Punch (61.1871)

August 5, 1871.1 PUNCH, OB, THE LONDON CHARIVAEI.

47

open the door, and call Claspee." This is addressed
to me. Attempts opening1 the door from within at the
same instant as the domestic with chamber candles opens

it from without. Anything more painful than-

Another Flash. To show my chivalry, by ignoring
the agony from the bridge of my nose across my forehead
upwards to the roots of my hair, and addressing the man
as Claspee.

" Claspee," I say, anxiously, " Lady Wethebby
wants—•—"

In a second he puts down the candlesticks, and goes
to the head of the staircase. He calls out, " Claspee ! "
Unless they are all mad, and I've come to the wrong
house (which can't be), he, at all events, is not Claspee.

A Yoice (soprano) from above replies, "Yes," and a
light footstep brings Claspee, the Lady's-maid, a very
pretty, elegant girl—■ (sort of person my Aunt ought to
have instead of Doddbidge)—into the room.

The street-door bangs.

A Voice — Wetheeby's — Heaven be thanked !—
shouts out, " Here, Robebt ! " — then bustle, bustle
below—"Tell Bull to—" bustle, bustle below, and
sound of steps on stairs. I don't think I ever was more
glad to see any one than I am now to welcome Wethebby.

"BEGONE, BRAVE ARMY!"

Bombastes Furioso.

One day last week The Life Guards Blue marched out
to Virginia Water, or to some fearfully dangerous loca-
lity in the neighbourhood, all the way from Spital
Barracks, spent several hours under canvass ivithout
umbrellas; then performed the astonishing strategic
movement of watering their horses in the adjoining
stream, and then, their boots not being calculated to
withstand the dew (as, indeed, why should they be ?
seeing they are cavalry's boots), they remounted their
gallant steeds, and by another strategic movement, which
won the admiration of all who saw them, they marched ; *&^\-
back again, horses, canvass, and all, to Spital Barracks. ; v'^cli^

Who says, after that, that England has no train-
ing for her Soldiers ! Sleep, Brave Heroes sleep ! Repose
on your well-earned laurels.

A Vulgab Eeboe.—Misplacing the Haspirate.

OUR YACHT.

Me. Punch is making Arrangements for his Annual Yachting Cruise.

Here is one of his Crew.

BE ALES MAGISTER ARTIUM REDIVIVUS.

Notwithstanding the infanticide, by the Government, of the
Parks Regulation Bill, the "Demonstration Committee" of the
"Patriotic Society" resolved to hold a demonstration last Sunday
in Hyde Park, " in order that Government may see that the people
are determined to uphold the right they now possess of meeting in
the parks." At a convention to make arrangements for that sedi-
tious proceeding, held in the associated Patriots'rooms, Kirby Street,
a letter was read from Me. Beales (M.A.), expressing his regret
to find that the question of the right of the people to meet in Hyde
Park had been re-opened, and stating that, although he should not
be able to take any active part in the meeting, he was prepared to
assist the committee with his advice. The next time the Patriots "
meet in Hyde Park for the purpose of annoying and intimidating all
respectable people, perhaps to take an active part in their demon-
stration may be possible for Beales. He may hope to find his
account in doing so, particularly if the Roughs assembled under his
tutelage demolish the new park rails. At present he is only a
County Court Judge. Should he repeat the deserts which earned
his appointment to that office, he will probably get raised to the
Bench.

NO WORK, NO TURTLE.

At a special Court of Common Council held the other day in
Guildhall, Mr. T. Bedford, in a vigorous speech, strongly animad-
verted on the indifference to public feeling manifested by Govern-
ment in their slackness to take measures for the preservation of
Epping Forest, and for vindicating public claims with respect to the
Thames Enbankment. The Lord Mayor presided on this occasion,
and might have had offered to him a suggestion which, if adopted,
would be very likely indeed to quicken the action of Ministers in the
above-named particulars, and all other matters affecting the rights
of the British Public and the Citizens of London. So long as any
Government remains backwards in coming forwards to do what it
ought, let the I jOrd Mayor of London desist from inviting Her
Majesty's Ministers to dinner.

SERVILE SUNDAY WORK.

Foe the information of the Lord's Day Society, the Saturday
Review points out that " servile work " was originally forbidden by
the Church on Sunday to secure rest and recreation on that Festival
for slaves and the labouring classes. An exact definition of servile
work would be rather difficult; but there is some work of a nature
manifestly and specifically servile, beside that of toadyism. If, like
Dissenting Ministers very generally, and even many Clergymen who
should know better, you were so ignorant as to be capable of calling
Sunday the Sabbath, and the doing of servile work thereon Sabbath-
breaking, at whom would you point as the most conspicuous and
glaring perpetrators of that offence ? Would you not indicate John
Thomas and his colleague Jeames, mounted on the footboard of a
carriage drawn up on a Sunday outside a Church ? Those gorgeous
footmen would, as doing work wholly unnecessary and servile in the
strictest sense, be doing forbidden work, and in doing it their liveries
would render them glaring and conspicuous. But if you called the
servants behind a carriage Sabbath-breakers on a Sunday, would
you not say that the greater Sabbath-breakers were_ those upon
whom they were needlessly attending—their employers inside ?

" CHILL OCTOBER."

Each weary M.P. would be flitting,
Each Minister's worked off his legs ;

Yet when was there so long a sitting
That to chickens has brought so few eggs ?

Is't your Spring and your Summer of addling,
For an Autumn of addling makes fain,

That you call on tired Members, skedaddling,
To meet in October again ?

The Old-Fashioned Schoolmastee's Motto.—Semper Hide'em.