to Bismarck's keeping given,
Brittle as a Napoleon's oath he finds, as easy riven ;
He sits between the Emperor and the stout old Prussiau king,
Sorry to feel distrust of both, on both his scorn to fling.

" Put not your faith in Princes," is the lesson in his mind,

As he cons the " Secret Treaty," for Belgium's doom designed.

Hut the ill-faith on both sides is the Princes', not the folks'

By Heaven's mysterious purpose condemned to bear their yokes.

Whatever dark-browed Bismarck be, or may have thought or planned,
Not less John Bull's heart leaps to them that rise for Fatherland !
France strikes the blow that Germany is one man to strike back,
And the German prayer will reach to Heaven, be Bismarck ne'er so
black!

Bismarck against Napoleon !—who the odds will give or take,
Which of the two more lightly his faith will bind or break ?
"Arcades umbo—blackguards both ! " says John Bull's low'ring eye,
As he " puts his trust in Providence, and—keeps his powder dry."

Dogmas and Dogmas.

The Dogma of Infallibility, defined by the " (Ecumenical" Council,
is the last Dogma of the old species that will ever be decreed. All the
succeeding Dogmas, declared by the Pope, will be Bull Dogmas.